Agriculture Course – Lecture 4

Maybe we could once more recapitulate the first three lectures. We have done this previously. In a recapitulation, each time, there is an effort to recast a lecture. Each time it is possible to take the lecture from another point of view. Rudolf Steiner calls this a thinking through. He means that we can not be satisfied by repeating one word or two which have been spoken or written. If a single statement becomes the method of working, we create a fixed idea. The outcome is the cliche. If content is recast again and again from different sides, then a certain thoughtfulness begins to appear. This, Rudolf Steiner says, is very important in order that single individuals can find their own living thoughts in relation to the content. Therefore there is a certain validity in recasting the single lectures as we go on.

Let us look to the first lecture again. We can note that it is very much connected with the problem of light and warmth. The warming process here is very crucial. The relationship of the earth to the cosmos as expressed in silica and calcium also finds a cosmic relationship in silica-light and calcium-warmth. Light, but also warmth, is essential to the life of our earth. Rudolf Steiner points again and again to a kind of delicate inner life of warmth and enlivened light that exists under the surface of the earth. Humus is also under the surface of the earth. It is related to water and to darkness. Chemism is its life element in darkness. With silica and calcium we can then look to the life of light and warmth of our earth. The earth has life. It is thereby a living organism in the cosmos. The entering of warmth and light into the earth establishes essential life processes for our earth. We have mentioned nutritional and reproductive activities, also life processes, which are a part of earth life which has to be given over to plants and then to man. Nutrition and reproduction – as well as warming and enlightening (breathing) are life processes connected with our earth. The farmer needs to tend earth life. We are being introduced to some of the essential life processes. Warming is a life process. Propagation and reproduction is a life process. We have to consider life processes and how substance works to serve these processes. Nutrition is also a life process – an essential one. The earth has to be worked so that the nutritional life process becomes part of vegetative life. Warming, reproducing and nutritioning are three essential processes that have to be considered – to be cultivated as we work the earth. Breathing is also.

When we went on to Lecture Two and Three, we took up the process of breathing. We carried breathing over into respiration. The breathing we related to the motherly elements, that of clay, chlorophyll and hemoglobin. We picked out certain substances, inherent in these mother-substances which further the process of bringing forth other activities in the life of an organism. We spoke of aluminum, magnesium and iron. In a way these belong to mother substance, but we can also see them as a kind of male principle at work in matter – substance – to dampen life so that higher life (soul life) can unfold. with this we took a further step into respiration. We have spoken of the birth of the five siblings and considered a sixth. As we considered the siblings we contemplated albumen as mother substance, a mother substance of the atmosphere, distinct from the other mother substances of earth, plant and man. Thus in this second lecture we made a step from breathing to respiration. We spoke of four mother substances, three mutual fathering activities and six siblings. Breathing is a very essential aspect of the life of an organism – a life process which relates an organism to the environment. Breathing leads to respiration which has inherent in it the possibility for soul life and the transformation of substance-metabolism.

In this present lecture, Lecture Four, we have to take up the life process of nutrition more fully. In addition we have to consider the life process of excretion.

In order to take up the discussion of nutrition Rudolf Steiner guides us with a kind of an imaginative picture. He first tells us how important protein is for life, how important nutrition is. He then points to the fact that nutrition is a two—fold process, one is a nutrition via the senses and the other is the nutrition via the digestive process. The first is earthly. The second is cosmic. From there he takes us to consider the form and configuration of a living plant organism. He uses the earth hillock and plant-herb to create the image.

If we make use of this image of the earth—hil1ock—trunk and the plant-hollowed—herb, we come to a very interesting aspect in spiritual life, developed by Rudolf Steiner. He not only gives us written words but he often gives an image – a picture with which to associate our ideas. This is very much the case here with the earth-hillock-tree an the hollowed-herbaceous plant.Now let us spend some moments to consider the image he gives us; the earth—tree herb. Then we might further consider how this image can be used to approach the nutritional question. He describes the tree in a way that is not always or is not at first easy to comprehend. When I first met this image, the image of the hillock with a hollow in the hillock or the mound with the hollow into which the living plant descends, I had to confront my tendency to follow the tree form from the base of the plant up to the crown. Here the image is one of a polarity. After recasting this image of the tree again and again only slowly was I able to consider that the tree is a product of a two-fold process. Slowly I could have a sense that the outer form, the trunk and bark, was one aspect. The foliage and branching process unfolds not from the earth up but from the cosmos down.

