XIV. Further Stages of Rosicrucian Training

You breath in the air and use the oxygen of the air. You could not live, if there were no oxygen. When you take in the air and work upon the oxygen in your organism, you breathe out carbonic acid, a combination of carbon and oxygen. You must therefore say: Man continually takes in oxygen which maintains his body, and he breathes out carbonic acid; consequently he continually creates a poison which could kill him. You continually fill your environment with a poison.—What does the plant do? In a certain way it does exactly the contrary! It takes in carbonic acid, keeps the carbon, and sends out the oxygen which it does not need. Thus you give the plant what it needs and the plant gives you oxygen in return. What does the plant do with the carbon which it retains? To a certain extent it uses the carbon to build up its own body. You therefore give the plant, so to speak, the opportunity to build up its body out of carbon.—And after thousands of years, when you dig the plant out of the earth in the form of coal,you have it in the same substance.