Lecture VII

As for the blood rhythm, it originates in the metabolic system. In a normal adult, four pulse beats correspond to one breath rhythm; seventy-two pulse beats per minute. What lives in the blood, that is, the ego, the sunlike nature in man, plays upon the breathing system and, through it, upon the nervous system. If one looks into the human eye, one finds there some extremely fine ramifications of blood vessels. Here the blood pulsation meets the currents of the visual nerve spread through the eye. A marvelously artistic process takes place when the blood circulation plays upon a visual nerve that moves four times more slowly.