Lecture XVIII

You need only keep in mind that during childhood the whole interaction of the upper and lower spheres, and of the rhythmic action that links the two, must differ widely from that of later life; e.g., during childhood there must be much more powerful and pronounced action of the upper human being upon the lower than in maturity. Actually the child “thinks” very much more than does the adult. This may sound strange but it is true; only, the thoughts of the child are not conscious thoughts, they are absorbed into the organism, manifesting in its growth and formation. Especially in the earliest years of life, thinking activity is used mainly for the formative processes of the growing body. Then there comes a stage wherein the body does not need to use up so much of the formative forces, and thus they are, as it were, dammed back, and become the fundamental forces of memory. So memory emerges only when the organism requires less formative force for itself. The forces which supply the organic foundation of memory are the transformed growth forces and formative forces plastically at work at the beginning of life. Everything is fundamentally based on metamorphosis. That which we observe as a spiritual element, is only the re-spiritualisation of what worked in a more bodily way when the spirit incarnated into the material. So it can be understood that there must be strong defensive forces in the child to cope with particular processes of the lower abdominal sphere. This sphere is the special scene of action for cosmic-celestial forces, that is to say, for extra-terrestrial forces.