The further course of our studies must be based on such
insight as we have already gained into plant-growth, and
into animal Formations too. Aphoristically at least, we
must now consider a few among the spiritual-scientific
ideas that relate to harmful plants and animals and to
what are commonly called plant diseases. These things can
only be studied in concrete detail. Very little can be
said in general terms; they must all be specifically
dealt with. Therefore, to begin with, I will give
examples which — taken as the starting-point for
your experiments — will lead you on to further
instances.
First let me deal with weeds and harmful plants in
general. We are not so much concerned to define “weeds.”
We only want an insight into the problem, how to rid a
given field or area of plants which we do not want to
have there. You know, one sometimes has strange
harkings-back to one's student days. Thus I endeavoured,
though with no great enthusiasm, to look up a few
text-books to see how they defined “the weed.”
Most of the authors, I found, if they tried to define
what a weed is, described it thus: “Everything that
grows at a place where you do not want it is a weed”
— a definition which certainly does not take us
very far into the essence of the matter.
Indeed, we shall have little good fortune in considering
the essence of “weeds” as such — for
the simple reason that in Nature's judgment a weed has
just as much right to grow as a plant which we find
useful. These things must be looked at from a somewhat
different point of view. The simple question is, how can
we rid a certain field or area of what will naturally
grow there through the prevailing conditions of Nature,
while we do not want it there?
We can only answer this question by taking into account
what we have dealt with in the past few days. I showed
how we must strictly distinguish between the forces that
are there in the growth of plants — forces which,
though they come from the Cosmos, are first received into
the earth and then work from the earth upon plant-growth.
As I said, the forces which are mainly due to the cosmic
influences of Mercury, Venus and Moon
(though they do not work directly from there planets, but
by the round-about way of the Earth) — these are
the forces we must consider when we are tracing what
produces the daughter-plant after the mother-plant and so
on in succession. While on the other hand, in all that
the plant derives from the surrounding sphere, from that
which is over the earth, we must perceive the workings
and potentialities which the more distant planets
transmit to the air, which are in this way received.
Moreover, speaking in a wider sense we may say: All the
forces that work into the earth from the near planets are
influenced by the chalk-or limestone-workings of
the earth, while that which works from the surrounding
sphere is influenced by the workings of silica.
Although the silica influences proceed from the earth
itself, nevertheless they transmit what proceeds
originally from Jupiter, Mars and Saturn
— not what proceeds from Moon, Venus and Mercury.
Nowadays, people are altogether unaccustomed to take
these things into account. They pay the penalty for their
ignorance. Indeed, in many regions of the civilised world
a heavy penalty has been paid for this ignorance of the
cosmic influences — ignorance both of the cosmic
influence when it works through the air through all that
lies above the level of the ground, and of the cosmic
influence when it works from below through the mediation
of the earth. They have had to pay the penalty for this
lack of insight.
It happened in widespread regions of civilisation. (It
may be of no concern to you, but it is a very grave
concern for many people). They had exhausted all the
resources that were once upon a time applied. They had
exhausted all that had been done since ancient times by
an old instinctive science. Not only the soil of the
Earth was exhausted — the traditions too were
exhausted, though sometimes simple peasant folk would
lend a helping hand. So it has come about: far and wide,
the vine plantations have been subjected to the
ravages of the grape-louse,
and they are pretty helpless against it. I could tell you
a tale of the editorial offices of a Viennese
agricultural paper in the 1880's. They were approached
from every side to find a remedy against the grape-louse,
and they were at a loss. For by that time the plague had
grown acute. These things cannot be treated thoroughly by
the scientific methods of to-day. They can only be dealt
with effectively by entering into all that can be known
along the lines which we have indicated here.
Let me show it diagrammatically. Imagine this as the level of the earth's
surface. Here we have all the influences that come in
from the Cosmos — from Venus, Mercury and Moon —
and ray back again, working upward from below. Everything
that works in the earth in this way causes the plants to
bring forth what grows in a single year and culminates in
seed-formation. From the seed a new plant arises, and a
third, and so on. Once more then: everything that works
from the Cosmos in this way flows out into the
reproductive forces — into the sequence of
generations.
On the other hand there is all that which comes by
another way — above the level of the earth —
all that which comes from the forces. of the distant
planets. Diagrammatically we can draw it thus: it
represents all that is transformed in the plant so that
it spreads out and expands in the surrounding circle.
