The Lectures of Rudolf Steiner

Man and Earth in North and South

Lecture Given to Workers at the First Goetheanum

GA 351

Dornach, October 13, 1923

Man and Earth in the North and South Forms of snow crystals and the formation of ice flowers. Difference between people of the hot zone and the Eskimos. The Eskimos have large lungs and small livers proportionally to their bodies and the people of the hot zone have small lungs and large livers proportionally. Blood poisoning due to the anger. Belly colds. Liver diseases. Sun activity promotes liver activity. Lunar forces act in the lungs. Cause of lung diseases. Juices from the leaves of certain cabbages can do certain lung activities. Juice from the root of Cichorium intybus can take over liver activity. Everywhere the sun shines in, life becomes; everywhere the moon works in, figures, images are formed. Earth electricity and northern light.

Good morning, gentlemen! Perhaps something particularly struck you about the last lecture, so that you would like to add a question?

Questioner: Yesterday Mr. Seefeld showed me a photograph of snowflakes. The forms come from the universe. It interested me very much, that there is a connection. This has already given me further food for thought [and would like to know more].

Dr. Steiner: I will try to present this to you in context, especially because it will be easy to connect it to what we discussed last Monday. I have often pointed out to you that man is a very complicated being. You can see this not so much in the outer appearance of the human being, but in the inner being of the human being, also in the physical inner being of the human being. For example, I can draw your attention to the fact that in the regions where the so-called hot zone is, where the largest part of the year is warm and actually only a very short rainy winter alternates with the warmth — let's say in southern Egypt, or let's say in India — that there the people actually look quite different in their inner being than where it is constantly cold, for example in the regions which are close to the North Pole. Areas that are close to the North Pole have a lot of what you have just asked about; they have a lot of the forces that express themselves in the beautiful forms of snowflakes.

So that we can say: We have on the earth such regions, which are strongly warmed by the sun and illuminated by the sun, where the sun has a great influence, and we have regions, where the sun has actually little influence, where therefore snow, ice prevails. - You know that not only the snowflakes have beautiful, all kinds of beautiful forms — the snowflakes have first of all such forms, which go to the hexagon, but also all kinds of such forms (see drawing below) — but you have certainly already looked at the window in winter, when the ice is there, the water freezes, which otherwise covers the whole window surface as a haze; there you have seen what beautiful flowers form, beautiful figures, into which the water forms.

So that we can say: The water, which is the basis of the snow as well as of the ice — because when it gets warm again, the snow as well as the ice melts to water, — that forms the most beautiful figures, if the sun has not quite power. Of course, they can't be inside the water. For something that forms its own figure from itself retains its figure. They all have a figure. But you can't say of the human figure that you all only have the human figure in pictures, which, when the sun comes, melts away. That would be bad too, it doesn't. The water does not have this figure in itself, it comes from outside.

Now we want to investigate once, where the water got this figure, which causes these beautiful pictures both with the snow crystal and with the ice flowers. That is then the answer to your question.

If one asks such a question, one must always be able to consider the whole human being. Now there are two organs in man; they are different in a man where the sun has a great power all year round, as in the hot regions of southern Egypt and India. The inner shape of these organs differs in these people from those people where it is cold, so to speak, all year round, where there is always such a tendency in nature to form snow crystals and ice flowers, as in the case of the Eskimos. They live up there, where always actually snow and ice want to be, where the water melts little. But now let's look at the outside. People will say: Well, the people in the hot regions are perhaps a little bigger on the outside; but the Eskimos, they are small people. - But that is not what makes the difference, but the great difference between the people of the hot zone and the Eskimos, the people of the cold zone, lies in the difference of their liver formation and their lung formation.

The Eskimos have large lungs and small livers in proportion to their bodies, and the people in the hot zone have smaller lungs and large livers in proportion. So you see, people in areas where ice flowers are formed, ice crystals are formed, differ from the others in that they have a small liver and a large lung in proportion to their body. And in people where nature does not have the tendency to form such figures, but where the sun always melts everything, takes everything away, there is the peculiarity that they have a relatively small lung and a large liver. We must always, when we ask about something in nature, thus also about the ice flowers, look at the human being. If you don't start from the human being, you don't understand anything in nature, nothing at all.

