The human heart

The human heart plays a central role in Man and a deep understanding is required both for understanding of Man, as for the Christ Impulse.

The heart is not a 'pump', but is an organ solidified from etheric currents by the blood circulation. It is the organ of the 'will' working in the human warmth body, and a voluntary muscle in development, that will become ever more important in future evolution.

In the future, humanity will develop the heart to be a budhi organ and organ of creation, Man will radiate budhi love outwards through the heart. More on this on the topic page: The human heart as a future organ.

It is essential to not just consider the mineral-physical heart but also its non-physical aspects and functions.

The etheric heart acts as an astral karma recorder, and Man's actions are imprinted on the etheric heart (especially from puberty onwards). The etheric and astral heart develop in the first seven year period of one's life, whereby Man 'overwrites' the versions received at birth with the contents of the last phase between death and the new birth, and develops his own new version. (1922-05-26-GA212, also 1921-07-02-GA205). One can relate this to the process after death, whereby Man experiences his life events in reverse as they were recorded during the sleep phases of his earth life: one can imagine the image of a tape being played back. See: Kamaloka journey in the astral world after death.
As the Earth is now in an ascending phase of spiritualization, there is a loosening between physical and etheric bodies, and since the 18th century there is a changing relationship between the physical heart and etheric heart Before these were a single entity, now the etheric heart can be excited to activity in an etheric way, and the two are no longer so inwardly dynamically bound together as before. (1919-04-05-GA190). See also: Christ in the etheric

Aspects

Study from various perspectives can shed light on:

formation

as the result of two etheric streams or 'colliding spiral wavefronts', see 'The two etheric streams'.
creation of the heart by the same formative forces that created the lion, hence the link between heart and lion with the qualities of bravery (1907-09-16-GA101)

two blood circuits and four chambers

The heart as mediating between The heart's two blood circuits, see also Ganganda Greida, in context of the process of Etherization of the blood between the heart and the human brain, see also Kundalini.
the heart's four chambers and the mapping to the Sun
- see Schema FMC00.034 on The heart's two blood circuits, as well as see Ita Wegman (1929) below

etheric heart and astral recorder

'the heart as an astral karma recorder' describes a kind of 'astral memory', in contact to what one could call a 'physical memory' in the brain for use with waking consciousness; see the process of incorporating physical reality experiences into our physical memory on the topic page Memory (1922-05-26-GA212)
the heart is the organ which, through mediation of the metabolic-limb system, carries what we understand as karma into the next incarnation (1921-07-02-GA205)
loosening between physical and etheric heart
- since 1721 this connection progressively loosened, and by approx. 2100 they will be entirely separate (1919-04-05-GA190)
- see also below, Ruth Haertl on 'The Formation of a New Etheric Heart Organ'

various other

location of the heart: close to the center of the chest but slighly shifted to the left: about two thirds is on the left side, one third is on the right side. See Schema FMC00.176A.
furthermore see also:
- The human heart as a future organ
- Mystery of the Heart
- heart thinking, see: D00.003 - Systemic aspects of the study process#Organic or heart thinking

Inspirational quotes

1925-GA026

The Age of Michael has dawned. Hearts are beginning to have Thoughts.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.087 illustrates the heart as a 'karma recorder' (click to enlarge)

Schema FMC00.279 depicts - on the right - the statement from 1906-09-20-GA091 on Mystery of the heart. The heart is the center of Man where the twelve zodiacal flows stream in, and they stream out through the head similar as with Earth.

On the left, an illustration of the etheric (prana) streams taken from Dr. Stone's polarity theory, and a comparative illustration of Earth's outstreaming on the pole.

