The fatty lettuce

"And if the leaves stay green — the greener they are, the more fats they have in them. So when someone eats bread, for instance, he can't take in many fats from the bread. He takes in more, for example, from watercress — that tiny plant with the very tiny leaves — more fats than when he eats bread. ...

 ... And in this case, because these substances are destroyed in the intestines and only their forces proceed to work, cooking is not so necessary. That's why leaves can be eaten raw as salad. Whatever is to work on the head cannot be eaten raw; it must be cooked. Cooked foods work particularly on the head. Lettuce and similar things work particularly on heart and lungs, building them up, nourishing them through the fats." Steiner, R. (1924; GA0354). Lecture I (link), in the series of lectures: Nutrition and Health.

  What real science shows: Nutritional content of lettuce (see page 2)

Weak-mindedness and worms

"And so, gentlemen, if — for instance — a child is becoming weak in his head — inattentive, hyperactive — he will usually have a corresponding symptom:

 worms in his intestines. Worms develop easily in the intestines if the head forces are too weak, because the head does not then work down strongly enough into the rest of the body. ... And if one's child has worms, one should realize the child has become weak in his head. Also — whoever wants to be a teacher has to know these things — if there are persons who at a later age are weak-minded, one can be sure they have had worms when they were young.

 And so what must one do if one observes this in the child? The simplest remedy is to give him carrots to eat for a while — with his other food, of course; ... They have the forces of the earth in them, and when they are taken into the stomach, they are able to work up through the blood into the head." Steiner, R. (1924; GA0354). Lecture I (link), in the series of lectures: Nutrition and Health.

   What real science shows: Parasitic Roundworm Diseases

The Sun is created from the Earth...

"There now follows an important cosmic event. The sun is extruded. Thereby certain forces simply leave the earth. These forces are composed of a part of what hitherto had existed on earth in the life ether and in the chemical and light ether. These forces, so to speak, were withdrawn from the earth. A radical change thereby took place among groups of terrestrial beings which previously had contained these forces within themselves. They all suffered a transformation. Those which have been called plant beings above, first suffered such a transformation. A part of their light ether forces was taken from them. They could then develop as organisms only when the force of light, which had been withdrawn from them, acted upon them from the outside. Thus the plants came under the influence of the sunlight." Steiner, R. (1904; GA11). Chapter ix: Beginning of the Present Earth — Extrusion of the Sun (link), in: Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man.
   What real science shows: How a solar system such as ours is created

Steiner on hydrocephalus (water on the brain)

"I met a hydrocephalic child who was different in many respects from the rest of his family. Why was he a hydrocephalic? Because the council of higher powers together with Lucifer had decreed that that particular individuality should be born in a particular place and his parents were the best available for him. But he was unable to work rightly into the ancestral line so he could create what would result in the appropriate substance in order that his head might harden in the right way. Only during his lifetime would he be able to adapt his brain to its general structure. Such an individuality did not find the right conditions enabling him to influence his ancestry so that his head could harden in the appropriate way." Steiner, R. (1913; GA0140). Lecture XV: Intercourse With the Dead (link), in the series of lectures: Life Between Death and Rebirth

Metabolic problems cause Hysteria

"As the physical body does not at once bear the brunt of these irregularities, the first symptoms appear on the functional side, in the etheric body (Archaeus). If we wish to find a current term to designate certain aspects of this irregular function, we must call it Hysteria. We shall use the term Hysteria for the too great autonomy of the processes of Metabolism; and we shall learn later on that the name is not inappropriate.

 Specific manifestations of hysteria in its narrower sense are nothing but this irregular metabolism raised to its culmination. 

In essence, the hysterical process, even in it's sexual symptoms, consists of metabolic irregularities, which are external processes having no rightful place in the human body. That is, they are processes which the upper sphere has been too weak to master and control." Steiner, R. (1920; GA0312). Lecture II (link), in the series of lectures: Spiritual Science and Medicine.

Coughing: the diarrhoea of the upper body

"..: all the processes of the lower sphere have their “negative” so to speak, their negative counter-image in the upper. The important point, however, is that there is no material connection between these upper and lower spheres, but a correspondence. The correspondence must be correctly apprehended. without search for or insistence on direct material connection.