In one area of the world this two-folding can be experienced particularly well. In spring, when there is a rather rapid greening process, and the barren trees stand in stark nakedness, we can at times almost see the color in the atmosphere descend onto the tree. In a way the color appears and descends on to the tree. The polarity between the dark heavy trunk (limb system) and the mobile atmospheric color that slowly descends stands out. The green color incarnates into the horizontal leaves. This can be sensed with considerable intensity. This can be followed with ongoing observation as the tree becomes. bedecked with green leaves. Such is the possibility in our circumstances .

After some years of working with this idea and trying to look at the tree with this idea in mind, I then noticed while traveling in Europe that this idea was extremely well expressed in some of the trees there. There with the birch, the silver birch, it is possible to observe this process. I was able to observe some stumps, in the area of Dornach and Arlesheim. There one could see how the earth is thrown up into the trunk and then a totally new process can be seen sinking as leaf and finer ramifications of branches into the trunk. The stump thereby becomes transformed into a kind of a bush-like structure. There the contrast between the foliage process and the earth trunk process can be seen. Further observations using this image I could make in southern France. There the sycamore trees are so trimmed that the earth seemed to rise into the trunk and then into the branching system. The leaf process then can be viewed as a very distinct entity, as it were, dipping into the trunk branch configuration out of the cosmos.

By an ongoing effort it seems to me that one can sense a marked polarity in the life of an organism, that is of the tree. One can thus sense the earth being pushed up. The living of the earth is held firm in the trunk. At the same time it is possible to sense the light greeny leafyness descending out of the atmosphere and out of the surrounding environment. Quite new experiences can be gained from these observations. One can sense the earth rising in the trunk. One can sense a descent into the trunk. On the one hand the heavy consolidated is raised. On the other hand, all that wants to radiate out into light and warmth, into vast space is drawn back into the upper reaches of the plant in the form of its foliage. This is what Rudolf Steiner calls the herbaceous aspect of the tree. This is an activity, a pole of life. When herbs are observed this “suctional” pole of life, this vegetation can be seen as consolidated into a warmed light-filled herb-plant. The radiant portion of the tree can be seen also as being consolidated into a concrete herb on the flat earth. The radiational process in the crown of the tree can be consolidated to become a plant in itself – an herb. The radiational activity of the crown can as well be brought into the earthly trunk to form ramified—radiating roots underground.We can use this polarity and its potential for transformation to construct the archetype of the plant, the living plant. The tree approaches the archetype more than most other plants. We have already considered basic formative tendencies with silica and calcium but here we are a led to the basic archetype of all plant life. This archetype can be imaged and transformed. It has to be grasped in order to take up how the plant is to be nourished. Animal and human nourishment can follow.

If we look at the tree it is not difficult to contemplate that the plant is nourished from the domain of the earth. This actually can be followed in the histological makeup of a tree or plant that has a vascular system. The xylem tracheoid respiratory system of the tree brings substances and fluids from the earth upward into the tree. Rudolf Steiner calls this the earth sap. He corresponds this with the arterial system of the human being. He corresponds the earth sap with that aspect in the human being where there is respiratory process, where there is a taking in of the outer world in the breathing and taking this over into the chemism connected with respiration—circulation. In the earth sap the tree is nourished by solids and liquids, and particularly by minerals. Potassium is important.

In the region of the leaf there is also a breathing—respiratory nourishing. We know that there is also a tracheoid circulatory system in the leaf. This system carries phloem. Through the phloem the sugary substances produced in the leaf by breathing—respiratory metabolism can circulate through the plant. This sugary substance combines with the mineral of the plant. Cellulose is produced as well as chromogens – from this sugar substance.

Finally we have another activity in the plant which Rudolf Steiner calls the cambium process. This process occurs between the bark and the trunk of the tree. This is called the cambial layer of the tree. Another nutritional activity takes place in the fluids of the cambium. A substance is produced which can become amber. This process gives rise to other sticky substances. Rudolf Steiner corresponds this system of the tree with the lymph system of man. It should be noted that the leaf-sap, living sap, system of the plant or the tree he corresponds to the venous system in man.

