Blood, Page Nine

When two such systems collide they may interact harmoniously. If this were so, then there would be inner equilibrium and a passive result. In reality this is not the case in the human being, for a residue of one or the other always remains for its own inner activity, which is left ultimately to the human being itself to bring into balance or inner equilibrium within its organs. The kidney system brings this about within the human being by disposing of the excess resulting from the inharmonious interaction of the two other systems.

We have now arrived at the point in Lect. 4 where the following figures (copied also in I-86) are found, illustrating the correspondences of the respective planetary forces that over evolutionary periods condensed out of the spiritual world into their human organs—the macrocosm and the microcosm, "As Above, So Below." All seven such forces ("planets") visible to the unaided human eye are included except the Moon, which relates to the reproductive organs not pertinent to this particular analysis. Already above the Saturn/spleen relationship has been shown. The Sun/heart connection is obvious, the Sun being the heliocentric center of our solar system around which all other planets revolve, just as the heart is the meeting place or center of the human being's outer and inner world organic systems. The planets outside Earth's orbit (Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, in that order) are brought into the human being's "inner cosmic system." Steiner doesn't here elaborate the Jupiter/liver correlation, but it is elsewhere shown. A good, brief discussion is given by Otto Wolff, M.D., in The Etheric Body (EB), pp. 9-11. The word "liver" derives from the German leber meaning "life" (see also WNWCD). If we look at I-17 and I-27, we see that Jupiter's orbit circumscribed the mass of our solar creation during the Ancient Sun Condition of Consciousness, during which the seed of the human being's etheric (life) body, that component shared with the plant kingdom, was created. Jupiter is the largest planet, and the liver is the human being's largest glandular organ. The Prometheus myth, involving the eagle that each morning comes to eat the liver of the one who brought fire down to Earth expresses exactly this same concept of life. Everyone is aware to some extent of the Mars characteristic (aggressive or warlike), so the Mars/gallbladder likeness is obvious. From the other side, the inner planets, the Mercury/lungs link represents the one closest to the heart and by virtue of the Sun's heat the one involved with the lower density of air, which circulates in and out far more rapidly than the denser nutritional substance, just as Mercury orbits the Sun more rapidly. Finally, inasmuch as Venus is characterized as the goddess of love, or higher harmony, the Venus/kidney tie is clear. If we were to bring in the Moon, its relationship to the more sensual reproductive organs, so often romantically expressed, may be the most widely recognizable of all.

At this point, a particularly astute student might feel that a contradiction is set up between the above planetary correspondences and those illustrated in I-21 for the lotus flowers in the human being. There is no such conflict, but rather than interrupt the flow of thought here, their compatibility will be discussed at the end of this section.

Up to now, we have dealt with how the duality of the inner (nutrition organs) and outer (air organs) worlds are assimilated into the human being's physical body. Both nutrition and air come from the outer world, of course, but they interrelate in the human duality through the blood in producing only a mineral-physical body.

But the human being's Ego as constituted is possible only because it is built up on the foundation of the humanized three bodies, the etheric and astral as well as the physical. We have heretofore dealt with blood primarily as a substance belonging to the physical body. But it does not end there. In this physical aspect, the outer world is contacted through the air, the lung organs. We now come to a different duality, namely, that of the outer world influence as it is taken into the human being through the interworking of the physical and the nonphysical, or in the latter case the etheric and astral bodies.

The human being comes into direct physical contact with the outside world through the air working right into the blood, but it also comes into contact with that world in a nonphysical way through the sense organs and the process of perception unfolded by the soul when it comes into relation with its environment.

The senses too convey their impressions to the tablet of the blood. But how do these two processes, the physical and nonphysical work together?

Though they may not be tangible in the usual sense of the word, perceptions, concepts, feelings, and will impulses, activities of the soul, exist. They are a reality, just as are the blood, nerve and organ substance. But as to how these things are connected, world conceptions begin to conflict. The very different natures of these two kinds of reality (physical substance and the nonphysical) present people with such difficulties that the most varied answers, offered by the most diverse world conceptions, have come to be associated with them.

