Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 2 October 1906

36. The Human Being and Nutrition

The human being recognizes themselves physically as an organism, but the higher organism of the human being is not enclosed in their physical body; rather, their higher organism is the world. The world is the human being's higher organism. They live within this higher organism. Their further development consists of becoming more and more united with their higher organism. Just as the physical organism of the world communicates with and incorporates the physical nourishment and thereby builds up the physical organism, so too does the spiritual and soul organism of the world communicate with the human being. The human being must learn to consciously absorb nourishment from the spiritual and soul organism of the world, just as he consciously absorbs nourishment from the physical organism of the world.

Thus man lives in a world of forces, all of which present themselves to him in the physical world in their most profound gradation. While he first, like the child before birth, unconsciously takes in physical nourishment from the mother's organism, unconsciously takes in soul and spiritual nourishment, soul and spiritual beings, he must also live independently in the soul and spiritual world, consciously seeking nourishment and consciously allowing this nourishment from the higher worlds to work in and through him.

He must be able to face higher beings just as consciously as he faces objects in the physical world. Just as the mother is the higher organism for the developing physical human germ, so the world of soul and spiritual beings is the higher organism for the soul and spiritual human being. The human being must also grow out of the soul and spiritual world organism to achieve independence.

Physically, the human being first feeds on blood in the mother's organism, then, when he emerges as an independent being, on milk – the sublimated physical animal blood. The sublimated physical plant blood is the sap of the flower and the honey that is made from it. Water is the sublimated physical mineral blood. Just as the physical organism transforms blood into milk through love and sacrifice, so the psychic organism transforms passion into soul-heat, and the spiritual organism transforms the selfish thought into the selfless one, the darkness of self-absorption into radiating light. Milk, honey and water are the substances that represent the forces that ennoble man physically, psychically and spiritually.

Blood, wine and salts are the nourishment that gives people their lower qualities. Blood - physical strength, wine - emotional passion, salts - intellectual power, promoting selfishness. Sodom and Gomorrah - Lot's wife - turned into a pillar of salt. Turning into a pillar of salt means turning into lower Manas, which serves passion.

Milk promotes the nobler physical powers – the healing powers of the body; honey and water do the same. At the same time, honey is the symbol of the power of Budhi, through which all soulfulness radiates in a beneficial way to the surroundings.

Water is the symbol of the spirit, of the emanation of the selfless, clear, pure thought. Through selfishness man is prevented (salt), through selflessness his spirit becomes a living, life-giving source (Christ and the Samaritan woman).

Flesh and blood, bread and wine, salt must be drawn from another organism. Milk, flower juice and water are given freely by the other organism. The food that is beneficial for the higher development of the human being is that which flows to him voluntarily. Just as he takes milk from a single being, he takes flower juice, honey, from whole groups of plants, and water from the whole mineral world. Through milk food, he can transform his body into a helping organism through the physical magnetism developed in it; by properly processing honey and water, he can benefit soul and spirit. For everything physical also contains soul and spirit. We take in soul and spirit with our physical food.

In an even higher sense, man nourishes his physical body with milk, honey and water and his spirit by breathing in the air. In doing so, he connects directly with the spirit.