Cosmic Rhythms & Their Healing Powers For Man

by Enrst Lehrs

From the 1995 Edition of the Golden Blade

An Anthroposophical Journal

https://www.waldorflibrary.org/images/stories/Journal_Articles/GoldenBlade_1955.pdf

 

In order to deal adequately with the problem raised by the theme of this essay, it is necessary to get clear first of all what we mean by the term ‘healing’. By considering the proper meaning of the very word used to express a current concept, one is often helped towards a clearer understanding of the concept itself. In our modern languages words have mostly come to be used as coins that signify something without actually representing it. For instance, when one speaks of ‘education’, who is conscious of using a word which represents the act of ‘guiding forth’, including the object and the goal of the guidance? Still, when human language came originally into being, and during the epoch of its youthful develop ment word must have meant exactly what it represents. Investigation into this meaning, therefore, can be a help towards
the realization of the concept for which it stands.

Regarding ‘healing’, the word thus speaks to us of restoring wholeness to something that has fallen asunder or apart. Etymologically,
the connection between the words ‘whole’, ‘heal’, and even ‘holy’, is well known Even today, in the compound ‘wholesome’, the term
‘whole’ is used in the sense of its sister-word.

*[The German language brings this relations especially clearly by using the same root, heil, for al the relevant purposes : heilen (to heal), heil machen (to repair) , heilig (holy), Heil (salvation)]

On the other hand, there is the word ‘disease’ which speaks of not being ‘at ease’ and so the existence of discord between one entity and another. To the pictures thus raised by these words a further feature is added by considering the word ill, with its affinity to ‘evil’ It conveys the idea that the existence of conditions requiring to be healed – that is, to be made whole – is somehow connected with the existence of Evil in the world.

Let us now turn to the concept ‘rhythm’. It stands for any happening that repeats itself with a certain regularity. What are the basic conditions for happenings of this kind to occur ?

Investigation into the nature of rhythmic processes of any sort shows that all of them depend on the interaction of two conditions or entities of polarically opposite quality. Take any piece of matter capable of oscillation, such as a tuning fork, a string, or the like. The material property to which this capacity is due is commonly called elasticity. But what is it that makes a thing elastic? It is its capacity, on the one hand, for giving way to some outer influence by changing its form ; on the other hand, for resisting this influence by its tendency to maintain its original form. Motion and rest are the two polar conditions which come into interactions in such an object.

In the pendulum we have another example of this kind. The mass suspended by he pendulum has a tendency to fall by its own weight, yet through being suspended  from a fixed point it is prevented from doing so. The effect is that, after have in been lifted out of its position of rest, the pendulum enters into a rhythmical movement which combines rest (in both the extreme positions) with motion (at a maximum when the pendulum passes through its vertical position).

The same principle is at work, for instance, in the case of electro-magnetic vibration. In order to come to pass, this requires some combination of the static and dynamic characters of the electrical force.

We have taken our start from a few examples of a purely physical nature because here the principle in question is most immediately observable. It is, however, equally though not quite so manifestly at work on all higher levels of nature: less manifestly, because the two
opposites that have to interact here belong to two different planes of existence. Let us take at once, as our next example, man himself.
In his earthly existence he represents the combination of a sense-perceptible (physical) and a supersensible (spiritual) entity. Through their coming together in one organism, man can appear as a living, conscious being. In both these capacities he is, from birth to death, subject to a rhythm by the alternation of his waking and sleeping states. When we are awake, our soul-spiritual part prevails at the expense of the intensity of the purely vegetative processes of our organism, and these in turn gain the upper hand at the expense of our conscious soul-processes when we are asleep.

All rhythmic occurrences in outer nature are due to the same principle – although in the era of materialistic thought man has failed to heed this  fact. The daily rhythm of the tides is an illuminating example. Their periodicity concurs with that of the moon’s rotation round the earth. Scientific thinking has satisfied itself with the explanation that the rise of the sea’s surface at high tide is due to the gravitational pull exerted on the water by the body of the moon (with the pull of the sun introducing certain complications), just as its fall is due to the earth’s own gravitational pull – although this explanation is obviously invalidated by the exchange between ebb and flow taking place twice every day. (The somersaults of thought to which science has resorted in its efforts to meet this fact by the same type of explanation need not concern us here). Another contradictory phenomenon is the clearly observable up and down flow in the watery parts of plants, which follows the same periodicity with out being naturally explicable in terms of terrestrial and lunar gravitation.