See also: Etherization of blood and the Kundalini

Schema FMC00.180 (from Olive Whicher) shows an etheric perspective on the heart (left), connecting it with the image of 'Man as an inverted plant' (right - see also Schema FMC00.110 on Man as a threefold being). The middle drawing represents the area between two focal points with the heart above and the brain below. See also: Etherization of the blood

Lecture coverage and references

1907-09-16-GA101

makes the link between the organ of the heart, and the formative forces that created the lion

In Man there is to be found a kind of extract of all the rest of nature, of all materials and forces. If you study the nature of any plant deeply enough, you will find that there is contained in the human organism something of the same, even though it is there in ever so small a measure. If you study an animal, you will always be able to point to something in it that is of like nature in the human organism. In order to understand this rightly it is, of course, necessary to consider the development of the world from the occult standpoint. The occultist knows, for example, that men would not have the kind of hearts they have today if the lion did not exist out there in nature. Let us look back to an earlier time when there were still no lions.
Men, the oldest beings, already existed but at that time they had a differently constituted heart. To be sure, everywhere in nature there are obscure relationships. When, in the far remote past, the human heart acquired its present form, the lion appeared. The same forces formed both. It is as if these forces had extracted the leonine essence and with divine artistic skill fashioned the heart from it. You may feel that the human heart has nothing leonine in it; that it does is nevertheless so for the occultist.
You must not forget the fact that when something is introduced into the relationships of an organism, it will then function quite differently from the way it functions when it is free. Conversely, it can be said that were you able to withdraw the essence of the heart and form a being from it that corresponds to this heart - that is, a being formed in such a way that the forces of the organism did not determine its structure - you would then produce a lion. All the traits of courage and daring, or, as the occultist says, the kingly traits of the human being, are derived from connections with the lion. The initiate, Plato, also placed the kingly soul in the heart.

1915-05-01-GA161

By means of a diagram I will now make clear in what this first stage of initiation consists. Let us assume that this is the human physical head — and all around the human physical head we have the etheric body. When a Man begins to develop what I have been speaking about, when he begins to develop Imaginative knowledge, then the etheric body grows in this way larger, and what is characteristic of this is that parallel with it goes on naturally what has been described as the cultivation of the lotus flowers.
The Man grows etherically out of himself and the strange thing is that, while he is doing so, something develops out of his body which I would call a kind of etheric heart.
As [a] physical human being we have our physical heart, and we all know how to appreciate the difference between a dry, abstract Man who develops his thoughts in a machine-like way and a Man who goes with his heart into everything that he experiences — with his physical heart, that is; we can all appreciate this distinction. From the Man who slouches around without any interest in life and whose heart plays no part in the experiences of his soul, we do not expect much on the physical plane in the way of real cosmic knowledge. A kind of spiritual heart develops outside our physical body, parallel to the phenomena I have described in “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds”, just as the blood-system develops and has its center in the heart. The blood-system goes outside the body and outside the body we feel ourselves in our heart bound up with what we know in the way of spiritual science. Only we must not look to enter into the knowledge of spiritual science with the heart that is in our body but with the heart outside it, for it is with this heart that we enter into what we know of spiritual science.
On reading what is written in the sphere of spiritual science it is possible to say: But this too is scientifically dry — this is science — here we have to go back to school again! We must in any case do enough learning in life, and now we are supposed to learn what spiritual science has to say. There is no heart in that. — One will discover the heart in it when going into things deeply enough.
It is true that many people say: Theosophy must consist above all in a Lan in his Io becoming one with the whole world. — This “becoming one", this “development in Mman of the divine Man", this "discovery of the divine I”, and so on — these are the pet phrases of those who want to be theosophists without having any knowledge of theosophy. This all springs from lack of desire to develop warmth of heart even when no longer sustained by the living warmth of the physical heart. Just as Lichtenberg said: “When a head and a book collide and there is a hollow sound, the book is not to be blamed”, we might say: If a Man comes up against spiritual science and finds no warmth of heart in it, it is not spiritual science that is to blame.
All that I have just been describing as the normal path to clairvoyance consists in Man lifting out from his physical body, his etheric body and also the higher members of his organization, and providing himself with a heart outside the limits of his physical body.
[continued, see full lecture and also Stages of clairvoyance]
What then do ordinary thoughts rest upon? A thought of this kind is actually only developed in the etheric body; it then comes up against the physical body and there makes impressions all over the brain. If we call up before our souls the essential feature of everyday thinking we can say: It rests on our thinking in the etheric body, and on what is thus thought sinking into the nervous system of the brain; there it makes impressions which do not, however, go very deep but rebound. In this way the thinking is reflected and thus enters our consciousness. A thought therefore consists above all in our having it in our soul as far as the etheric body; it then makes an impression on the physical brain, but cannot enter it and has to rebound. These reflected thoughts we perceive. Then physiology comes along and points to the traces which have appeared in the physical brain.