Thus we have three breathing respiratory-circulatory metabolic systems within the plant. We have the earth sap which moves in the xylem system where minerals are important. There is a life sap-leaf system which can be found circulating in the phloem system carrying sugar carbohydration. The third system is the cambial system which moves within the cambial layer, carrying sugar substances but phloem and fat-like substances as well. Thus the three systems correspond with the arterial, venous and lymph systems in man. They are connected with nutrition.

Now we can go further. We have to ask how does the tree or the plant correspond with man when man is turned upside down. The roots have a correspondence with man in the respiratory nerve-sense system. The inflorescence, the flower and fruit, have a correspondence with the excretory-reproductive system in man. The leaf system and activity in the plant correspond with mans breathing-respiratory activity, in breathing and digesting. The three circulatory systems of the plant lead over to a threefolding of the human being in sense breathing, breathing—digesting circulation and excretional-reproductive activity.

Now let us go to the nutrition of man. Let us first consider the nutritional process that occurs in man in relationship to his senses and his breathing. This nutrition is indicated in this lecture. This is an earthly nutritional process. Here Rudolf Steiner says that we take in earthly substance, we take in substance directly without fundamental change, except for warming. Rudolf Steiner speaks of another nutritional system. This is connected with our digestion. In digestion we destroy substances that are taken in. We then recreate substance from the inner cosmic makeup of our organism, the coelom, (heaven in us) and our inner organs. This nutritional process is the basis for our activity of will-movement and work. This view of the human being who takes in substances directly in the senses and respiration and who creates cosmic substance out of digestion (while eliminating much and taking in only small amounts of substance directly). This is a very new contemplation for our times.

By and large our line of thought is that if we analyze our tissues and our fluid systems we can come up with certain substances. We think we need to furnish these substances and we can replentish these substances by giving specific substances, if substances are wanting or lost. The gist of our nutritional concepts today is that we take in substance, it is deposited in the body and what we do not need, we excrete. When we lose or use the deposited substances then we have to be replace them. Rudolf Steiner says that this is in part true. He indicates that what we eat and take in and keep within our organism slowly brings about our death. The deposition of foreign substance within our organism is what in fact brings about a fading of our organism, so that finally at the end of life we have to give off our body which has become more like a piece of nature.

Rudolf Steiner’s View of nutrition is highly complex. He points to an earthly nutritional stream which involves the senses as well as the breathing. We, of course, know of the senses where there is light and cognitional processes involved. Here is where the “etheric” (light) is taken in. This light is transformed into “warmth-ether”. (The light here is not visible.) But in the senses and breathing physical substance is also taken in in homeopathic doses. Such is the View from spiritual scientific research. If we take in the substances via the senses, this means that we take in the substances on a light-ether stream. In this lecture, Rudolf Steiner does not say that the light ether—stream has to be transformed into warmth-ether in being taken in, but this can be found in the Pastoral Medical Course. Within man the warmth-ether is retransformed into light-ether, chemical-ether and life-ether. The transformations of the etheric through the senses and within man give rise to the potential for soul life. While this is occurring in the senses there is also an imbibing of the physical substances that surround us and are present in homeopathic concentration.

We now know that human beings do take in substances via the skin and hair. What is in the air and the environment is absorbed in small amounts in the skin, the eyes, the ears, etc. All take in substance. What is taken in through the hair we are not yet certain of, but there is some suggestion that this also occurs and can produce adverse affects – even cancer. Where we have hair, wash it and then apply substances to the hair it is well known that some of this is taken into the organism. This is particularly the case where dyes and tints are used in the hair. It is known and seen that this absorption can give rise to very severe reactions, particularly allergic reactions. In the case of the eyes, we know well with problems of hayfever that substances are digested on the surface as they are taken in. An allergic reaction in a way is an incomplete digestive activity.

