Lecture III

If you find this to be the case, let the child do gymnastics or Eurythmy, but giving him always at the same time objects to hold, such as dumb-bells or the like. Especially during the period between change of teeth and puberty are such exercises for balance important. If you give the child two dumb-bells of exactly the same weight—you must have them weighed on a chemical balance—and let him do exercises with them, making Eurythmy movements, or other gymnastic movements, this will be one thing achieved. Then you can go on to something else. Let the child hold in his left hand a dumb-bell that is lighter than the one in his right hand, and again let him do exercises; then let him take in his right hand a dumb-bell that is lighter than the one in his left, and once more do exercises. Then tie some object—it need not be particularly heavy—to one of his legs, and let him walk about with it, so that he becomes conscious of the force that is pulling at his leg. When he walks in the ordinary way, he is not conscious of the force of gravity. It is, however, important for him to place himself, with his ego organisation, right into the force of gravity. When you attach something to his leg, he at once becomes conscious of gravity. You can then hang the weight on to the other leg. And now, to produce an activity that comes nearer to the mental or spiritual, let him feel movements that he makes with his arms; let him think himself into a stretching movement made with the left arm, and then again into a stretching movement with the right arm; finally, with both arms at once. Another way of helping him to become conscious of gravity is to get him to lift one leg while keeping the other still. To sum up, in cases where you perceive, from the attacks of giddiness, that the child does not enter properly into the earthly forces, you get him to make movements in which he is obliged to learn control of his external balance. Similarly, you will find methods of treatment that will help epileptic and epileptoid children to adapt themselves to the other forces.