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Reference to lecture of CW 220 in 74-03.

221 Earthly Knowledge and Heavenly Wisdom


Anthroposophic Press (1991)

221-01 6(2/11/1923, Dornach) 69ff. 5167 health-illness A somewhat modified representation of the formative and destructive human forces. The formative forces are described as after-effects of the pre-earthly human being who is working in us as an invisible person after birth. Its visible physical correlative is rejected in form of the embryonic covers at birth. A current streams in this invisible human being from the ego through the astral and etheric bodies to the physical body (along the bloodstreams to the senses, centrifugally): current of nutrition and growth. Besides a current flows from the ego directly to the physical body along the nerve tracts, it is destructive, destroying (centripetal). The ego flows with breathing through the astral body, but then directly with the air into the lungs: weakened process of destruction. An accordingly weaker regenerative current counters it that goes from the ego through the astral body and then through the etheric body, perceptible in the pulse.
6(2/11/1923, Dornach) 75ff. 5157 221-02 health-illness / remedy The contrast of tumour and inflammation as predominance of destructive or formative processes. Therapy has to support the one or the other side. The formative forces prevail in fever. On the effect of foreign bodies in the periphery or more inside: removal by festering or encapsulating (cyst). Poison is astrality, absorbed by plants. It is related to the activities in the human ego or astral body going directly into the nerves: destructive process (examples deadly nightshade = Atropa belladonna, henbane = Hyoscyamus niger, thorn apple = Datura stramonium). On the different effects of plant roots and flowers.

221-03 8(2/17/1923, Dornach) 105ff. 5173 An (horizontal) astral current from within (from the back to the front) and the (also horizontal) astral current of sense-perception merge in the animal and work together. The human head is lifted out of this astral current and thus it (the head) gives itself more to the etheric realm. Its outer shape is an image of the cosmos and that is why it tends to maintain this configuration and not to be confused by astrality like passions and instincts. In a similar way as a play of features is an expression of the astral body, there is also a supersensible "play of features" of the astral body in the lower organism, but turned inwards. This is a faithful image of the human moral constitution. Morality humanises the etheric body, immorality forms it ahrimanically.
References to lectures of CW 221 after 4-15, in 204-11.

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