There are world conceptions, for instance, that believe in a direct influence upon physical substance of everything connected with the soul, with thought and with feeling, as if thought could work directly upon physical substance. In contrast to these, others assume that thoughts, feelings, and so forth, are simply the products of the processes that take place in physical substance. The dispute between these two world conceptions has long played an important role in the outside world, but not in the field of esotericism, which considers it a dispute over empty words.

Shortly before Steiner's lecture (1911) still another conception had arisen bearing the strange name of "psychophysical parallelism." It seems to still have life.²⁴ Steiner said then that, to express it rather trivially, we might say that since the disputants no longer had any other resource, not knowing whether spirit works upon the processes of the physical body or whether these bodily processes influence spirit, they concluded that there are two processes running parallel courses. This is a mere expedient, which leads them out of all their difficulties, but only in the sense that it sets these aside, not that it overcomes them. All the disputes result from the fact that people insist upon deciding these questions on a basis that simply cannot be used. If we simply compare these two things, physical and soul activities, and then seek by reflection to find out how each works upon the other, we shall not arrive anywhere. The only way to determine anything is actually to establish a higher knowledge. We must ascend, on the one hand from the material, and on the other hand from our soul life, to a superphysical (supersensible) world.

The finest element of the human organism is the blood, but it is, externally speaking if we could observe it coursing within the body, merely a physical-sensible thing. We should not confuse this with the fact that it is, along with other bodily organisms, also an impress copy of the etheric body. The first supersensible thing we meet in the human organism is the etheric body. It is only one step away from the physical in the supersensible.²⁵ And the question now arises, are we able to approach this supersensible also from the other side, from the nonphysical side, the side of the soul life, i.e., sensations, thoughts and feelings based upon impressions of the outside world?

The physical organism cannot be approached directly for substance blocks us. Nor can the ether organism be approached as directly as our soul life. The first event in soul activity is the receipt of external impressions from the outside world working upon our senses. We work these over in our soul, but do more by storing them up in what we call "memory." What happens to cause memory? An impression from direct sensual impression is an entirely different phenomenon from the impression of the same event called up at a later time. When we store up mental pictures in the memory, we are not working with our soul experiences only in our Ego. We must first confront the outside world with our Ego, take impressions from it into our Ego, and work these over in our astral body. But, were we to work them over only in the astral body, we should straightway forget them. When we draw conclusions we are at work in our astral bodies, but when we fix impressions within us so firmly that, after some little time has passed we can again recall them, we have impressed upon our etheric body these impressions received through our Ego and worked over in our astral body.

How does the transfer to the ether body of these impressions taken in through the astral body take place? It takes place through the Ego's activity in the blood. Through the blood the Ego takes in impressions gathered by the astral body from the outside world and condenses them to memory pictures. In this process the blood stirs up the etheric body, so that the true clairvoyant sees currents developing everywhere in the etheric body and taking a very definite course, as if they would join the blood flowing upward from the heart and go up to the head. And in the head these currents come together in about the same way, to use a comparison from the external world, as currents of electricity do when they rush toward a point that is opposed by another point, so as to neutralize the positive and the negative. When we observe with a soul trained in esoteric methods, we see at this point etheric forces compressed as if under a very powerful tension—etheric forces called forth through impressions desiring to become definite concepts, memory pictures, and to stamp themselves upon the etheric body.

Steiner here draws the last out-streamings of these etheric currents, as they flow up toward the brain, and shows their crowding together somewhat as this would actually appear (see his first sketch below). We see here a very powerful tension that concentrates at one point, and announces, "I will now enter the etheric body!" just as when positive and negative electricity are impelled to neutralize each other. We then see how, in opposition to these, other currents flow from that portion of the etheric body that belongs to the rest of the bodily organization. These currents go out for the most part from the lower part of the breast, but also from the lymph vessels and other organs, and come together in such a way that they oppose the other currents. Thus we have in the brain, whenever a memory picture wishes to form itself, two etheric currents, one coming from below and one from above, which oppose each other under the greatest possible tension, just as two electric currents oppose each other.

If a balance is brought about between these two currents, then a concept has become a memory picture and has incorporated itself in the etheric body.²⁶