Lecture X

If we climb the rocks where the soil is so constituted that winter plants will grow in it, we come to that part of the outer world that is related to the organization of the human head. Let us suppose that we collect medicinal substances out in the world. We want to make sure that the spiritual forces appearing in an illness that originates in the nerve-sense system will be healed by the spirit in outer nature, so we climb very high in the mountains to find minerals and plants and bring them down for medicines for head illnesses. We are acting out of our creative thinking. It starts our legs moving toward things we must find in the earth that correspond to our medical needs. The right thoughts—and they come out of the cosmos—must impel us all the way to concrete deeds. These thoughts can stir us without our knowledge. People, say, who work in an office—they also have thoughts, at least they sometimes have them—now they are impelled by some instinct to go off on all sorts of hikes. Only they don't know the real reason—but that doesn't matter. It only becomes important if one observes such people from a physician's or a priest's standpoint. But a true view of the world also gives one inspiration for what one has to do in detail.