Lecture II

Neurasthenia is a functional excess of the upper sphere. The organs of that sphere are too much occupied, so that processes which should be transferred and conducted downwards through the heart, take place in the upper sphere and do not pass into the lower organic currents (harmoniously mediated by the damming up in the heart). You will observe that it is much more important to become aware, so to speak, of the specific physiognomy of the disease than to study by post-mortems the organs which have become defective. For post-mortems reveal only the results and symptoms. The essential thing is to form a comprehensive picture of the whole morbid condition; to visualise its physiognomy. This physiognomy will always reveal a tendency in one or the other direction towards the Neurasthenic or the Hysterical Type. But of course, we must use these terms in a wider sense than that usually accepted. If one has acquired an adequate picture of the interaction of the upper and lower spheres, one will gradually learn that irregularity manifesting functionally only in its initial stages—and therefore, as we should say in the etheric sphere—becomes denser in its forces and takes hold of the physical organism. Thus, what was at first merely a tendency to hysteria, may take physical form in various abdominal diseases. And conversely, neurasthenia may develop into diseases of the throat or head.