As we look to our respiratory system, we know well that there are nearly all the components of the environment in the air in homeopathic doses. Almost every plant, every mineral, every animal contributes to what is in the atmosphere. We are beginning to realize that not only do we have those kingdoms contributing substances in the atmosphere, but our fellow human being does as well. When we consider that there are nearly four hundred substances that accompany the expiration of each human breath we can contemplate an incredibly complex physical nutritional system from the air. This we have yet to consider. Rudolf Steiner has pointed to this. So far it appears that what we exhale is actually proteinaceous not only carbon dioxide. Many of the four ” hundred compounds, found in the analysis of the human breath, seem to be protein in nature. Therefore, we have to consider not only the mineral, plant and animal substances in the air, but also human protein substance as well. We breathe in our fellow human being. This nourishes us. Our fellow man can become a part of our makeup. This we might consider from todays knowledge. The skin, the nerves and the bones (the sense) are made up from the nutrition via the senses. So Rudolf Steiner indicates from his researches.

Rudolf Steiner also tells how in the digestive process, we destroy substance. He indicates that we recreate it. He indicates that matter is not conserved in digestion, in man. He indicates that conservation is the process with other living organisms, that is animals. In animals outer nature substances are carried directly into the organism. Within man however, there is a destruction and recreative process continually being enacted. This is very much in opposition to what is the scientific thought of our day. The creation of totally new substance in the world by the human being means that man carries the beginning of creation within him. This means that the way in which to solve the problems and knowledges of substance and substance creation is not to destroy it as being done today in our atomistic researches.

We have to look within the human being himself to see how man as a spiritual, ego—being, as a physical being, destroys what he eats and then recreates it de novo. This is exceedingly difficult to think and requires a repeated effort in order to recast what is such firm encrusted calcified dogma of our day, that is, that matter is always conserved.

In order to hold these contemplations about man in a firm way the image of the plant outside man is given. The thoughtful human being is very much drawn into himself in trying to contemplate such matters as the two forms of nutrition. In this contemplation we are easily lost. Needed is an outer object that permits one to view an image while contemplating the two paths of nutrition. If we therefore, look at the root of the tree, we have our mirror for the nerve—sense system. If we look at the leaf, we can find a mirror for the rhythmic respiratory circulatory system. As we contemplate the budding and fruiting of the plant we can consider the metabolic reproductory system. The configuration of the plant helps that we continually try to contemplate this highly complex nutritional process of man as set forth out of the researches of Rudolf Steiner.

We can ask what are we doing here in a psycho—spiritual fashion? What do we do when we observe a living organism in nature, when we observe a growing plant? We can just let this pass us by or we can make an image of the changing plant. We can image the plant growing between the earth and the cosmos. Where we are imaging an ever changing form, we can image the changing form in concrete fashion. Next we can image man upside down in the mental field where the plant was imaged. If this is done repeatedly it will be found that at times the mobile configuration or the image of the tree will disappear, and the configuration – the image of man can appear in its stead. With this one objectifies ones own inner changes without sinking ones own organism. This is extremely important. The old form of taking up such matters was the path of the mystic. The human being in the past descended into these processes, the processes of his own organism. In the past this gave experience, but not knowledge. The way in which Rudolf Steiner is instructing us, makes it possible for us to go out into the world to discover our own inner workings. We can image into the world while trying to grasp the metabolic processes within the human organism. We can say that we try to image human metabolism “on the back” of the tree. We place man into the nature of the tree. Whe we turn man upside down, we can find life process in man – tree-process, herb-process, bush-process etc. The tree-plant, as an objective manifestation of the etheric, can be used to consider man’s etheric life-physical life. When the seer enters the ether world mans ether working is seen reversed in relation to his physical makeup.

From spiritual scientific research we learn about an etheric organization. This etheric organization has to be able to take up earth substantiality. If this does not occur no physical organization can arise. In addition this physical-etheric organization needs to be able to carry the soul-spiritual. For all of this to occur a proper nutritional process has to come about. This nutrition has to lay a foundation for a relation with the physical world as well as the soul-spiritual world. This is the demand of proper nutrition.

