Fifth Lecture

In this way what is otherwise juxtaposed and can only be found together by pure empiricism – pathology and therapy, is transformed into an absolute unity. If we recognize the nature of the disease process in this way, we must find in the outer nature how, for example, a particular kidney process is imitated in Equisetum arvense; or if we recognize that the bile secretion process in the liver is really its inner nature in certain forms of the disease, we find this form of disease of the gall secretion process, for example, in Cichorium intybus, then we are able, through the way in which the function proceeds in Cichorium intybus, to relieve the astral body of the liver in the gall secretion process of what it would otherwise have to do. We thus advance in healing in such a way that pathology itself is actually nothing other than therapy. This is how therapy becomes a truly rational science. — If, for example, we are familiar with the wonderful connection that exists between iron and certain mucilaginous plant components and salts of Anisum vulgare, we can see how there is something functional in this aniseed, particularly in the seeds of Anisum [Pimpinella anisum], which is one with certain hyperinflammatory blood disease processes. We can relieve the blood of these disease processes by using a preparation that is modeled on the connection between certain plant mucilages and the iron in aniseed. In this way, we not only free the astral body, but, when it comes to blood diseases, the ego organization is also involved.