In my book “Man or Matter” I have dealt with this and kindred problems in all necessary detail. In the present context it must suffice to maintain that materialistically unimpeded observation leads one to recognize that in the tidal rhythms of whatever kind there is to be found the interaction of two polarically opposite agents — terrestrial gravity and cosmic levity. The same is rhythm of the seasons. Their periodicity concurs with that of theyearly variation of the sun’s elevation in the sky, which is itself the effect of the earth’s rotation round the sun, seen Copernically – or of the sun’s rotation round the earth, seen Ptolemaically. A thinking that recognizes only physical causes will therefore be
inclined – as in the case of the lunar rhythm – to argue that the observable “up and down” in the earth’s vegetable cover is merely that physical effect of this celestial variation. But what has set, and keeps, in motion the various celestial bodies? And to what cause are their different speeds of rotation due ? Kepler found out, and stated in his Third Law, that there is a constant ratio throughout our cosmic system between the space enveloped by a planet’s orbit and the speed with which it moves round this orbit. What is the origin of this cosmic number, and what maintains its magnitude through the aeons of time ?

In the afore-mentioned book I have shown that in contrast to Newton’s assumption that this is explicable in terms of mere mechanical causation (Newton’s reasoning being due to an impermissible application of algebraic logic to the relevant cosmic facts), the existence of this cosmic number actually reveals a musical secret as the constructive principle of the system – and thus shows that rhythm is the cause of all planetary motion, and not the other way around.

To complete the picture, as far as we need it here, of rhythmic interrelationships between cosmic and earthly events, let us look at the innate rhythm of man’s respiratory system. This system, in its combination with that of the heart, is by its very essence centred as it is in the middle part of the organism – a verification the idea of rhythm put forward above, the common function of heart and lungs being that of a mediator between the activities of the nerve-system, centred in the head, and the metabolic system centred in the abdomen : the foundations respectively of our spiritual consciousness and our corporeal life.

The respiratory system itself has yet another mediating function between two opposite realm of action – man’s inner being and the outer world. The fact is well known that there is a mutual giving and taking between man’s (and the animal’s) organism and that of the plant by each requiring the other’s exhalation for its own inhalation (carbon dioxide and oxygen respectively).

By its middle position between the consciousness-pole and the life-pole of man’s being, the rhythmic process of breathing appears as a counterpart of the rhythmic alternation between waking and sleeping. Indeed, the relationship between the two is shown by the fact that our awakening is accompanied by a deep inhalation, our going to sleep by a corresponding exhalation. Similarly, each inhaling is accompanied by a slight increase of our consciousness, each exhaling by a corresponding decrease.

In this respect it becomes of particular significance to observe how these two rhythmic processes are interrelated with certain cosmic rhythms, and via them with one another again. It is obvious that the diurnal rhythm of our psychophysical existence is intrinsically
connected with the rhythmical alternation of day and night. Yet besides this 24 hours’ period, there are two longer periods in the earth’s interrelation with the sun. The first is that of the year, which we have already considered. Man is, though in a less noticeable way, also in tune with this rhythm ; we shall hear more about this coincidence later on. Then there is the great period of 25,920 years, known as the Great Cosmic Year, or the Platonic Year described by Plato in one of his dialogues. As the day results from the earth’s own spin, and the year from the earth’s movement round its cosmic orbit, so the Platonic year results from what is called the precession of the earth’s axis, whereby the sun’s vernal rising point moves slowly backward round the zodiac, always falling a little behind the position reached on the same date in the previous year, until after 25,920 years the original situation recurs. During such a great period there is one ‘cosmic winter’ on earth (manifesting as a glacial epoch), and one ‘cosmic summer’, with a corresponding rise and fall of mankind’s spiritual activities.

Now, this ratio of 1 : 25,920 occurs also in the average number of breaths taken by a human being in the course of 24 hours. Thus the day is to man’s breath as the Cosmic Year is to the ordinary year. All these relationships represent an alternating tightening and loosening of the interrelation between two spheres of existence : on the one hand the earth as a living being, with man himself as part of it, and on the other the Cosmos represented by the sun in its zodiacal, annual and daily path round the earth.

The picture so far developed of rhythm, as such, and of man’s position in the various rhythms of the world, may be enough to lead us towards an understanding of the origin of illness in its wider sense, and of the healing power of rhythm as a mediator between man and the world.

The picture so far developed of rhythm, as such, and of man’s position in the various rhythms of the world, may be enough to lead us towards an understanding of the origin of illness in its wider sense, and of the healing power of rhythm as a mediator between man and the world.

The biblical story of Genesis describes man’s mortality as having be  brought about by his premature eating of the Tree of Knowledge.
There we are told in pictorial form what modern Spiritual Science describes as the interference of the great cosmic tempter – known
from olden times under the name of Lucifer – with that aggregate of Cosmic forces, in man called “astral body”, which acts as the bearer of his soul-life. As the Bible tells, man’s eyes ‘were opened’ by this interference, and the seed of his power of free and independent judgment was sown in him. However, this severance of man from his original state of union with the cosmos did not first take place in the part of his body to which he owes his cognitive capacities, but rather in the deepest region of his life-process where the forces
of reproduction are at work. Spiritual science shows that the first
break between man’s being and the cosmic source of his existence
was enacted when Lucifer disconnected human sexual life from the
rhythm of the outer seasons. All plant and animal life (with some partial exceptions among monkeys and apes), follows this rhythm very
strictly, and there is evidence that m very early times it was the same
with man. Ever since then, it is man alone who can be conceived
and born at any time of the year.