1919-04-05-GA190

full lecture, see: Current fifth cultural age#1919-04-05-GA190

changing relation between physical and etheric bodies:

inner connection between physical and etheric head has come to an end since 3th century BC
progressive loosening of physical and etheric heart started around 1721 and physical heart will be entirely freed from its etheric part around 2100.
Later this will also be happening for other organs.

.

Here Rudolf Steiner speaks of the former inner, dynamic connection between the human etheric head and the physical head which still existed during the period when Greek culture was at its prime.

Extract about this lecture taken from Kirchner-Bockholt 'Rudolf Steiner's mission and Ita Wegman.

Since the third century B.C. the inner connection between the etheric head of man and the physical head has come to an end. But a close inner connection was always preserved between man's physical heart and his etheric heart. Since the year 1721, however, this connection has been progressively loosened. . . . By the year 2100, approximately, Man's physical heart will have been entirely freed from its etheric part.
As time goes on, something similar happens in the case of other organs. The disconnection of the heart has a very significant result in Man's evolution.
[The increasing scientific materialism is mentioned in connection with the processes taking place in man's organic system. As long as the natural connection existed, a relation to spiritual worlds and the spiritual forces behind Nature was always maintained. What had formerly been a natural endowment must today be sought for along different paths.]
This etheric heart that has been released from the physical heart will acquire its true relationship to the spiritual world if the individual concerned seeks for spiritual knowledge, for spiritual thoughts with an anthroposophical orientation.
[Belief by itself,] which will develop only a naïve relationship of feeling to the spiritual world—such belief materialises the heart of humanity, leads to materialistic culture in a domain usually unrecognised.
...
This belief must be saturated and spiritualised by authentic conceptions of the spiritual world and it is an Ahrimanic trick to instil into people in the epoch of confusion : do not ever try to develop vision of the spiritual world but keep to belief.

1921-04-13-GA313

states the Earth absorbs something extraterrestrial in tropical regions that goes into vegatation, it casts it back at the poles (see Schema FMC00.279)

Now the most striking and significant realm of causes is that which lies outside the human being and in which the interplay between oxygen and carbon proceeds. In this tract of the human organism the essentially astral influence works from outside. Thus we must look for the corresponding connections between this tract and the outer world.
To the spiritual investigator the matter shows itself as follows: on earth there is a reciprocal relationship between what occurs beneath the earth's surface — in which the action of water must be included with the earthly element — and what occurs above its surface. There is a profound process taking place between the earth and its surroundings that ordinary science cannot yet fathom.
This process has extraordinarily interesting aspects. It can be studied very well in those realms of the earth where the process taking place between the extra-terrestrial and the terrestrial is very intimate, where a great deal of the extra-terrestrial penetrates into the earth.
This is the case in the tropics. The extraordinary conditions there depend on an intimate cooperation between the extra-terrestrial — air, light, and extra-terrestrial warmth — and what is within the earth itself. Moreover, it is not by chance that we find a certain “pole” of magnetic-electric earthly influences in the tropical zone. To use a comparison, you could say that in the tropical zone the earth most strongly sucks in the extra-terrestrial, developing from this extra-terrestrial element what later sprouts up as vegetation.
In the polar regions, the earth sucks in little from the extra-terrestrial; it opposes it and actually reflects it to a considerable extent.
Thus you could say that the earth, at least as seen from outside,

shines least in the tropics, raying back the least, but sucking in the most of the extra-terrestrial influences.

