Kleptomania, Hydrocephalus, and Curative Speech: Individual Cases

We have here exactly the same kind of phenomenon as when someone is colour-blind. It's no use talking about colours to one who is colour-blind; and it would have just as little sense to speak in the higher world about possession and non-possession. The child does not find his way far enough into the physical world for him to be able to attach any meaning at all to what he hears people say about “possessing” things. What is particularly strong in him is the idea of discovery—the idea that he has lighted upon some object or other which astonishes him, which fills him with delight and interest. But there his capacity for forming ideas comes to a full stop. The truth is that up to now his astral body has not penetrated to the region of the will, but has remained more or less in the intellectual sphere. We have evidence of this in the fact that the organs of the will are deformed at the side. Consequently, whatever he finds good intellectually he at once turns into will. Let the same defect show itself in the intellect, and you will find the children are dull and stupid; but when, as here, it shows itself in the will, they are kleptomaniacs.