Lecture II

Now let us suppose that a manifestation which would be undoubtedly hysterical, if it were manifested functionally, does not come to expression at all as a disturbance of function. It does not appear in the functional sphere, the etheric body imprints it immediately into the physical body. It is there, but it is not evident in any definite disease of the lower organs. We may say indeed that the organs bear the signature of hysteria. It has been driven into the physical organism, and therefore does not manifest by hysterical symptoms on the psychological plane; and it is not yet sufficiently pronounced to become an appreciable physical affliction. But it is strong enough to work within the whole organism. Thus we have this peculiar condition: something on the borderland, so to speak, between sickness and health influences the upper organic sphere from the lower. It reacts on the upper sphere and in some sense infects it, appearing in its own negative. This phenomenon, in which so to speak, the first physical effects of hysteria affect those regions which are subject to neurasthenia in their own typical irregularities, gives a tendency to Tuberculosis. This is an interesting connection. The tuberculous tendency is a repercussion of the abnormal action of the lower body sphere on the upper, as has just been outlined. The whole of this remarkable interaction is set in motion by an uncompleted process which reacts on the upper sphere, and produces a tendency to tuberculosis. And it is necessary to recognise this primary tendency of the human organism before any rational antidote to tuberculosis can be discovered. For the invasion of the human body by pathogenic bacteria is only a result of primary tendencies such as I have described.