At the poles the earth shines most, reflecting most what is extra-terrestrial and developing the greatest luster.

.
This is an extraordinarily significant fact. When we take it into account, we learn that in the tropics there is a very strong intimacy between the etheric earthly element and the extra-terrestrial astral, whereas at the poles the astral is flung back in a certain way.
This insight can prove most fruitful, for on pursuing it we discover a further connection. ...

1921-07-02-GA205

[heart]
If we look into the inner aspect of the heart, however, we see gathered there forces that also stem from the entire metabolic-limb organism, and because what is connected with the heart, with the heart forces, is spiritualized, within it is also spiritualized that which is connected with our outer life, with our deeds. However strange and paradoxical it may sound to a person who is clever in the modern sense, the fact remains that the forces thus prepared within the heart are the karmic tendencies, they are the tendencies of karma. It is revoltingly foolish to speak of the heart as a mere pumping mechanism, for the heart is the organ which, through mediation of the metabolic-limb system, carries what we understand as karma into the next incarnation. We must seek within the organs of the body for the forces that will carry over into the next incarnation what we are now experiencing.
...
The human metabolism is by no means the mere simmering and seething of chemicals in a test-tube that modern physiology describes. You need only take a single step, and a certain metabolism is produced. This metabolism that is produced is not merely a chemical process, which may be examined by means of physiology, of chemistry, but bears within it at the same time a moral coloring, a moral nuance. And this moral nuance is, in fact, stored in the heart and carried over as karmic force into the next incarnation.
...
If the heart presses out its contents, however, this is really a system of forces, pushed out and brought into consciousness, that call forth in the next incarnation that strange inclination to live out one's karma.
If one observes how karma works itself out, it may be said from the human side that this living out of karma can only be described as a kind of hunger and its satisfaction.
[example given - see full extract link above]

1922-05-26-GA212

.. describes the heart as the meeting place between Man and Cosmos. See Schema FMC00.087 that illustrates the heart as a 'karma recorder'.

This intimate correspondence of the astral body with the etheric body is to be found nowhere in the human organism except in the region of the heart. Man has brought with him through birth an image of the universe in his etheric body, and the entire universe, which is there within him as an essence, receives all that he does and permeates itself with it. By this constant coming together — this mutual permeation — the opportunity is given throughout human life for human actions to be instilled into the essence of the images of the cosmos.
.. in the region of the heart there takes place a union of the cosmos with the earthly realm, and in this way the cosmos, with its cosmic configuration, is taken into our etheric body.
There it makes ready to receive all our actions, all that we do in life.
.. Then we go outward again, together with everything that has formed itself within us through this intimate permeation of the cosmic ethereal with our own human actions.
So do we enter again into a new cosmic existence, having passed through the gate of death.

1929 - Ita Wegman

in 'The signature of zodiacal and planetary forces in Man' (March-April 1929, published in 'The Mysteries')

What thus significantly rays down from above to below was expressed in the Mysteries through the Tao, that is through the T-sound. On this path from above to below the heart's shape changes too. At first it forms part of the blood-vessel system; later on it becomes a complicated multichambered creation.
The human heart in its four chambers presents the form of a tilted-lying cross, which is the ancient semitic letter for the T-sound. Rudolf Steiner also indicates that to clairvoyant sight the Sun appears divided into four chambers, so that the Tao is also inscribed into the Sun.
As streams flow from the heart towards head and lungs, streams from the Sun also run towards the Moon and towards the Earth. So in Man, relationships exist between his brain and the Moon, between his lungs and the Earth, and between his heart and the Sun. He bears within himself an inner Earth, inner Moon and inner Sun.
In enthusiasm this inner Sun rays outwards. As Rudolf Steiner indicates, this raying outwards, this striving apart into all spational directions from a central point ... is also stimulated as a picture the moment one inwardly strikes the T-sound. This refers us to a further relation existing between the heart and the zodiacal forces of the Lion, which work through the T-sound.
[and continued]

