Lecture XVIII

Just the same processes as work on the life of plants—in the external sphere of the earth that is to say—are also at work in the same region on the external life of animals and of man. These forces here (see Diagram 27—orange) at work on animal and man, come from the extra-telluric cosmos, and are met and opposed by forces that come from within. The latter, coming from the interior of the earth, are localised in man in certain organs of the upper bodily sphere; whilst the forces that pour on to the earth from outside are localised in man in organs belonging to the lower bodily sphere, again, if I may so express myself, a dividing wall must be set up between the two forms of action. The regulation of this separation is normally achieved through the activity of the spleen, and in this connection we again find rhythm active in the human organism, but a rhythm different from that of respiration. The rhythm of the breath is in short pulsations, and it continues throughout life; it must be in order, if illnesses of the upper sphere—or such diseases as can affect that upper sphere only—are not to develop. Bear in mind that there may be illnesses which affect the upper sphere yet have their original in the lower—for the process of digestion extends both above and below. This we must clearly realise. We cannot picture man divided diagrammatically into compartments, but the various members interpenetrating one another. At the same time, there must be a barrier between that which works from above as though coming from the earth, and that which works upwards from below, as though from celestial space. For we do indeed send the forces of our lower sphere out against those of our upper, and there must be a regulated rhythm for each human individuality between these two sets of forces; a rhythm manifesting in a proper alternation between waking and sleeping. Every time we wake, there is in a certain way the one beat of this rhythm, and every time we sleep, there is the other beat. And this rhythm of waking-sleeping waking-sleeping, is intersected with other minor rhythmic oscillations which are due to the fact that in the waking state, we wake in our upper sphere but sleep in our lower. There is a continuous rhythmic systole interplay, between the upper and lower man, which is only captured so to speak in major rhythms through the alternation of waking and sleeping.