IV. Rhythm in the Bodies of Man

This, however, does not bring us to the end of the matter. Quite definite processes are rhythmically repeated in the physical body too, however improbable this sounds to people today. Nowadays they have almost become obliterated, because man has had to become independent of certain processes, but they are still noticeable to occult observation. If the physical body were entirely left to itself this rhythm would take place over a period of ten times seven times four days in the woman and twelve times seven times four days in the man. That is how it would be if the human being were entirely left to the laws inherent in the rhythms. At one time it was really like this, but man has become more free of the cosmic influences around him. Thus we have a flow of rhythmic processes in the four members of man's being. If you like, you can imagine each of the four rhythms as a circling. The rhythms man would carry out in his physical body, for instance, if he were left entirely to himself, only approximate, of course, with the external physical, purely spatial processes that correspond to these rhythms. This is because man has been driven back upon himself in the cause of freedom, and his relationship to the cosmos has changed accordingly.