Here therefore we have what makes the plant look thick or
bulky — i.e. what we can take away as
nourishment, because a continuous stream reforms it, ever
anew. I mean, for example, what we take from the apple-
or the peach-tree—the fleshy fruit which we
consume. All this is due to the influences of the distant
planets.
Such insight alone will tell us how to act if we wish to
influence the plant's growth in a particular way. It is
only by taking these varied forces into account that we
gain an idea, how we can influence the plant's growth.
Now a large number of plants — notably those which
we ordinarily count as weeds — are greatly
influenced by the workings of the Moon. These are often
medicinal plants. Precisely among the “weeds,”
so-called, we often find the strongest curative herbs.
What do we know of the Moon in ordinary life? We know
that it receives the rays of the Sun upon its surface and
throws them back again on to the earth. We see the rays
of the Sun reflected — we catch them with our eyes
— and the Earth, too, of course, receives These
rays from the Moon. It is the rays of the Sun which are
thus reflected, but of course the Moon permeates them
with its own forces. They come to the Earth as lunar
forces, and so they have done ever since the Moon
separated from the Earth.
Now in the Cosmos it is just this lunar forte which
strengthens and intensifies all that is earthly. Indeed,
when the Moon was united with the Earth, the Earth itself
was far more living, fruiting, inherently fertile. When
the Moon was still one with the Earth there was nothing
so mineral as we have to-day. Even now, alter its
severance, the Moon works so as to intensify the normal
vitality of the Earth, which is still just enough to
bring about the growth in living creatures. The Moon
intensifies it, thus enhancing the growth process to the
point of reproduction.
Whenever a being grows, it becomes larger. In this
process the very same force is at work as in
reproduction. Only in growth it does not go so far as to
bring forth a fresh being of the same species. It brings
forth cell upon cell. That is a feebler reproductive
process — one that remains within the limits of the
single entity. What we commonly call reproduction is an
enhanced growth-process.
Now the Earth by itself is still just able to transmit
that feeble reproductive process which growth represents;
but it has no power, without the Moon's assistance, to
produce the enhanced growth process of reproduction. Here
it requires the cosmic forces shining in upon the Earth
through the Moon — and, in the case of certain
plants, through Mercury and Venus too. As I said, people
commonly imagine that the Moon merely receives the Sun's
rays and throws. them down on to the Earth. In
considering the Moon's effect they only think of the
Sunlight; but that is not the only thing that comes to
the Earth.
With the Moon's rays the whole reflected Cosmos comes on
to the Earth. All influences that pour on to the Moon are
rayed back again. Thus the whole starry Heavens—though
we may not be able to prove it by the customary physical
methods of to-day—are in a sense rayed back on to
the Earth by the Moon. It is indeed a strong and
powerfully organising cosmic force which the Moon rays
down into the plant, so that the seeding process of the
plant may also be assisted; so that the force of growth
may be enhanced into the force of reproduction.
However, all this is only there for a given district of
the Earth when it is Full Moon. When it is new Moon, the
country does not enjoy the benefit of the
Moon-influences. It only holds fast in the plants, during
the new Moon, what they received at the Full Moon.
Indeed, we should attain important results if we only
tried to see what progress we could make by using the
Moon, let us say, in sowing — i.e. for the
very earliest germinating activity within the Earth. So
the old Indians used to do until the nineteenth century.
They also sowed according to the phases of the Moon.
However, Nature is not so cruel as to punish man
forthwith for his slight inattention and discourtesy to
the Moon in sowing and in reaping. We have the Full Moon
twelve times a year, and that is adequate for a
sufficiency of the full-Moon influences, i.e. of
the forces that quicken the fruiting process. If on any
occasion we perform what tends to fertilisation, not at
the full Moon but at the new, it will simply wait in the
Earth till the next full Moon. So it gets over our human
errors and takes its cue from great Nature.
This is sufficient for men to make use of the Moon all
unawares. But that is all — and we get no farther
along these lines. Treated in this way, the weeds will
demand their rights just as much as the vegetables, and
everything grows confused, for we are strangers to the
forces that regulate growth. We must first enter into
them. Then we shall know that by using the fully evolved
Moon-force we work for the reproduction of all vegetable
life, i.e. for that which shoots up from the root,
right up into the seed-formation. Thus we shall get the
strongest of weeds if we let the kind Moon work down upon
them — if we do nothing to arrest its influence
upon our weeds. For there are wet years when the
Moon-forces work more than in the dry. The weeds will
then reproduce themselves and increase greatly.
