2. Anthroposophy as a Body of Knowledge and a Way of Life

GA 80b/1921-01-28/p035 ·1921-01-28 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
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Above all, through inner observation, one gets to know how thinking, how imagining, is connected with the structure of our brain, with our nervous system. Materialists believe that the ordinary growth process that otherwise builds our body also continues in the brain, and that such an organic process of building, which, for example, underlies our growth or our nutrition, also underlies our brain when we think. This can only be believed as long as one fantasizes about these things. This can no longer be the case when one looks at these things inwardly. Then you know that the brain must be well nourished. But why? Because it is constantly destroying itself. And it is this process of destruction, not the process of building, that is connected to what we call thinking and imagining. We could not think if the brain were constantly growing, constantly feeding and building.

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Cite: GA 80b/1921-01-28/p035 · edition English