 Let us take a very simple example: the tickling irritation which causes coughing, and the actual cough itself. In so far as they belong to the upper sphere their complementary counterpart in the lower sphere is diarrhœa. There is always a counterpart to every such activity. And the key to the understanding of man consists in the correct apprehension of these correspondences with several of which we shall deal in the course of our study." Steiner, R. (1920; GA0312). Lecture II (link), in the series of lectures: Spiritual Science and Medicine.

Steiner finds good medical research on the heart

"All that can be observed in the heart must be looked upon as an effect, not a cause, as a mechanical effect [Lee: i.e. the pulsation of the blood moves the heart], to begin with. The only hopeful investigations on these lines, so far, have been those of Dr. Karl Schmidt, an Austrian medical man, practising in North Styria, who published a contribution to the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift (1892, No. 15), “The heart action and Curve of the Pulse.” The content of this article is comparatively small, but it proves that his medical practice had enlightened the author on the fact that the heart in no way resembled the ordinary pump but rather must be considered a dam-like organ. Schmidt compares cardiac action to that of the hydraulic ram, set in motion by the currents. This is the kernel of truth in his work." Steiner, R. (1920; GA0312). Lecture II (link), in the series of lectures: Spiritual Science and Medicine.

What real science has discovered about the heart

How and why we became single-sexed

"Thus man could use a portion of the energy which previously he employed for the production of beings like himself, in order to perfect his own nature. 

The force by which mankind forms a thinking brain for itself is the same by which man impregnated himself in ancient times. The price of thought is single-sexedness. By no longer impregnating themselves, but rather by impregnating each other, human beings can turn a part of their productive energy within, and so become thinking creatures. ...

 ... In this way man has become a spiritual being of the kind which he is now. But one must not suppose that no beings which possessed cognition had been in contact with the earth before then. 

When one follows the Akasha Chronicle it does indeed appear that in the first Lemurian period, later physical man, because of his double sex, was a totally different being from that which one today designates as man. He could not connect any sensory perceptions with thoughts; he did not think. His life was one of impulses. His soul expressed itself only in instincts, in appetites, in animal desires and so on. His consciousness was dreamlike; he lived in dullness." Steiner, R. (1904; GA11). Chapter vi: The Division into Sexes (link), in: Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man.

Consequenses of potatoes

"The potato takes little care of lung and heart. It reaches the head, but only, as I said, the lower head, not the upper head. It does go into the lower head, where one thinks and exercises critical faculties. Therefore, you can see, in earlier times there were fewer journalists. There was no printing industry yet. Think of the amount of thought expended daily in this world in our time, just to bring the newspapers out! All that thinking, it is much too much, it is not at all necessary — and we have to thank the potato diet for that! Because a person who eats potatoes is constantly stimulated to think. He can't do anything but think. That's why his lungs and his heart become weak. Tuberculosis, lung tuberculosis, did not become widespread until the potato diet was introduced. And the weakest human beings are those living in regions where almost nothing else is grown but potatoes, where the people live on potatoes." Steiner, R. (1924; GA0354). Lecture II (link), in the series of lectures: Nutrition and Health.

Jews, diabetes and kosher food

Bobby Matherne writes, and cites Steiner, in his review:

"I had often wondered about the purpose of Kosher rules for the Jewish handling of food. This is the first description I have read of why and it makes a lot of sense to me. 

"[page 47, 48] The [Jewish] race has a tendency towards diabetes. Jews have a certain difficulty in assimilating sugar, on the other hand they need it. Therefore the Jewish diet should be such that it helps the body as much as possible to make use of sugar and not excrete it right away. . . . Above all the eating of pork was forbidden in order to prevent diabetes,

since pig meat makes the proper utilisation of sugar particularly difficult for man. . . . Even the Jewish method of slaughter, for instance the way of killing poultry or other animals, is calculated to leave the correct amount of blood in the meat which the Jew eats, for the proper utilisation of sugar.""

From: Nutrition and Stimulants by Rudolf Steiner, A Review by Bobby Matherne, http://www.doyletics.com/arj/nutritio.htm, look for: "[page 47, 48]".