2000 - Ruth Haertl

source article: 'The Study of the Formation of a New Etheric Heart Organ in the Light of the Present Michaelic Mystery Culture as Rudolf Steiner required it for our age in his lectures Die Sendung Michaels und Die Offenbarung der eigentlichen Geheimnisse des Menschenwesens.'

the text below is a translation by Monica Gold, copied from rsarchive: The Formation of a New Etheric Heart Organ, here adapted SWCC

To begin with I will give a brief summary of the development of the etheric heart. Rudolf Steiner described the process in great detail when he discussed the formation of the etheric heart in children. [ref: The Mission of the Archangel Michael The Revelation of the Unique Mystery of Man. November 21–30, 1919, Dornach. Rudolf Steiner: GA 161, 190, 205, 212, 10]
Before birth, etheric forces are drawn together to create the individual etheric body. These ether forces harbour substances which are taken from the entire cosmos.
[see Schema FMC00.332 left]
In a drawing of the etheric heart, Rudolf Steiner shows the periphery of the stars, the heart amid sun and moon, while further down the earthly is indicated. “It is important to know that when we descend into the earthly world we draw into ourselves a kind of image from the cosmos.” This first etheric heart configuration Rudolf Steiner regards as provisional or as inherited. It remains with the child only until he loses his teeth. At age seven it falls away. Rudolf Steiner even says: “it decays.” It is cast off just as the teeth are discarded at age seven. The wonderful cosmic configuration of the starry images fades more and more as the seventh birthday approaches. This happens at the time when the child's own etheric body is born.
Rays of ether configurations begin to form anew and strive from the periphery to the centre. Here they accumulate around the physical heart and as they grow together, the new second etheric heart is born. It is the individualized etheric heart of the growing young person who matures from age seven to fourteen. It happens through a process whereby bit by bit the new etheric heart replaces whatever dies off from the inherited heart. The new heart is condensed from the entire world sphere.
In another lecture we read that at puberty the astral body is restructured in a new configuration. In the same area of the body in which the second etheric heart was formed as a reflection of the stars, sun and moon, the forces of the astral body establish an additional central organ. These two organs weave in and out of each other as one central organ and in it are inscribed all deeds, all moral motivations, human intentions and ideas.
[recorder]
In one of his lectures Rudolf Steiner speaks of a small box in which everything concerning our life is recorded. As students on the path of initiation we are meant gradually to become able to read and interpret our past karmic deeds, we are supposed to grow towards an understanding of all that which is inscribed into the etheric heart.
It was the 27 of February, 1925 on his sixty-third birthday that Rudolf Steiner gave the following related meditation to Dr. Ita Wegman.
Hearts interpret Karma, when hearts learn to read The Word, which creates in Human Life; When hearts learn to Speak the Word, which creates in The Human Being
In the above-mentioned restructured astral body is a picture of all that which Man has experienced in the spiritual world between death and rebirth. Great secrets are being inscribed into the astral body at that time. During Man's youth they merge bit by bit with the physical and etheric organs, which harbour now deepest cosmic secrets as if imprisoned. Out of the I which sympathetically connects with our astral body, these secrets as positive and less positive intentions and motivations are being engraved into the etheric heart organ, the small box that was spoken of. For this reason Rudolf Steiner can say that a joining together takes place of the I with the etheric and the astral hearts. This means complete adjustment of individual karma with universal cosmic laws.
In this way we can visualize an inner dynamic process, actively shaping the human physical through the creative working of the Logos. We can say, Man is born out of deepest cosmic wisdom. Creative forces work through the strength of the Word into man's sheaths. The Logos in the human heart becomes an organ of destiny creatively working in harmony with the etheric and astral sheaths as well as with the I of Man. It is the creation of our awe-inspiring heart organ as it was introduced after puberty.
Now a further miracle of the creation of humanity follows. A continuous process takes place in which humanity becomes co-creator. Through the search for spirit and active work the individual human being becomes co-creator of his own destiny to an ever-higher degree. He is no longer passive, the Logos is no longer creating the human physical body alone. The fact is that the quality of becoming depends on the purposeful striving and strongest unfolding of forces of will in each human being. We ourselves can see to it that this may take place in the proper way.
We may stand in awe and wonder when we fully realize the extent of the possibilities that are laid into our own hands. In complete freedom we can work on the structural configuration of our own etheric heart; the new heart which began a process of separating from the physical heart in 1721. See drawing. The important fact is, however, that the perfection of this new creation depends on a strictly self-directed goal orientation, as well as the most strongly activated unfolding of will forces.
