3. Karma in Relation to Disease and Health

Now a plant such as we see in the external world is a being which is made up of a physical and etheric body. At the same time it is a being which brings to our notice the fact that what we call the physical and etheric body are in principle healthy, and that it has to wait until it meets with an external injury before it can become diseased. The researches of Spiritual Science confirm that this is the true state of affairs. Whereas through spiritual scientific research into the diseases of animal and human being we are able to see quite decided changes in the inner or super-sensible part of the being, in the case of a diseased plant we are never able to say that the original etheric body itself is changed, but only that all kinds of disturbances and harmful influences from outside have penetrated into the physical body and especially into the etheric body. Spiritual Science entirely confirms the following general conclusion: In the constituent parts of the plant, namely, physical and etheric bodies, we have before us something which is in essence healthy. But it is another thing to see how when it has suffered external damage it can safeguard by all sorts of means its growth and development, and heal the injury. Notice for instance how, if you cut a plant, it tries to grow round the injured part, and to get round what then interferes with and injures it. We can see when an external injury occurs, the clear manifestation of the healing power which the plant has in its inner organisation. In the etheric and physical bodies of the plant exist healing forces which are brought into play when some exterior injury is inflicted. This is an extremely important fact if we wish to come to a clear understanding in this realm. A being such as a plant, having physical and etheric body thus shows that these principles are fundamentally healthy. There is in them sufficient force not only for the development and growth of the plant, but also there is a super-abundance of these forces which manifest themselves as healing powers when injuries come from outside. Whence, then, do these healing forces come? If you wound a merely physical body the injury will remain; it is unable of itself to repair the injury. For this reason, we cannot talk of a disease in the case of a merely physical body, and least of all can we talk of a relation between disease and healing. This we can best see when a disease appears in a plant. Here we have to look for the principle of the inner healing power in the etheric body. Spiritual investigation shows us this very clearly, for the activity of the etheric body of the plant is much intensified round the part where the wound has been inflicted. It brings forth from itself entirely different forms, and develops entirely different currents. It is an extremely interesting fact that we call on the etheric body of a plant to exercise increased activity when we injure its physical body.