If on the other hand, we reckon with these cosmic forces,
then we shall say to ourselves: We must contrive to check
the full influence of the Moon upon the weeds. That is to
say, we must only let work upon them the influences
coming from without — not the Moon influences, but
those that work directly. Then we shall set a Limit to
the propagation of the weeds; they will be unable to
reproduce themselves. Now we cannot “switch off”
the Moon. Therefore we “ treat the soil in such a
way that the earth is disinclined to receive the lunar
influences. Indeed, not only the earth, but the plants;
too (i.e. the weeds) can thus become disinclined
to receive the lunar influences. We can make the weeds
reluctant, in a sense, to grow in earth which has thus
been treated. If we attain this end, we have all that we
need.
You see the weeds growing rampant in a given year. You
must accept the fact. Do not be alarmed; say to yourself:
Something must now be done. So now you gather a number of
seeds of the weed in question. For in the seed the force
of which I have just spoken has reached its final
culmination. Now light a flame — a simple wood
flame is best — and burn the seeds. Carefully
gather all the resulting ash. You get comparatively
little ash, but that does not matter. Quite literally,
for the plants thus treated by letting their seeds pass
through the fire and turn to ash, you will have
concentrated in the ash the very opposite force to that
which is developed in attracting the Moon-forces.
Now use the tiny amount of substance you have thus
prepared from a variety of weeds, and scatter it over
your fields. You need not take especial care in doing so,
for these things work in a wide circumference. Already in
the second year you will see, there is far less of the
kind of weed you have thus treated. It no longer grows as
rampantly. Moreover, many things in Nature being subject
to a cycle of four years, after the fourth year you will
see, if you continue sprinkling the pepper year by year,
the weed will have ceased to exist on the field in
question. Here, in fact, you will make fruitful the
“effects of smallest entities,” which have
now been scientifically proven in our Biological
Institute.
Much might be attained in this way. Quite generally
speaking, you have far-reaching possibilities if you
really reckon on these influences which remain
unconsidered nowadays. Thus, for the dandelion which you
need as I explained yesterday, you can perfectly well
plant it where you want it, and use the dandelion-seed.
Repeat this fire-process with it, prepare your little
pepper and scatter it over the fields. Then you will have
the dandelions where you want them, and at the same time
keep the fields, thus treated with burnt dandelion, free
of the dandelion plant.
People to-day will not believe it; such things were known
and mastered once upon a time by an instinctive farming
wisdom. They could plant together, in circumscribed
areas, whatever they wanted to have. They knew of these
things instinctively.
In all these matters, I can only give indications, but as
you see, these indications are capable of direct
practical application. And as there is still the
prevailing judgment — I will not call it prejudice
that all things must be subsequently verified, good and
well! Set to work and try to verify them. If you do the
experiments rightly, you will soon see them confirmed. If
I had a farm, however, I should not wait to see them
verified. I should apply the method at once, for I am
sure that it will work. So it is for me.
Spiritual-scientific truths are true in themselves, we
need not have them confirmed by other circumstances or by
external methods.
Our scientists have all made this mistake of looking to
external methods to verify these truths. In the
Anthroposophical Society, too, our scientists have done
so. They at least should have known better; they should
have known that a thing can be true in itself. However,
to get anywhere nowadays we must always verify things
externally. It is no doubt a necessary compromise; in
principle it is not necessary. One knows of these things
inwardly. They stand inherently, by their own quality —
that is how one knows them.
To take another illustration. Suppose I have something
manufactured by fifty workers. I say to myself: I want to
produce three times as much, therefore I will employ 150.
Now comes a clever fellow and declares, I do not believe
that 150 workers will produce three times as much; you
must first put it to the test. Let us suppose you make
the experiment. You get your work done — whatever
it may be — first by one, then by two and then by
three people, and now you tell statistically how much the
three get done between them. Well, if so be they spent
their time in chattering, they may have done even less
than the one worker. Your premiss is wrong; your
experiment has proved the opposite. But it proves nothing
in reality. If you are working exactly, you must consider
the other case with equal exactitude. If you do so,
whatever is inherently true will beyond doubt be
outwardly confirmed.
Thus we can speak, more in general terms, of the harmful
plants or vegetable pests of the field. But we can no
longer speak so generally when we come to the animal
pests. Let me choose one example — a characteristic
instance, whereon you can make your experiments and see
how these things are confirmed in practice.