Let us turn to a living organism. We can consider it very simply. A pile of manure or refuse, anything that is excreted from a biological system of our day can be a beginning. Refuse can be place in a pile so that it can be made into a living organism. This is what we try to do with a compost pile. This pile needs nourishing and proper inner direction of life processes. An animal is a living organism. This living organism has to be tended to in so far as it needs nutrient. An animal has a living etheric system. The plant has to be tended and nourished. Its life has to be supported. In a way the earth is a bit like a refuse pile; it needs life processes and nourishment. If we start with the refuse from living systems, we have to learn how to bring about a living organism in making compost. In the case of plant, animal and human, there are existent systems. Life is already in existence, but nourishment has to be tended. with the earth a whole new activity is needed. New life systems have to be created. This has to come about through the way in which we handle refuse. The earth in becoming refuse needs new life. Compost making is a way to bring new life.

If we start with refuse we can see how substance falls out of the living. If we turn to living organisms we can note that excretion-refuse production is necessary to maintain its own form and life. We can consider the trunk and bark of a tree as a kind of living excrement which is structured and exists in relation to the earth. The excreted trunk-earth makes the life of the tree sustainable. The other regions of the tree are less permanent and point to life processes.Thus in the case of the tree on the one side, there is an excretory processes that creates the form. On the other there is an inner life process that has to be perpetually renewed giving rise to the outer form and to transient physical structures (eg. bud, blossom, leaf and fruit). The excretional gives rise to form, a skin as it were, and the life processes with secretion permit an ever changing activity. These two aspects are needed for an organism, for a living organism. The
refuse from all living organisms has to be brought into these organic processes. The earth as well has to be tended to remain a living organism in the universe. It is nutrition that sustains these two processes – form and life processes.

By considering the plant with its etherealness, with the structural and the transformative, we arrive at a view of a living organism. We have to ask for a nutrition that sustains an organism, but more we have to ask for a nutrition which permits an organ
evolution which will permit a soul and spirit to live in relation to the organism. We then will have to consider the form of an organism and life activity. We will have to look at what is involved in a living organism, seek its structure and function in order to pursue its nourishment. From there we can seek how the form and life can serve soul and spiritual activity. In this way we can take up the living and ascend to the soul.

The foregoing line of reasoning can make use of the tree as an image to follow with our reasonings. Next we have to consider an ensoulcd being; the animal, in order to make another step.

Let us turn to the two animals that are introduced in this lecture. The two animals are the deer and the cow. These two have to be used as far as I can tell to help us further our consideration of nutrition; of organ life.

Let us first look at the deer. The deer belongs to the group of animals called the ruminants. The deer as well as the cow is an herbaceous eating animal. They are both ungulates. The female deer, the doe, does not produce antlers, she produces off-spring. The male deer, the stag, has appendages that grow out of the head. The deer is a fur—bearing mammal. Up to this point the same can be said about the cow. We can note that stag antlers grow out of the head as ramifying structures. They grow on a yearly basis. When the antlers grow there is no reproduction in the female deer. When they are cast off, then the male becomes able to fertilize the doe, mate with the female. Gestation takes place while the antlers are absent on the stag. It is interesting that we have the polarity in this family of animals. This swings between the growth of antlers and growth of a fetus. Where there is growth of antlers, there is no growth of a fetus. When there is reproduction and fetal growth there is no antler growth. The male and female seem to exchange roles in a single world of life.

The antlers we can think of as a rush of circulatory system into the skin. This rush pushes ahead and outbreathes. The skin is drawn up and carried into a tree-like configuration. It is full of blood. The solid of the antler precipitates out of this forward rushing blood. Hair is always present. There is a slight bone process taking place as the antlers grow. The skin that covers the antlers falls off as the antlers become solid. When the skin has fallen off — the antlers solidified — then in the fall of the year they drop off. Then the doe conceives and carries the conceptus and fetus until spring. With the birth of the fawn, the stag antlers begin to grow.

If one looks at the deer, it appears as if the antlers are raying out of the head. The animal gives an impression of radiationalness. We can say that as an animal-astral being the stag presents a physical expression of radiation. This is one aspect that is very important to consider in order to comprehend the discussion and concern with nutrition. Astrality is expressed in the stag as ramified—radiational activity in the antlers.

