Eleventh Lecture

Now imagine that this does not happen, but instead the parasitic mistletoe plant settles here, then a second plant, which now carries its own etheric body, does the same thing that would otherwise happen with the tree's own etheric body. This creates a very special relationship between the mistletoe and the tree. The tree, which is rooted directly in the earth, processes the forces it draws from the earth. The mistletoe, which is attached to the tree, processes what the tree gives it, using the tree as earth, so to speak. It artificially causes what, in the case of growths, is an overgrowth of the etheric organization when it occurs without the mistletoe. The mistletoe takes from the tree what it only gives when it has too little physical matter, when the etheric in it overgrows. An overgrowing etheric substance draws itself from the tree into the mistletoe. Understanding this internally tells us — the mistletoe now processed in such a way that it can really transfer this etheric substance wrested from the tree to the human being, which under certain circumstances is done by means of injections — this tells us: As an external substance, mistletoe takes over what is proliferating etheric substance in carcinoma, reinforced by the fact that it pushes back the physical substance, the effect of the astral body, and thereby causes the tumor of the carcinoma to crumble, to disintegrate. So when we introduce the mistletoe substance into the human organism, we are actually introducing the etheric substance of the tree into the human being, and the etheric substance of the tree, transferred to the human being via the mistletoe carrier, has a strengthening effect on the human astral body.