XXIX. The Essence of Egoism (Goethe's “Wilhelm Meister”)

What would have happened without Lucifer? We only need to describe what man would be like. He would grow old, but would begin to soften his muscles and bones through the powers of the soul, detach parts, gradually sweat out material parts. He would thus be able to attract other matter and rebuild the body. There would be a transformation that would take place consciously, a beneficial process. [He is not yet able to do that, and that is why death occurs, to dissolve the matter.] Death has occurred due to the densification of the bone system. [There would be no illness if the power of the ego were not working so strongly.] This inability to dissolve one's own matter, that is death. When the earth will have reached the end of its development, it will undergo a metamorphosis. It is different now because of the solidification by Lucifer. Through his influence, illness comes. Man has no influence on this at the moment. In the processes that should take place like dissolution and composition, and now do not take place that way, the cause of the illnesses predominates. The daytime thinking is a continuous dissolution of substances in the brain. [During the night, the dissolved parts are reassembled by the spiritual world.] The night is there to send forces from the spiritual world. [Somehow there must be balance in the breakdown and construction.] In the moment when not so much is built in at night as is dissolved during the day, the disease is there. The disease can only occur because there is an ego in the organism that is exerting itself too strongly.