Once independence was established in this region, other regions in man gradually took the same course. But this was a very slow
development Who of us, when being taught, for instance, Roman history was not surprised to lean, that the valiant inhabitants of the mighty metropolis – except in its later, more decadent days – went to bed and rose with the sun?

Our present technical age has carried to the extreme man’s possibilities of disconnecting himself form the outer rhythms of the world. Illness and death as feature of the body since the first Fall, have thereby become more and more features of the soul. It is worth while to note how this technical age of ours came into being. It was when Galileo made his famous observation in the cathedral of Pisa which led him to the discovery of the law of the pendulum, and thereby of the working of terrestrial gravity. During a Divine Service by he noticed that a small lamp hanging from the vault of the church,  was swinging to and fro, probably moved by a draught of air. He felt prompted to compare the length of time needed by the malp to move from one extreme position to the other, and he found that this time was independent of the width of the swing. How then did te meausre the respective times, since suitable clocks – not to speak of watches – were still unknown His genius prompted him to use the beat of this pulse.

It is important for our purpose to bring into our living experience the real character of this historic happening. In front of Galileo, on the altar, there was in process the act through which for Christian conviction, earthly matter was by the grace of Christ imbued with a power absent from it since the original Fall, and so made into a healing substance within him against his inborn cosmic sickness. Can any heart fail to beat higher when it follows in full faith this mysterious act? Yet is was Galileo’s destiny to sit there in a state of complete detachment from the sacramental happening. For had his heart been a little touched by the experience how could he have used it as he did, as a kind of stop-watch? And without it he would not have discovered the law of the pendulum.

By regarding the whole scene in this way we realise that our technical age owes its origin to a conscious observation of rhythm, by rhythm in a state of utter emancipation.

Man’s task in the present age is to learn to re-adjust himself and his affairs to the universe of which he forms part, and to do this out of his own understanding and free will. As an aid for the fulfilment of this task. Spiritual Science has been given by Rudolf Steiner to help man to develop the necessary understanding and to strengthen his will. There is no field in which acts of healing of this kind are hot waiting for him to undertake them. Let us begin with man himself, for without applying this medicine to himself he will obviously not develop the capacity to work wholesomely on the external world.

Obviously, we cannot go back to the ways of our ancestors for readjusting ourselves to the rhythm of day and night. But what we can do is first of all to realize that the value of our existence is not determined only by what we live through while we are awake, but also by what we experience during sleep – that is, while our soul-spiritual being dwells in the world of its cosmic origin in order to gain new strength and wisdom for the coming day. This realization will stimulate us to endeavour no longer to stumble passively from the waking into the sleep state, but to foster the transition deliberately – in the evening through preparing ourselves for the other world by filling the mind with appropriate thoughts and feelings; in the morning by a corresponding act of concentration and meditation. In the teachings of Rudolf Steiner much helpful advice on this subject may be found.

Similarly, the rhythm of the year can be re-created healthily in the life of the soul as a regularly practiced inner rhythm. The fundamental help given in this respect by Rudolf Steiner is the so-called “Soul’s Calendar”, a set of 52 verses each attuned to a particular week of the year. The soul resting in thought on the contents of these verses, week by week, is led through the experience of spiritual union with the widths of the outer cosmos, when the earth goes through the corresponding union-that is, in, Spring and Summer-and through the experience of union with its own Christ-filled depths as a worker in earthly destiny during the other half of the year, when the earth is in a corresponding situation. There are also the great Festivals of the year, Michaelmas, Christmas, Easter and Midsummer (St. John’s Tide), which have been spiritually illumined by Rudolf Steiner so as to become marking points for a celebration of the soul’s particular relationship with the Spirit of the World corresponding to each of the four seasons.

As regards the third rhythm, described earlier on, which is marked by the precession of the Sun’s vernal point round the zodiac. Spiritual
Science enables its pupils to recognize the meaning of the successive ages in human history, and thereby also of the present age in regard to the particular spiritual task which is set before man through his having incarnated at this time. As in all previous instances, he will in this way cease to feel himself (and thus to be) a mere “object of outer circumstances”. To recognize in this way the meaning of one’s existence in the great historical rhythm of mankind’s evolution, and to learn to live actively in tune with this meaning – even though it be in the smallest compass – cannot but have a healing effect on one’s whole personality.

And so there arises for man the possibility also of bringing healing to his fellow men, as well as to the other kingdoms of the earth –
in the first sense, by developing a true art of medicine and of education; in the other sense by learning, as farmer or gardener, how to treat
plants and animals in harmony with their own cosmic relationships. Great possibilities of preventing disease or of healing diseased conditions have arisen in these various fields of human activity through the advice given by Rudolf Steiner. Finally, there is a sure prospect
that one day even our technical life will become so transformed by man’s spiritual insight into the realm of the relevant forces that its
effects no longer be directed against the proper needs of man, but will be in tune with them.

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