There is a very good friend of the farmer — the
field-mouse. What do they not try to do to fight against
it! Read of it in the agricultural text-books. To begin
with, all manner of phosphorus preparations were used;
then, other things, such as the “Strychnine-Saccharine”
preparations. Nay, an even more radical method has been
proposed, namely, to infect the field-mice with typhus.
Certain bacilli, harmful only to rodents, are added to
mashed potatoes and the bait is distributed. Such things
have also been done — at least, they have been
recommended.
So they try to get at these happy, simple-looking little
creatures in untold ways — by methods which do not
look very humane, to say the least. They try to attack
the mice once they are there. I think even the State is
being set in motion. When you attack the mice in this
way, it is no good unless the neighbouring farmer also
does so, for they only come back from the neighbouring
field; and so the State must be called in to see that
everyone is compelled to drive the mice away by standard
methods. The State will have no modifications. It makes
its regulations once for all. Once it has judged a method
right — no matter whether it is so or not —
it decrees that everyone must do it. It issues general
regulations.
All these are mere external rulings and experiments at
random, and one has an underlying feeling: the
experimenters themselves are not quite happy about it.
For in the end the mice always come back again. What we
need to do in this case is also not quite applicable on a
single estate by itself, though to some extent it may
help even then. It will not be very easy to carry out.
One will have to work towards a general insight, so that
one's neighbours too will do it. (I venture to say that
in the future we must look far more to intelligent
insight than to police regulations. That will be progress
in our social life).
And now, imagine that you do the following: You catch a
fairly young mouse and skin it, so as to get the skin.
There you have the skin of a fairly young mouse. (There
are always enough mice albeit, they must be field-mice
if you wish to make this experiment). But you must obtain
this skin of the field-mouse at a time when Venus is in
the sign of Scorpio.
Those people of olden time, you see, were not so stupid
with their instinctive science! Now that we are passing
from plants to animals, we come to the “animal
circle” — that is, the “Zodiac.”
It was not called so in a meaningless way. To attain our
end within the plant world we can stop at the planetary
system. For the animal world, that is not enough. There
we need ideal that reckon with the surrounding sphere of
the fixed stars, notably the fixed stars of the Zodiac.
Moreover, in the growth of plants the Moon-influence is
well nigh sufficient to bring about the reproductive
process. In the animal kingdom, on the other hand, the
Moon-influence must be supported by that of Venus. Nay,
for the animal kingdom the Moon influence does not need
to be considered very much. For the animal kingdom
conserves the lunar forces; it emancipates itself from
the Moon. The Moon-force is developed in the animal
kingdom even when it does not happen to be full Moon. The
animal carries the force of the full Moon within it,
conserves it, and so emancipates itself from limitations
of time.
This does not apply to what we here have to do; it does
not apply to the other planetary forces. For you must do
something quite definite with the mouse-skin. At the time
when Venus is in Scorpio, you obtain the skin of the
mouse and burn it. Carefully collect the ash and the
other constituents that remain over from the burning. It
will not be much, but if you have a number of mice, it is
enough. You can easily get enough.
Thus you obtain your burned mouse-skin at the time when
Venus is in Scorpio. And there remain, in what is thus
destroyed by the fire, the corresponding negative force
as against the reproductive power of the field-mouse.
Take the pepper you get in this way, and sprinkle it over
your fields. In some districts it may be difficult to
carry out; then you can afford to do it even more
homoeopathically; you do not need a whole plateful.
Provided it has been led through the fire at the high
conjunction of Venus and Scorpio, you will find this an
excellent remedy. Henceforth, your mice will avoid the
field. No doubt they are cheeky little beasts; they will
soon come out again if the pepper has been so sprinkled
that a few areas remain unpeppered in the neighbourhood.
There they will settle down again. Undoubtedly the
influence of it rays out far and wide; nevertheless, it
may not have been done quite thoroughly. But the effect
will certainly be radical if the same is done in the
whole neighbourhood.
I venture to think that you will have considerable
pleasure in such things. You may begin to find your
farming very tasty — like certain dishes are when
they have been a little peppered. So we begin really to
reckon with the influences of the stars without becoming
superstitious in the least. Many things afterwards became
mere superstition, which were originally knowledge. You
cannot warm-up the old superstitions. You must make a
fresh start with genuine knowledge. This knowledge,
however, must be gained in a spiritual way — not
through the mere physical world-of-the-senses.