Thus as we look at this animal we can come to a sense of radiation. The form is radiating and the animal substance participates in this. We can call this astral-radiational substance. In a way we can think of star-like, astral substance. We can think of the dark earth substance becoming radiant through this animal.

It is interesting to ask about radiating substance. Radium is a naturally occurring radiant substance. With the stag we can consider an animal which expresses the radiant so well. As you know these days there is great discussion about building an immense accelerator to bombard the nucleus of an atom. Accelerated substance bombards another stationary substance. The collision between stationary and moving substances gives rise to radiations, decompositional rays. By the use of a huge accelerator (circumference of 58 miles), some physicists think we will be able to learn more about substance and the nature of our universe. It is thought we will be better informed about substance. As noted previously, I think this is highly fallacious. If we want to understand the origin of substance we have to turn to man. What accelerators do tell us is the possible radiational consequences of motion. Extreme acceleration and bombardment of a given substance leads to radiation. The motion-acceleration process is a part of a living animal. Animals move. They can accelerate. Substance is carried in this process. The bombardment process in the animal is the inert substances being brought into motion – an accelerating or decelerating motion.

Thus the deer as animal tends to perform what physicists create. In addition the deer expresses the radiational particularly well. It would seem to me that the deer with its antlers is a wonderful expression, a physical image, of this radiational activity in addition to what accompanies movement, acceleration and material transformation within the deer. In the deer substances are not obviously bombarded, but through movement substances are carried into a condition of radiance, of astrality and the outer form expresses this.

In summary, the deer, (the stag with antlers) can be viewed as an outer image, an expression of radiational activity. With the stag there is radiation from within outwards. There is a great sensitivity, there is movement, there is a possibility of a change in movement, (that is acceleration or deceleration). In the stag there is a potential of substance transformation for movement and acceleration. It is astonishing that we can use an animal in order to make such a contemplation. The great secret of substance is being pursued by our physicists. This can be supplemented by the non-physicist, particularly here, the farmer, who can make such very basic contemplations merely by observing and somewhat attuning oneself to the makeup of this animal.

Next let us look at the cow. This is also a ruminant and an ungulate. If we look at the ungulate process, just as with the deer, we observe an animal who is standing on his toes. None of us would be able to walk on our toes the way that this animal or the deer does. If we walked around in this fashion we certainly would be swimming in cloud seven. In fact, we have to say that this is actually the case with the ungulates. Not only is this animal, the cow, composed of a lot of fluid but the whole process is raised away from the earth and into the horizontal. The animal lives in a swimming, living ether world and moves horizontal with the earth, tip-toeing on its surface. This process is the same with the deer as well. In addition the deer is raised very much into the astral radiational process. The cow on the other hand, although living in an etheric cloud sinks to the earth after eating. If we can watch a cow, after the cow has eaten a good meal, we will notice that she sinks into the earth. We can find the cow lying on the earth ruminating, sunken into herself as she lies preparing for milk production. When erect and walking, the cow lifts her abdomen into levitation fields. Thus her abdomen is lifted away from the earth and becomes a part of the force-field systems of the atmosphere. But when lying down the cow sinks into the earth. The cow is very inward in this process. What seems to radiate outward with the antlers of the stag is turned inward, and the cow horns express this process. The horns express this turning inwards.

If we consider the ruminant activity of this animal we note that the animal is herbivorous. She consumes substances, takes them into the stomach—reticulum. The contents are regurgitated, chewed, chewed over again and passed into the rumin, then into the omasum and then the abomasum. The food goes through a four-fold four chambered process. We can think of the four ventricles of the heart, in a way being transformed into the four steps and processes of the digestion in the ruminant. It is as if the heart in its four—fold ventricular system has descended into the actual digestion so that the digestion is in a way a heart process, a heart-felt process. The result is that there is already a tendency for the activities of the circulation to be working very strongly into the digestive—metabolic activities. The outcome is that already within the venous system it is possible for lacteal activity to give rise to a milky product that then can be given over to man. The milk passes over to the udder. In a way we can say that the cow eats and heartens the food. She chews, the product passes over as a sweet honey into the udder. Man merely has to sit under the cow and collect this milky substance from the digestive tract which is a digestive tract and a heart all in one. In passing we can note that with the human being, this milk-formation process is raised from the hind quarters up into the region of the heart. There the substance that one human can give to another human being, that means from mother to the child, comes directly from the heart. In the case of the cow, the immediate relationship to the heart is not seen. However, if we contemplate the processes, we can image the heart of the cow falling into the digestive tract and there arises the milk. In this way, we can think of milk as a nourishment from the heart. This lives in the digestion and circulation of the cow.