B. Matherne's citation of Steiner is referenced to: "Nutrition and Stimulants; Lectures and Extracts by Rudolf Steiner. Compiled and Translated by K. Castelliz and B. Saunders-Davies. Published by Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Assoc/PA in 1991." rsarchives info.

Steiner on the nervous system

"The nerve system is the only system that has no connection whatever with soul and spirit. Blood, muscles, and so on always have a direct connection with soul and spirit. ... That is the peculiar thing about it. In psychology and physiology you find the following put forward; the organ that acts as a medium for sensation, thinking and the whole soul and spirit element, is the nerve system. But how does it come to be this medium? Only by continually expelling itself from life [Lee: "continually dying out"], so that it does not offer any obstacles to thinking and sensation, forms no connections with thinking and sensation, and in that place where it is it leaves the human being “empty” in favour of the soul and spirit, Actually there are hollow spaces for the spirit and soul where the nerves are. Therefore spirit and soul can enter in where these hollow spaces are." Steiner, R. (1919; GA0293). Lecture VII (link), of the series of lectures: The Study of Man.

Sugar gives more defined personality

"“These things may even lead to an understanding of something that can also be observed externally. In countries where, according to statistics, sugar consumption is low, the inhabitants have a less defined personality than in countries where consumption is high. If you visit countries where the people show more individuality, where each individual is self-contained, and then move on to countries where the inhabitants betray more the typical racial characteristics, show less individuality in their outward appearance, you will find that in the former countries sugar consumption is high, in the latter very low." (26, pp. 24-27") " Steiner, R. (21 Mar. 1913; GA?). From: FOUNDATIONS AT THE PERIPHERY: RUDOLF STEINER'S OBSERVATIONS ON STAR KNOWLEDGE, under 21 Mar. 1913.

 This passage is also cited in Nutrition and Stimulants by Rudolf Steiner, A Review by Bobby Matherne, (a review well worth reading) look for p.47/168

Odin the Archangel gave the Germanic-Scandinavians ability to speak

"... He [Lee: The Germanic-Scandinavian] learned to recognize him [Lee: Odin] as being one of those Archangels who once upon a time reached the point of renouncing the ascent to higher stages. He learned to know Odin as one of the abnormal Archangels, as one of the great Renouncers of antiquity, who had assumed the office of an Archangel when undertaking the important mission of working into the souls of men. The Germanic Scandinavian experienced Odin in his activity at a time when he still went about the work of inoculating speech into the souls. The manner in which Odin himself worked upon his peoples in order to make speech possible to them has been preserved in a wonderful way ..."   Steiner, R. (1910; GA0121). Lecture 8 link, of the series of lectures: The Mission of Folk-Souls.

On the diversification of human features/"looks" (physiognomies)

"At one point of human evolution, man stood far closer to the group soul. Tacitus, one hundred years after Christ, gives us a picture of the different tribal groups. All members of a group then felt themselves belonging together, naturally with gradations, for everything in human evolution is in stages. All members of a group then looked alike. The markedly individual physiognomies are the sign of this freeing of the individual souls from the group soul. You still find today, among savages, more or less the same features. We must hold fast to this fact, that the physiognomy coming to expression is the proof that the individuality works formatively on the body." Steiner, R. (1907; GA97). Lecture: The Animal Soul (link). In the series of lectures: The Christian Mystery.

Steiner on the functioning of the heart

"The mechanical-materialistic doctrine of life sees in the heart a kind of pumping mechanism which drives the blood through the body in a regular manner. Here the heart is the cause of the movement of the blood. The insight of the science of the spirit shows something quite different. For this insight, the pulsing of the blood, its whole inner mobility, are the expression and the effect of the processes of the soul. The soul is the cause of the behavior of the blood. Turning pale through feelings of fear, blushing under the influence of sensations of shame, are coarse effects of processes of the soul in the blood. But everything which takes place in the blood is only the expression of what takes place in the life of the soul. However, the connection between the pulsation of the blood and the impulses of the soul is a deeply mysterious one. The movements of the heart are not the cause, but the consequence of the pulsation of the blood." Steiner, R. (1904; GA11). The Fourfold Man of Earth. In: Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man. (link)