So the thing is this: The liver in humans is a very important organ. If man had no liver, he would have no bile, because the liver secretes bile continuously. The bile comes from the liver, passes into the gall bladder, from there into the digestive juices, from there into the blood and then passes into the whole body. So that we can say: Man has in the right side the liver; from the liver the bile runs out into the gall bladder, from there into the blood, passes into the whole body. - So that man actually has his liver for the secretion of bile.

You may now ask: Yes, why does this bile continually come out of the liver? — Gentlemen, if you had no bile, you would be strange people. Of course, it is distributed in very small quantities, but it must be in the whole body. If you had no bile, you would be terrible phlegmatics; you would hang your hands, your arms, your head, and it would be repugnant to you if you had to give someone a word in reply and so on. So you would be quite limp, phlegmatic people if you didn't have bile. Man must have bile; bile must come from the liver. And if the liver is relatively small, then man becomes phlegmatic (a slow and unemotional temperament); if the liver is relatively large, then man has a lot of fire in him, because bile makes fire. And you see, there can also be too much bile in a person, he can produce too much bile; then he actually has the desire, if you only say a little something to him, to knock you down a few. Especially in the case of irascible (having a hot temper and easily provoked anger) people, bile flows out of the liver diligently; there a lot of bile flows over into the food juice and into the blood. So that when you observe inwardly the person to whom you say something or who doesn't like something that makes a particular impression on him--a lot of bile flows out of the liver and spreads very quickly throughout the whole body, and he knocks you down a few, or he scolds you like a sparrow. This is what you observe internally when a person has too much tendency to secrete bile. But as I said, if he did not secrete any bile at all, he would not have any fire at all, but would sleep along as I told you. So you see, the secretion of bile is something that absolutely belongs to the secretion of man. I don't know if any of you have tasted bile: it tastes terribly bitter, really poisonous, and a larger amount of bile taken in through the mouth is also a poison. This is related to what I told you last Wednesday.

I told you last Wednesday: When man 'comes alive', moves, walks, even if he scolds you and knocks you down a few, there is so much poison that he has the tendency to produce much of the cyanide of which I spoke to you there. He must mix that with the blood. I have known many cases where people have gotten internal blood poisoning simply because of their anger. One can get so angry, especially if one gets angry quickly, that through this anger one secretes a superfluous amount of bile - actually first a lot of cyanide, then bile. Then you get a terrible poison mixture into the blood, and that's where you ruin the blood. There comes a terrible blood poisoning from the anger. From this you see how necessary and how harmful can be in man what any organ of his body does. For everything that happens is connected with the soul. Anger is something spiritual, the secretion of bile is something physical; but there is nothing in man that is not spiritual at the same time, and everything spiritual has somehow a physical form.

Let's go further. Now, let's say a person is very often exposed to what is often called colds, namely stomach colds. So a person gets stomach colds very often; then his stomach says: Yes, I am like an Eskimo, I am like in the cold region of the earth. - And then it happens that the abdomen continuously contracts the liver, so that it is small like the Eskimo. So, when a person has a lot of stomach colds, his liver contracts, and then it squeezes out bile. Bile continuously trickles into the gall bladder and from there into the body.

Now, gentlemen, you have all experienced what is called, for example, over-lifting. You lift something that is too heavy for you; you tear your muscles apart, you destroy your muscles. If you use too much force for any organ, you destroy the organ. But it is like that with the liver. If it keeps on secreting too much bile, then the liver gradually shrinks and becomes unfit for use. So most of the liver diseases that man gets are caused by the fact that man has got the tendency to secrete too much bile due to abdominal colds and that his liver atrophies as a result. Liver diseases come from abdominal colds due to shrinkage of the liver. Of course, there are all kinds of other conditions. When a person has abdominal colds, the heart does not work properly. Then the doctors say that the liver diseases come from the heart. But in reality they come from the fact that the belly caught cold.

But all this — you can already gather from what I have told you — has to do with the sun. Therefore, it is always very good, if one is suffering from stomach colds, to expose his abdomen to the light. There, for example, the sun cure is extraordinarily good. So we have to say: Everything that is connected with the liver is also connected with the sun. Sun activity promotes liver activity. Lack of sun activity disrupts liver activity. It is a very interesting connection between the sun and the liver.

