Lecture II

Let us assume that within the lower sphere, that is to say, the apparatus of nutrition and digestion in the widest sense, there is a preponderance of the inner chemical or organic forces of the food which has been eaten. In the healthy organism it is essential that all the forces active and immanent in the foodstuffs themselves, which we examine and test in our laboratory work on these foodstuffs, should be overcome by the upper sphere, so that they do not in any way interfere with the efficiency of the inner sphere of the organism and that all activity from external chemistry and dynamics has been entirely overcome. But the upper sphere may be inadequate to the task of penetrating the lower, of thoroughly brewing, or I might say, etherising it—which is more exact—all through. The result is the transference into the human organism of a preponderant process which is foreign to the organism, a process such as normally takes place outside the human body and should not operate within that body. As the physical body does not at once bear the brunt of these irregularities, the first symptoms appear on the functional side, in the etheric body (Archaeus). If we wish to find a current term to designate certain aspects of this irregular function, we must call it Hysteria. We shall use the term Hysteria for the too great autonomy of the processes of Metabolism; and we shall learn later on that the name is not inappropriate.