[Selg]
It must arise out of a “physiology of freedom” given by the Logos for the transformation of our own being. The phrase “Physiology of Freedom” was coined by Dr. Peter Selg, in his book 'Vom Logos Menschlicher Physis, die Entfaltung einer anthroposophischen Humanphysiologie im Werk Rudolf Steiners'. Peter Selg's spiritual yet strictly natural scientific way of thought and knowledge as a medical doctor, allows him to look at the physical body in a new way. He found that within the structure of the physical body created by the Logos there exists “free space” and this prompted him to coin the phrase “Physiology of Freedom.” In his book 'Vom Logos Menschlicher Physis' he looks at those parts of the body which point to such a “free space.”
The following drawing was taken from 1919-04-05-GA190. See Figure 2. It points to the physical heart as it swims in the sac of the surrounding separated etheric heart.
If we consider these ideas carefully there arises before our inner eye Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom (or: Philosophy of Spiritual I- consciousness to evolve because the I takes part in all spiritualised thinking. Further it says in the ninth chapter that the physical organisation has no part in the essence of thought, that instead, indeed, the physical withdraws and creates a space for thought. Man's thought is free! The will, however, is as yet only accessible through the physical body. It can be freed if the activity of thinking can be so strengthened that the I is released slowly from the depth of the will. The reader can see how the majestic process of creating in freedom is deeply connected with the miraculous and creative work of the individual human being as he frees himself from that which hinders the rightful unfolding of the etheric heart. We are talking about the etheric heart as an organ for future lives, an organ with an eye for karmic cognition. This has been placed into Man's hands and, according to Rudolf Steiner, in the year 2100 this process is destined to slowly reach a conclusion.
Although on one hand that which was described is part of a normal evolutionary process, there is another side to it, a prerequisite that may not be overlooked. According to Rudolf Steiner; it is important that mankind creates a spiritual compensation, a counterweight to the past, when the heart was a God-given, a God-protected organ. Human beings must connect the separated etheric heart to the spiritual world through a transformed thinking and feeling life. In our age they need to find a new Michaelic path on which they search for the truth, then they will find the right way to this cosmically created third etheric heart. This new spiritual and dynamic path gives Man the possibility to structure his etheric heart organ as a sense organ ever more in the greatest possible diversity. As the third heart is created by the Logos in Michaelic freedom in conjunction with Man, it grows in size as large as the entire blood organism. It is an invisible sense organ, an inner cognitive eye of the heart revealing the karmic chain of events throughout incarnations.
Rudolf Steiner has indicated how the spirit-pupil can learn to think with such a spiritual heart and how he can protect and care for such knowledge. When Michaelic thinking has truly been activated, spirit knowledge is gathered through the separated heart, not through the noble head which disregards the subjective as well as Man's feelings; yes, Michael will open the path of thought from the head to the heart, and hearts not heads begin to have thoughts. All of this follows naturally the great revelation of the creating of the third heart after the loosening of the newly formed etheric heart. It is Michael's intention that in future, intelligence will stream through the hearts of human beings and that it will be connected to the same divine spiritual forces that helped to create Man in the beginning of time.
[Pfeiffer]
With regard to the fifth heart chamber I was led to Ehrenfried Pfeiffer's autobiography 'Ein Leben fuer den Geist'. He touches briefly on this deep occult secret but points to no further references by Steiner. He merely indicates the point/circle meditation, given by Rudolf Steiner in the curative course.
[Summary]
In summarizing we can say that through the separation of the etheric heart and its further expansion over the entire blood circulation an opposing pole has been set into motion. It has become possible for souls connected to Michael to be engaged in a goal-oriented schooling for initiation and thus to enter into closer connection with the hierarchies and the etheric Christ, who reveals Himself today as an angel. It is Michael's aim that the spiritual schooling will lead to heart-knowledge and that the etheric eye of the heart will become an organ of cognition.
[Michael letters - see 1925-GA026]
We read the following in the Michael-Letters:
The Christ-force imprints human imaginations into the cosmic ether.
That which Man experiences as strength of conscious imagination becomes world content.
Hearts begin to have thoughts, that is the new way of thinking with the heart.
The newly developed heart-organ slowly transforms into an eye or better a sensing-heart-eye-organ.