I have always admired that the word 'liver' exists in the German language. All other languages do not have such a nice word for this organ on the right side of the abdomen. Because after what I have now explained to you, we must say that fire, even that which comes to man from the sun, this invigorating firepower, must first be prepared in the liver for man; then the bile must be prepared for him, which then passes into his body. The sun prepares the bile in man. We call what man does "living", and he who cheers on this life can be called "a liver". Just as one says: car, wagner, drawing, draughtsman, (Wagen, Wagner, Zeichnen, Zeichner)* so 'live' is the verb, and liver, "the liver" — one has only forgotten that this is so, one says "die Leber" instead of "der Leber"; actually it means the liver (der Leber) — the one whose life invigorates! The language is sometimes wonderfully instructive, because the old folk instincts always contained knowledge of it, and things were named correctly there. Liver is what fires, what enlivens people. The same can be said in relation to the liver. Well, if you have the liver in its bile secretion, then you have to say: the secretion of the liver is what is connected with the sun.

* In German these nouns are expressed in the masculine i.e. using the definite article "der" — the masculine article. By changing the article — as Dr. Steiner is describing here — with the word "liver," it changes the meaning of the word ("die leben") i.e. the liver in the body, to "das leben", one who lives. —Ed.

Now we move on to the lungs. We have discussed this many times and you also know it: the lungs breathe. But the fact that the lungs draw in oxygen, breathe, is only part of their activity. The lungs have something else to do. Just as the liver secretes bile, the lungs secrete what is called mucus. So the lungs secrete the mucus. The lungs can no more keep within themselves what they have within themselves than the liver can. The liver could not fill itself completely with bile, the liver must give the bile to the body. But the lungs must constantly secrete mucus. And now it is so that when the lungs secrete mucus, the mucus then passes over into all other parts of the body. It goes away with the sweat, it even goes into the exhaled air, it goes away with the urine, the mucus goes everywhere. So the organ that secretes the mucus is the lungs.

Now, if you examine the air that man exhales, you will get something wonderful. You just have to examine mainly not the air exhaled from the mouth, which is too irregular; you have to examine the air exhaled from the nostrils.

It is very interesting when someone exhales quite slowly. You have to be very careful about that: If one breathes on a glass tablet, then something similar to snow is created in the breath that is exhaled. You have to do it very carefully, in such a way that, for example, if you hold your left nostril closed when you exhale, you exhale slowly only with your right nostril onto the glass tablet that you have in front of you, and then with your left. You have to breathe very slowly, because if you breathe quickly, you blur the whole thing with the blast of breath. You have to breathe very softly and gently. You have to learn that first. But then it is interesting: If you breathe through one nostril, the exhaled air creates such figures on the glass plate as with snow! There the exhaled air is not simply such a little crumb on it, but such a figure. And, I would like to say, the very interesting thing is that if you hold the left nostril closed and exhale, you get one figure; if you hold the right nostril closed and exhale, you get another figure. They are not even the same figures! So that we can say: The air out of you, out of your own human being, this air goes out in figures. It doesn't go out as drops, it goes out in figures, and even so strange that the left nostril gives another figure than the right nostril.

Now, gentlemen, that which is in the exhaled air, which, because it contains water vapor, gives these figures, which evaporate again immediately; it is the mucus which passes from the lungs into the exhaled air that forms these figures. The mucus, so to speak, sticks to the water vapor. Very tiny water droplets become stuck together to form such figures. So that in your lungs you do not simply have the tendency to exhale mucus in any shape, but you have the tendency to exhale or exhale the mucus from your lungs actually in crystals - in crystals! Only these crystals evaporate immediately, dissolve immediately, because they come to the sun.

Just as the bile is related to the sun by the liver, so the lungs are related to the moon by their secretion of mucus. We know that carbonic acid rises up into the head, as I have told you, and I have shown you that if man did not send carbonic acid up into his head, he would then become stupid. This tingling carbonic acid, which is continually brought up into the head in very small quantities, is what makes us clever people. We are all such terribly clever people, aren't we! You know, when one drinks effervescence, then it tingles; that is then to be perceived very strongly. But man always produces very weak carbonic acid. He sends it up into the head. And this tingling in the head, that makes the head lively; thereby he is clever and not stupid. Those people who are really stupid - I don't know if there are any such people - have too little strength to combine carbon with oxygen and don't send up carbon, but they combine carbon with a completely different gas. So the person who is clever combines the carbon with the oxygen: that's where the sparkling carbonic acid is produced.