This is the way to treat the earth, if you have to combat
field vermin which can be reckoned in any sense among the
higher animals. Mice are rodents; they are included among
the higher animals. But you will not do much with the
insects in this way. Insects are subject to different
cosmic influences. Indeed, all the lower animals are
subject to different cosmic influences than the higher
animals. And now for once allow me to tread upon thin ice
and mention the nematode of the root crops as an
example; so you will have something near at hand.
The so-called “beginning” of the disease is
seen in the well known swellings of the rootlet and in
the limpness of the leaves in the morning. That is the
external sign. Now we must remember that this middle part
(it is the leaves that here suffer a change) absorbs the
cosmic influences from the air; whereas the roots absorb
those forces which come into the plants from the cosmos
via the Earth.
What happens now, when the nematode appears? The
absorption of cosmic forces which should normally be
going on in the region of the leaves is pressed downward,
into a region where it eventually comes near to the
roots. Diagrammatically speaking, we may say, if this be the surface of the earth, and this
the plant, then — in the nematode-infested plant —
the cosmic forces which should be working up above are
working down here below. This is the real phenomenon.
Certain cosmic forces are sliding too far down. Hence,
too, the outward appearance of the plant. But this too
gives the animal the power to receive within the earth,
where it must live, the cosmic forces upon which its life
depends. For it would otherwise have to be living in the
leaves. (The nematode is a wire-like worm). But it cannot
live up there, for the earth is its natural domain.
Some living creatures, nay, all living creatures have
this peculiarity: they can only live within certain
limits of existence. You try to live in an air whose
temperature is seventy degrees centigrade, hot or cold,
above or below zero. You cannot do it. You depend on a
certain temperature. Above and beneath this level you can
no longer live. Nor can the nematode. It cannot live if
the earth is not there, nor can it live unless the cosmic
forces are there at the same time. Otherwise it would
have to die out. Thus, for each living creature, there
are quite definite conditions. The human race too would
die out if it were not for certain conditions.
Now for the creatures that evolve in this particular way,
it is important for the cosmic element which normally
makes itself felt only in the Earth's surrounding sphere,
to come right down into the Earth. Moreover, these
influences take place in periods of four years. The
nematode is something highly abnormal. To recognise its
nature, we might equally well investigate the
cockchafer-grubs which come in cycles of four years. The
forces are the same in both cases. The very same forces
which give the Earth the tendency to unfold the
potato-seedling — these forces the Earth also
receives for the formation of the cockchafer-grubs, which
occur with the potatoes every four years. Wherever this
is so, we have a four years' cycle. Though it does not
apply to the nematode itself, it certainly applies to
what we must do in counteracting it.
In this case you do not take part of the insect as you do
with the mouse. You must take the entire insect. An
insect like this, which settles harmfully in the
plant-root, is altogether an outcome of cosmic
influences; it only needs the Earth as its underlying
basis. Therefore you must burn the whole insect. It is
best to burn it; that is the quickest way. You might also
let it decay; possibly this would be even more thorough,
only it is difficult to collect the products of decay.
But you will certainly attain what you need by burning
the whole insect.
Now it is necessary to perform this operation when the
Sun is in the sign of Taurus. (If need be, you can keep
the insect and burn t when the time comes). This, you
sec, is precisely the opposite of the constellation in
which Venus must be when you prepare your mouse-skin
pepper. In effect, the insect world is connected with the
forces that evolve when the Sun is passing through
Aquarius, Pisces, Aries and Gemini and on to Cancer. In
Cancer it appears quite feebly, and it is feeble again
when you come to Aquarius. It is while passing through
these regions that the Sun rays out the forces which
relate to the insect world.
People are unaware what a specialised thing the Sun is.
The Sun is not really the same when in the course of a
year or a day it shines on to the Earth from Taurus, or
from Cancer, or the other constellations. In each case it
is different. It is comparative nonsense to speak of the
Sun in general terms — albeit, pardonable nonsense.
We should really speak of Aries-Sun, Taures-Sun,
Cancer-Sun, Sun, and so on. For the Sun is a different
being in each case. moreover, the resultant influence
depends both on the daily course on the yearly course of
the Sun, as determined by its position in vernal point.
If you do this — if you thus prepare your
insect-pepper — once again you can spread it out
over the beet-fields, and the nematode will by and by
grow faint — a faintness you will certainly find
very effective after the fourth year. For by that time
the nematode can no longer live. It shuns life if it has
to live in an earth thus peppered.