What Rudolf Steiner tells us is that the inwardization of the cow is the result of the hoof and the horn formation. From the hoof formation there results a turning inward of all animal radiations. The same can be said about the hoof of the deer but not the antler. The horn and the antler are polarities. The antlers ray out. The horn, Rudolf Steiner indicates, reflects whatever comes into the head, back into the organism, particularly into the bowel. The horn is a growth of the bone outward. The covering of the horn is a transformation of the hair and skin into a very compact hard keratin—protein substance. This horn cover is a bit like human nail substance. The horny substance shuts the animal head away from the cosmos via the head. Radiational forces of the cow are thrown back into the abdomen and there mingle with the inner cosmos within the abdomen, the coelomic (heavenly) cavity. The result is that the materials eaten, and ruminated, pass into a field of radiational and inner cosmic forces. This permits life to remain in the substances which make up manure. The manure of the cow is quite alive.

Manure is made up of a good deal of the bowel lining. The cast off lining, a proteinaceous material is penetrated by reflected radiational forces (radiations, astral radiations). The hoof and horns turn animal-astral radiations back into the bowel. At the same time plant substances, enlivened by the cows digestion, are quite living. The result is a very unique form of manure. The excrement is a product of the head and the heart of the cow. The bowel product – intestinal lining and plant substance – can be used as a basis for manuring the earth. Here we have a living product that is a result of forces that are not used in the cow’s head and not used in the cow’s heart. Head and heart forces are, in a way, given over to the manure. This can be given back to the earth. The result is a most unusual excrement to which almost anyone can attest.

Now let us go on to the two preparations discussed here, that of 500 and 501. 500 is made by placing the cow manure in cow horns. They are buried in the earth in winter. 501 is made by putting ground silica into cow’s horns and burying the horns in summer. By this means the manure is penetrated by cosmic forces of winter. Silica is penetrated by the warmth-earthly forces of summer. In this way these two substances become the bearer of earthly and cosmic forces. By this means the plant is brought into relationship to the earth and in relationship to the cosmos. Cosmic and earthly nutritional streams are supported.

Let us look at 500 as a substance where the plant is brought into relationship to the earth. By this means the earth is brought to the plant in a nutritional relationship. The earth is raised into the living and to the state in which it can nourish the plant. The cosmic nature of the cow, and yet its earthliness, serves well to prepare the physical earth in relation to the etheric-plant. The manure is radiated by forces that raise earth substance for the nourishment of the plant, via the root. What is further needed is that this earthliness can be taken up into the plant, into the region of the reproductory pole so that reproductory life is stimulated when the product of the plant—reproductory system is eaten. This means that a healthy seed is produced. The earth—enclosed horn and manure, this organism, is created to stimulate a kind of living earth, earth sap process. This works into the reproductory pole of the plant. 500 works to bring an earthly nutritional stream to the plant. By using 500 we make the earth into a vessel so that the p1ant can be nourished through the earthly stream.

If we look at 501 we have a preparation which works more on the plant, brings the plant to maturity and permits the plant to be involved more in the cosmic nutritional stream. The silica is in a way the sense organ of the earth. In man the sense organ carries an earthly nutritional stream but an ethereal cosmic process plays into this. Etheric elements enter the senses, this is a cosmic principle. The plant needs to mature through the siliceous process which brings a maturing astral-etheric to the plant in seed and fruit. The plant needs an active light process for maturation. When this seed and fruit is eaten by man the cosmic nutritional process is awakened within the organism so that nourishing, cosmic forces are taken in via the senses. The inner cosmic process has to be stimulated by proper plant food consumption. The cosmic pole of nutrition in man needs stimulating so that the cosmic aspect of sense life can take place in man. The soul lives in the active etheric-cosmic process.

Paul W. Scharff, M.D. August 1992