But as I said, those people who are really stupid, they do not combine carbon with oxygen, but with hydrogen. So they combine carbon with hydrogen, and there is this gas that you sometimes find in pits: Pit gas, sump gas. We all send some of this mine gas into our heads; we need it, otherwise we would be too clever. So that we can always remain a little bit dull, so that we are also a little bit not eternally clever, we also develop sump gas. But those who become too stupid develop too much swamp gas. For those people who are halfway clever, the carbonic acid goes into the head. That prickles. And when then gradually a lot of swamp gas has accumulated, then they become sleepy, then sleepiness comes. This occurs at night, when a lot of swamp gas develops. Only those who are stupid develop swamp gas even when they are awake. So carbonic acid must always be up there. But the carbonic acid alone does not do it: the mucus must go from the lungs into the head. It even goes out through the nostrils in the form of crystals, just as it does in the liver and gall bladder. Well, this will be clear to you from the description I gave on Wednesday.

Just as the liver is related to the sun, now the lungs are related to the moon. Take a look at the moon. The moon is just very different from the sun. If you look at the sun, the sun is round, but it actually spreads its rays to all sides. The sun shines in all directions; it flows in all directions, just as the bile in the human body flows in all directions. One can then compare the sun in its flowing away, in its flowing apart with the flowing away of the bile. But the moon — yes, gentlemen, if you look at the moon, it always has a very definite shape. The moon is quite solid. And it is in its interior also in such a way that that which makes up the substance, the material of the moon, crystallizes, just as our exhaled air forms, which come out of the nose, are crystallized. There the lunar effects work inside, just as in the liver and gall bladder the solar effects. In the lungs the lunar forces work, and the moon causes this secretion of mucus.

Now we can say: Let's go to the hot areas, yes, then the sun works. It melts everything; people get a lot of fire. The fire doesn't have to live only in anger, but it also lives in the beautiful things and in the beautiful wisdom of zeal. People get a lot of fire. If we go to the cold regions, then in these cold regions, where the sun does not have the power to work, where especially the moon in the cold nights shines into the freezing cold, the lungs, which are relatively enlarged, must exert themselves very much: there a lot of mucus is secreted. And the one who is not used to it catches cold, he secretes too much mucus.

You see, gentlemen, now you also have the cause of lung diseases. The lungs must secrete a certain amount of mucus, just as the liver must secrete a certain amount of bile. But just as the liver ruins itself when it secretes too much bile, so the lungs ruin themselves when they secrete too much mucus. This is the case with lung diseases. There the lungs are stirred up by what they experience to secrete too much mucus. Imagine, therefore, that instead of living in a moderately humid air, you live in a very humid air: then the lungs must make a great effort. But when the lungs strain, they secrete mucus. And then the lungs begin to get sick because they breathe too much humid air and have to work too hard. And man spits when he becomes lung-sick; little by little he spits out his whole lung when he is sick too much.

One can then help the lungs by preparing a certain remedy. One may not use roots for this, but one must use the leaves of plants, prepare a certain medicine from it. This is the case, for example, with certain types of plants. If the sap is taken correctly and certain medicines are prepared, the lungs can be helped if they are too active. For such remedies have the peculiarity that they take over the lung activity; then the lung exerts itself a little less. The healing effect therefore usually consists in asking oneself: The lungs are secreting too much mucus; this is a sign that they are working too hard. Well, what do I do? I look for a plant that has a sap that can take over the lung activity.

Or I notice that the liver secretes too much bile: I look for a plant that can take over the liver's activity. For example, there is a plant called Cichorium intybus, chicory. If one prepares the juice from the root of this plant into a remedy and gives it to the person, then it takes over the liver activity, and one can then find that the person does not at first secrete less bile, that also at first his mental anger does not decrease, but that his liver gradually strengthens again and gradually the improvement occurs.

Cichorium intybus

So one helps a person by knowing that, for example, the juices of the leaves — not the roots — of certain cabbages can take over certain lung activities, and that the juice from the root of Cichorium intybus — it also grows out there, you will all know it, it has such blue flowers — is particularly beneficial for the liver.

Thus we can say: In hot regions, there the water melts; warmth, solar warmth dissolves everything. - When the sun is less active, when the sun's power is diminished or weak throughout the year, as in northern regions, then the moon becomes all the more powerful. When the direct rays of the sun do not work, these strange rays of the sun, which are reflected by the moon, work. But these produce the crystal forms and an ice flower forms.

