IV. Learning to Live Correctly in the Outer World

Human beings also contain fear. We have fear in our big toe, in our legs, in our belly—there is fear everywhere. This is not everywhere the case however. Fear does not normally rise above the diaphragm—it does so only when we have nightmares. Nevertheless, fear does have a role to play: it holds our organism together. It is in our bones that fear lives most strongly. The bones are strong and hard because a terrible fear lives in them. It is fear that holds the bones together. When we feel our bones too much, our bones get soft. Those children who were fearful at the time when their bones were not yet completely hardened, develop weak bones—a condition called rickets. It is possible to cure children with rickets by reducing their fear through some soul work. But it would be quite false to say that this fear in us is something of the soul: that we need only approach the fear in a somewhat higher manner in order to have an experience of a higher kind of knowledge. To enter this subject in the wrong way would not be good, for we would make ourselves sick in body and soul at the same time. We must do something entirely different.