Everyone who strives in the light of spiritual science and connects himself with the creative World-Logos through heartfelt thoughts, sooner or later will learn to read karma. By doing so he adds to the substance of the etheric-youth or angel-being through which the etheric Christ reveals Himself today.
. For spiritually active pupils in the Michaelic stream, the third etheric heart becomes:
1. an eye for self-cognition, the realization of the true self as the eternal being of man.
2. likewise it becomes the eye of the I-sense, which perceives the other in his true being.
3. an eye of cognition for supersensible beings and for the etheric Christ Himself, protected and cherished in the Michaelic mystery-culture of will as it is destined for our epoch.
4. it will also become possible to perceive the karma of others as well as one's own karmic chain.
All this grows from the fruits of a trained will. I refer to the September verse of the Calendar of the Soul:
O Nature, your maternal life
I bear within the essence of my will. And my will's fiery energy .. Shall steel my spirit striving,

That sense of self springs forth from it .. To hold me in myself.
[heart illness]
When Dr. Kaelin, a medical doctor and research scientist asked Rudolf Steiner why there was such a rapid increase of heart problems he explained it with the fact that the etheric heart is loosening from the physical. This was mentioned earlier.
It can be seen from Rudolf Steiner's answer that we at the beginning of the 21st century stand at the focal point regarding the developmental process of the etheric heart. We may not fail to research all possible facts with the greatest clarity possible, we may not fail to practice, exercise and purify ourselves while searching for the truth. Yes, we may contribute to the right formation of the new etheric heart; Michael leaves us free but he expects, and he observes us. Today most people do not practice, it is their omission, a tragic loss which occurs because of lack of knowledge which damages the physical heart. All the more we should work on unfolding our heart organ which allows us to ascend to imagination and inspiration and to forms of cognition where we may experience our own, cognitive eye of the etheric heart in the Sun-Logos.
The powerful rays of the Spirit-Sun live in the new etheric heart organ. (GA 212) The human being will one day be able to rise to infinite spirit heights.
[1911-10-01-GA130: etherization of blood]
Many more aspects to the theme could be researched. In Basel (1911-10-01-GA130) Rudolf Steiner spoke about the etherisation of the blood, the facts are well known to students of anthroposophy. Illnesses of the heart can predominantly be traced to a lack of spiritual activity. Moral characteristics affect the contraction and expansion of the capillary vessels, and our moral soul-life also influences the make-up of our blood.
Our blood, seen from a spiritual perspective, undergoes a constant process of etherisation, creating a foundation for health and life. If enough spiritual activity is unfolded it has a positive effect on the blood because used substance can be etherised. This ether substance has its occult source in the etherised blood of the Logos. It is the heart-blood of the crucified and subsequently risen Logos. He is united with the Sun ether. If Man inwardly connects with the Christ Being, there lives in him indeed in the etherized substance of his etheric heart and in his etheric blood stream the blood stream of the crucified. If a human being cannot connect inwardly with the Christ, if he rejects Him, the etheric blood of the Christ bounces off the etheric blood stream of such a Mman. This is a profound occult truth, a prerequisite to the stupendous unfolding of the developmental process of the new etheric heart. (1911-10-01-GA130)
With each heartbeat a certain amount of material substance is absorbed, taken away from physical pressure and added to the etheric substance. This etheric substance begins to radiate outward so that we can become aware of the process in a picture. To begin with there is the human being on the physical cross of his body. Etheric rays stream out from the centre of his heart. From the heart of the Christ pinned to the cross of the Tree of Life flows His blood into the dying earth and into men's dying bodies. As etheric sun rays they stream far into the cosmos. We too can take into ourselves these rays so that out of a small etheric Sun in our new etheric heart organ likewise streams can flow far into the cosmos. We harbour in our ether heart a creatively active inner sun that radiates warmth and light into the surrounding, into the far reaches of the cosmos. It is the warmth ether that is predominantly active in the etheric heart.
[1921-07-02-GA205]
We find important indications from Rudolf Steiner in lecture 1921-07-02-GA205:
When we look into the inner heart, we find that there are forces collecting from the metabolic and limb system. We know that that which is connected to the etheric heart-forces has been spiritualised, it follows that that which has to do with our outer life and our actions is also spiritualised and woven into it.
That which is being prepared in the heart as forces turns into karmic predispositions and karmic tendencies. ‘It is simply outrageous to speak of a heart pump ...’You see, when one gets to know this organization and learns to differentiate then it all appears as a great connected whole. One needs to look at the entirety, life that reaches beyond birth and death. In this way one can look into the most intimate structure of Man. We cannot speak of the head because the head is simply cast off; those forces are fulfilled with this incarnation, they were transformed from the previous incarnation. The metabolic activities which take place are not simply chemical processes which one can examine physiologically or chemically.