That is very beautiful. So we can say: If we have the earth here (see drawing), then we have the hot zone here. The sun's rays have a special effect on the hot zone. — Oh, that is very beautiful, how the sun rays work there! These sunrays, they stimulate the liver activity. The liver sends bile everywhere, and the bile spreads throughout the body. And when the bile spreads, for example, into the feathers of the birds or into the wings of the hummingbirds, it becomes the beautiful colors. That's why the hummingbirds glisten in the hot zone, because their bile is secreted very quickly and goes into the feathers very quickly.

In cold regions, this is not so, the sun has little power. There the reflected sunlight, the light of the moon is particularly active, and this light causes that the snow forms crystals, that the ice gives the ice flowers. In our country this only happens when the sun loses its power in winter. But in the regions of eternal ice, at the North Pole or on the high mountains, these beautiful forms of ice are formed because the sun also has no power, because the sun can only develop power in the dense air.

We get a wonderful impression just by looking into nature! We get the impression that wherever the sun shines, life grows, life that melts and evaporates, that spreads. Wherever the moon has an effect, forms and images arise. That's a powerful impression you get there. And you can only see through these things if you can go into the spiritual. It is really the case that one has to say: In the lungs, where the human being actually produces the mucus, the Moon forces are also at work there. And they work by not using the direct sunlight, but using the reflected sunlight. Therefore, when the moon forces are mainly active here in the north, and the sun turns off, then something else occurs; then the air over there becomes such that something that is always here in the earth comes out. Magnetism and electricity are everywhere in the earth.

The earth is whole; full of magnetism and electricity. You can see from this that there is magnetism and electricity everywhere on earth: If you have a telegraph machine at a station (it is drawn - see above image) — for example, if it is in Dornach — then let's say you have one here in Basel; you can wire into it; but one can only telegraph where a wire goes. Electricity has to go through the wire, not through the air; only then can one telegraph. But that's not enough if you set up a telegraph machine here and one in Basel, and pull a wire — you need the machine! You could telegraph as long as you want with the button: You would get to Basel, but you have to connect back again, it has to be a closed stream (circuit). And if you do that, then you can telegraph here, and the characters will then arrive there. You know — I'm only describing this for the sake of completeness —: here is a piece of paper wrapped around it, and when a point presses on this piece of paper, either a dot or a line is created, if you press for a long time, and then it's made of dots and lines composed of the telegraphic alphabet, a • - , b - • • • , c - • - •.

But the strange thing is: You don't need this second wire if you lead a wire from the apparatus into the earth and put a copper plate in there, and put a plate in there again; you can then put the wire away, because then there is a connection. Why? Because the earth itself has electricity and from one plate to the other the electricity is conducted. The earth itself replaces the wire with its own substance. Because the earth is full of electricity. But when the sun shines on the earth, as at the equator, in the hot region, this electricity, when it wants to come out into the air, is immediately destroyed. The sunlight is a force that extinguishes the electricity. But where the sun's action is weak, the electricity goes up, into the air, and you see it as it is above the earth. You see, gentlemen, the aurora borealis is the electric power of the earth, which emanates under the influence of the lunar forces. Therefore, the northern lights are very rare in our regions; but they are frequent, almost always there in northern regions.

There is again such a point where science cannot go on at a certain point. Of course, this science knows today that the earth is full of electricity. This science also always looks at the northern lights. But if you read in the books what this northern light actually is, people always believe that this is something which flows in from the world onto the earth. But this is a nonsense, it does not stream in, but it streams straight out! What science is doing with the Northern Lights is so interesting because it is the same as when someone confuses their debt with their capital. That's the way it is. It makes a difference in human life, doesn't it, to confuse debt with wealth. But science can do that with impunity, can see the northern lights as streaming in from the world, when in reality the northern lights are streaming out from the earth.

But in the hot regions, it is immediately received by the sunlight, and then it is extinguished. In the northern regions, the moonlight is especially active when it shines; and when it is not shining, it remains active in the aftermath, and there the Northern Lights, the emanating electricity, become visible. Well, these northern lights are particularly strong there because the lunar forces are particularly strong. There is actually a bit of northern lights everywhere, but you can't see it because it's faint. In our area, the northern lights, that is, the electricity that flows out, is also weak. But in wireless telegraphy it is strong enough to work. What is at work in wireless telegraphy is the same as what is seen shining in the northern lights. There you have it. Electricity combined with moonlight makes the frost flowers and snow crystals. You must study the northern lights and moonlight if you want to study the ice crystals, frost flowers, and snow crystals. Because in winter the sun's power is less, the moon's power gains the upper hand and electricity is less extinguished in our country, the snow is shaped into such beautiful crystals. It is the moon and electricity together that forms the beautiful crystals that cause the frost flowers.