In a strange way we come again to what was formerly
described as “Wisdom of the Stars.” Modern
astronomy serves as a mere mathematical orientation, nor
can we put it to any other use. It was not so in former
ages. Time was when they saw in the stars something from
which they could take their direction for earthly life
and work. Such science is utterly lost to-day.
In this way, therefore, we can also hold the animal pests
at bay. It is important for us to come into relation to
the Earth in this way. We must be aware of these things.
On the one hand, it is right that the Earth should
receive the faculty to bring forth plant-life out of
itself. This faculty the Earth receives, as we have seen,
mainly through the Moon- and watery-influences. But that
which is in the plant — nay, that which is in every
living being — also carries within it the seed of
its own annihilation.
Just as water on the one hand is a sine qua non of
all fertility, so on the other hand, fire is an absolute
destroyer of fertility. Fire consumes fertility.
Therefore, if you treat by fire in the proper way that
which is normally treated by water to bring about
fertility in the plant-world, you will bring about
destruction — annihilation in the household of
Nature. These are the things you must consider. A seed
will develop fertility far and wide through the
Moon-saturated water; likewise a seed will develop forces
of annihilation far and wide through the Moon-saturated
fire — and altogether, through the
cosmically-saturated fire, as we have seen in the last
example.
After all, our reckoning upon this great force of
dispersal (while pointing out the precise effects of time
in the process) need not seem utterly strange to you. The
force of the seed always works in dispersal and
expansion. Hence, in the force of annihilation too, it
works far and wide. Expansive power lies inherent in
seed-nature. It is the very property of the seed to have
this power of dispersal; so, too, the pepper we prepare
in this way has a real expansive power. (I only call it
pepper on account of its appearance. The preparations
generally look like pepper).
It only remains for us to consider so-called plant
diseases. Properly speaking, we cannot really say
“plant diseases.” The rather abnormal
processes which occur as plant-diseases are not diseases
in the same sense as in animal diseases. (We shall
understand the difference more exactly when we come to
the animal kingdom). Notably, they are not at all the
same kind of process as in human diseases.
Properly speaking, disease is not possible without the
presence of an astral body. In an animal or human being,
the astral body is connected with the physical through
the ethereal. There is a certain normal condition. The
astral body may be connected more intensely with
the physical (or with any one of its organs) than it
should normally be. In such a case, the ether-body falls
to provide a sufficient cushioning or “padding,”
and the astral body drives into the physical too
strongly. It is under these conditions that most of our
illnesses arise.
Now the plant has in it no real astral body. Hence the
specific way of being which can occur in the animal and
in the human being, does not occur in the plant. We must
be well aware of this fact. Thus we must first gain an
insight into the question, what is it that can bring
about illness of plants?
You will have seen, from my descriptions, how the whole
earth in the plant's environment has an inherent life of
its own. With all this life in the Earth — albeit
not so intensely as to bring forth plant forms, yet
nevertheless with some intensity — manifold forces
of growth and faint suggestions of reproductive forces
are present all around the plant. Moreover, there is all
that which is working in the Earth under the influence of
the full-Moon forces, mediated by the water. Here is a
wealth of significant relationships.
You have the Earth — the Earth which is filled with
water — and you have the Moon. The Moon, letting
its radiations pour into the Earth, makes it to some
extent alive in itself; awakens waves and weavings of the
ethereal within the Earth. It does so more easily when
the earth is saturated with water, and with greater
difficulty when the earth is dry. You must remember, the
water is only a mediator. It is the earth itself —
the solid, mineral element — which must be made
alive. The water, too, is mineral. There is of course no
hard-and-fast line. Thus we must have the lunar
influences in the soil.
Now the Moon-influences in the soil can also become too
strong. This can happen in a very simple way. You need
only call to wind a thoroughly wet winter, followed by a
thoroughly wet spring. Then the Moon-forces will enter
the earth too strongly. The earth will become too much
alive. Once more, you will have an over intense
vitalisation of the earth. I will indicate it by making
little red dots where the earth is too strongly vitalised by the
Moon. If the little red dots were not there — if
the earth were not over-vitalised by the Moon —
plant-life would grow upon it, developing normally up to
the seed: corn, for instance, growing upward to the seed.
