---
ga: 246
title: "Some Remarks on Embryology"
date: 1914-01-21
location: Berlin
words: 1004
---
# Supplements to Member Lectures

## GA 246 — 21 January 1914, Berlin

### 60. Some Remarks on Embryology

The disintegration of the three shells in the embryo, which come into the world as an afterbirth, spiritually signifies the construction of the etheric and astral body and the ego. The tearing apart [...] also signifies something that comes from the cosmos at that moment.

Why do we know nothing of the processes of building up the human germ in later life? It is for the same reason that we cannot remember our dreams. They are really dreams forgotten in later life. In the embryonic period, the human being has a kind of dream consciousness into which he can bring what, in experienced images, would represent the developmental process. The processes of decomposition in the yolk sac, amnion and chorion become images for the processes of building up the etheric body, astral body and ego.

This ability to see constructive processes in images is lost to people in ordinary life. Through occult development one learns to see them again. Those who acquire such abilities in later life can perceive similar things as the developing human being (who, however, forgets it again). Processes with the three sheaths, especially with the etheric body, can be perceived. It can happen that processes in one's own etheric body are stimulated by processes in the astral body. This also happens in our physical-sensory existence, for example when a person develops bad qualities that he knows are faults. But he does not realize that he is now in the stage in which they become apparent to him; they are projected outwards and we confuse the external with the internal. You don't see the faults in yourself, but with particular clarity in other people and can therefore criticize them particularly well in other people. You give a very true picture of other people's faults, but only because they appear on the outside. You pour your own faults into other people for the purpose of seeing them, because like is only seen through like.

But the inner processes can also really be projected outwards. Let's say you suddenly bump your hand. Or: you stretch out your hand, then you feel the movement of your hand and you perceive your own inner process in it; or let's assume that you don't perceive it, but the movement of your hand: You don't perceive it, but the outstretching of the hand would reveal itself as if something had been inflicted on you from the outside. Then you would feel it like a force coming from outside.

Just think of eurythmy! These are movements which at a certain stage are the same as human speech at a later stage. For suppose you make a violent gesture, for example you snap your fingers, then the gesture will also be heard. In a eurythmic movement it is performed gently, for reasons of aesthetics; if it were done violently, it would also be heard. Now we have an organ that executes the movements of eurythmy, but very quickly, that is our larynx. The gestures of our vocal cords become audible like the cracking of our fingers. Eurythmy is really a different stage of our language (that which is not heard is in the spiritual). Today, there are two theories of language - the bimbam theory and the wauwaut theory - which is only materialistic, nothing scientific.

The etheric body of the human being has an infinite number of processes within it, which it does not bring to consciousness in such a way that it would say to itself: I am moving my hand, but as if I were saying: I feel that my hand is outstretched. This gives rise to an inner experience that is transformed into looking as it flows away. However, the process is not painted by what you see out there. What one experiences is initially completely formless and colorless, then it closes off and becomes a dead (?) image. The paintings are therefore projections of ethereal processes in the outside world that are only perceived when they are over. They are brought up from memory, but not as they happen, but the activity is brought up, which is depicted in the picture.

You saw many such images when you were in the embryonic state, but you have forgotten them. With small children who begin to speak, we can still catch the embryonic remains of messages of such things (only the looking of the embryonic child corresponds to other processes than later, when one looks at them in the adult state). Later, Mrs. [Petersen] came to images that arise when one becomes aware that a psychic, a soul is active in the human being, which is always there, but one does not always think about it. If you think about it, you can perceive it.

A third stage: I have often said that our spiritual science will have fulfilled its tasks when it fertilizes the other spheres of life. The painter of these pictures is not a painter at all. Here the handling of the inner activity of the etheric body passes over into the limbs [gap in the transcript]. In this way, new artistry can come precisely from those people whose mobility of the etheric body is not spoiled by external technique.

What has been art up to now is also in a process of decay. One could also speak of the yolk sac, amnion and chorion of the old development of art, as they will gradually fall away. The waste products are present in some of today's art. From this, the technology that comes from within is to develop. Humanity may sleep through this, just as a child sleeps through things. Colors are also still lacking today to express what can be found. That is why we must also have a new style of construction in our building of St. John and so on, because we cannot build according to amnion, yolk sac and chorion.