Now I have told you, just remember: If one has too little moon activity, if one develops too much swamp gas in his head, then he becomes, as the vernacular says, a "Sumser", that means a fool. And there he develops too little moon power in himself. Well, what must one then have in his head? You have to get everything that comes from the moon, the carbonic acid from breathing, the mucus from the lungs, you have to get it into your head, that is, a force that wants to form crystals in your head all the time. Snow, gentlemen, wants to form continuously in our head; we only dissolve it again and again. But it wants to form. Think, gentlemen, you actually all have a very strange organ in your brains. Namely, when Mr. Seefeld showed Mr. Burle these beautiful snow crystal figures, he was interested in them, and he thought to himself: That must be interesting, what kind of connection there actually is. — Yes, Mr. Burle photographed these snow crystals inside himself! It's like taking a very quick photograph, and what appears quickly disappears when you exhale through your nostrils. If you could take a quick photograph of what's going on in Mr. Burle's head, or in all your heads, you would find the same photographs. Pieces like this would form from snow crystals, from frost flowers, window flowers; they could be photographed by your ether heads and they would be the same! Your head is a very strange thing. If you had such a photographic apparatus, which does not yet exist - you would have to do it terribly quickly, because it always dissolves immediately - you would find: In our brains we look like a really nice piece of snow or what a pretty, pretty ice flower window! - It has to disappear again immediately, otherwise they would sting us, these pointed crystals, we wouldn't think with them.

So that when we look out at the snow, or when we look out at our window flowers, ice flowers, we can say to ourselves: By golly, that's the same thing that's going on in our own head! — Only that it always dissolves quickly. After all, the whole of nature is thinking! And in the winter, when it becomes cold, it begins to think all the more. In summer it is only too warm for thinking. There it lets the sun disperse and makes them to food and so on. But in winter, when it is cold, the thoughts form in the snow, in the ice. If there were no thoughts out there, we wouldn't have any in our heads. So you see, it is actually beautiful, this correspondence of nature outside in winter, where nature becomes so clever that it makes visible, external, what is always going on in our head as our cleverness. We can see everywhere in nature what is going on in ourselves.

We just have to take it in the right way. Well, but all this has a great, also practical meaning. So think, gentlemen, one gets, let's say, a very specific kind of head disease by not secreting enough mucus. One can get a head disease by that. If one then, when he secretes too little mucus, gives him some silicic acid iron as a remedy, then again this silicic acid iron takes over the mucus secretion activity and pushes the mucus up into his head, and one can again bring about healing with it. You see, this is the difference between anthroposophical medicine and other medicine, which is only always trying. In anthroposophy one learns that a person who has a certain head disease is too weak to form crystals in his brain, this perpetual coming into being and passing away of ice flowers. Now one must help him. This can be done by mere silicic acid.

When you go up to the high mountains and see the beautiful quartz there, it is silica. It's a beautiful crystal. It has the tendency to form these crystals. If you treat this quartz accordingly, you will get the silicic acid preparation that is so effective among our remedies. And this silicic acid preparation is so effective for all diseases that originate from the human head. If it does not form crystals from the inside, it must be helped from the outside by such beautiful crystals, which have such beautifully formed crystals in them. But if he stands in front of his beautiful snow window with the ice flowers in his parlor like the ox on Sunday*, if he has eaten grass all week, as our science does, yes, then he also stands with science like this in front of the human head; then he can do nothing, because he knows nothing about it.

* Presumably a reference to something witnessed by the workers i.e. an ox staring at a window in the barn (?). —Ed.

All these things show you how one must deepen science through a real knowledge of man. Of course, this extends to the art of education, because you first have to know: if you teach people the letters yourself, it is such a powerful moon activity that if it is done too vigorously, if it is done incorrectly, completely wipes out the crystallization power of the etheric head. It's really the case that a lot of learning can make people even more stupid if they don't learn in the right way. It's like that. But to make that clear, next time we'll have something else to talk about. It is necessary to know all this.

Source: https://odysseetheater.org/GA/Buecher/GA_351.pdf#page=51

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