If the Moon imparts precisely the right vitality to the
earth, this vitality will work on and upward till the
seed develops. Assume now that the Moon-influence is too
strong; the earth is too much vitalised. Then it will
work too strongly from below upward. That which should
only occur in the seed-formation will occur at an earlier
stage. Precisely when it is too strong, it will be
insufficient to reach to the top. Through its very
intensity, it will work itself out more in the lower
regions. As a result of the strong Moon influence, the
seed-formation proper will have insufficient power.
The seed receives something of dying life into itself,
and through this dying life there arises, as it were,
above the soil — above the primary level of the
earth — a secondary level. Although it is not
earth, the same effects are there — above the
proper level — and, as a consequence, the seed (the
upper part of the plant) becomes a kind of soil for other
organisms. Parasites and fungoid growths arise all manner
of fungoid growths.
Thus we see the forming of mildew, blight, rust, and
similar diseases. The over-intense Moon-influence
prevents what should work upward from the earth from
reaching the necessary level. The true force of fertility
depends upon the Moon's influence being normal. It must
not be too intense. It may seem strange, but it is
so: this result is brought about, not by a weakening but
by an over intensity of the Moon-forces. If we merely
theorised about it instead of looking at the process, we
might reach the opposite conclusion, but we should be
wrong. Perception shows it as I have now described it.
What, then, should we do?
We must somehow relieve the earth of the excessive
Moon-force that is in it. And we can do so. We need only
perceive what works in the earth so as to deprive the
water of its mediating power; so as to lend the earth
more “earthiness” and prevent it from
absorbing the excessive Moon-influences through the water
it contains. We can achieve this result. Outwardly, it
all remains just as it is. But we now prepare a kind of
tee or decoction — a pretty concentrated decoction
of equisetum arvense. This we dilute, and sprinkle it as liquid manure over the
fields, wherever we need it — wherever we want to
combat rust or similar plant-diseases. Here again, very
Small quantities are sufficient — a homoeopathic
dose is quite enough.
Once more you see how the several fields of life work
into one another. Understand the strange influence which
equisetum arvense has upon the human organism through the
function of the kidneys, and you will have your guiding
live. Needless to say, you cannot merely speculate.
Nevertheless, you have a guiding line, and you will now
investigate how equisetum works when you transform it as
described, into a kind of liquid manure, and sprinkle it
over the fields. You need no special apparatus. It will
work far and wide, even if you only sprinkle a very
little, and you will find it an excellent remedy.
Strictly speaking, it is not a medicament, for in the
true sense of the word a plant cannot be diseased. It is
not a healing process in the proper sense; it is simply
the opposite process to the one I described.
So you must learn to see into the workings of Nature in
all her different domains. Then you will really take the
processes of growth in hand. (We shall afterwards see the
same for animal growth — animal normalities and
abnormalities). To get the growth-processes in hand —
that is the really important thing. To experiment at
random on these matters, as is done to-day, is no real
science. The mere jotting-down of isolated notes and
facts — that is no science.
Real science only arises when you begin to control the
working forces. But the living plants and animals —
even the parasites in the plants — can never be
understood by themselves. What I said in our first lesson
when I referred to the magnet-needle is only too true.
Anyone who thought of the magnet-needle alone —
anyone who looked in the magnet-needle itself for the
causes of its always turning northward — would be
talking nonsense. We do not do so; on the contrary, we
take the whole Earth and assign to it a magnetic North
Pole and a magnetic South. The whole Earth must be
included in our explanation.
Just as we draw in the whole Earth to understand the
properties of the magnet-needle, so, when we come to the
living plants, we must not merely look at the plant or
animal or human world; we must summon all the Universe
into our counsels! Life always proceeds from the entire
Universe — not only out of what the Earth provides.
Nature is a great totality; forces are working from
everywhere. He alone can understand Nature who has an
open sense for the manifest working of her forces.
What does science do nowadays? It takes a little plate
and lays a preparation on it, carefully separates it off
and peers into it, shutting off an every side whatever
might be working into it. We call it a “microscope.”
It is the very opposite of what we should do to gain a
relationship to the wide spaces. No longer content to
shut ourselves off in a room, we shut ourselves off in
this microscope tube from all the glory of the world.
Nothing must now remain but what we focus in our field of
vision.
By and by it has come to this: scientists always have
recourse, more or less, to their microscope. We, however,
must find our way out again into the macrocosm. Then we
shall once more begin to understand Nature — and
other things too.
Notes:
1. Phylloxera vastatrix.
2. Mare's-tail, horse-tail, shave-grass.