There is another important nuance where morality plays a part. This moral nuance is indeed stored in the heart and carried over into the next incarnation. To study the total human being means to find in him the forces which reach beyond the earthly life.
In 1921-07-02-GA205, Rudolf Steiner says:
You can imagine what a tremendous difference there is, between that which lives in our heart during this incarnation and the condition in which we find ourselves in a new life after having gone through a long development in the time between death and a new birth.And yet when you look into your innermost heart you can assess quite well, of course in a hidden way only, not in a fully developed imagination, what you will do in your next life. One can, you see, not only say in an abstract way, my next life is being prepared today in all karmic detail, but one can point to the ‘little box’ in which the karma rests, awaiting the future.
[1915-05-01-GA161]
Another important lecture is 1915-05-01-GA161, where Rudolf Steiner speaks about the etheric heart in relation to its new position in the back of the head outside the physical body. See Figure 3. It is quite important that this is taken into account. It is further necessary to study and research the etheric heart and its position by looking at “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds” especially the part “Some Results of Initiation”. The darkly shaded part at the back of the head in the picture would be the very first beginning of the new etheric heart. It arises as a mighty net of etherized blood which creates an individual thin little skin separating it from the cosmic ether. With this we have made another step in understanding the size and position of the etheric heart.
[1922-05-06-GA212]
Finally we might direct our glance at possibilities which this new etheric heart organ as sense organ or Sun-eye will be able to develop for the future. I have already indicated it. We hear in the lecture 1922-05-06-GA212 that when we look into ourselves we can experience our etheric eye as a cognitive eye. It can become the organ for going into ones own depth. Here we experience the flaming, scorching and burning emotions, desires, passions and drives on the one hand, on the other that in us which does not connect with them, because it is our eternal being. It lives alongside of it. Therefore we can say that the new etheric organ becomes cognitive for our eternal being in the depth of the metabolism and will organization. While our head holds our soul as if buried within, we comprehend ourselves, our eternal being, in the dark depth of will purified from emotions and drives.
Rudolf Steiner says in this lecture:
Now we enter the realm where the soul and spirit become one ... In the head or brain Man is physical. That which is soul-like has been buried there, it is like a corpse. This corpse is the area to which presently all natural scientific research regarding the soul is directed. But in reality the soul is true to itself and connected to the spirit below the heart. The new and wonderful sense organ which is as large as the blood organism finds the eternal being of Man next to all that which arises from the depth of will as drives and emotions.
When the pupil rises to imaginative and inspired cognition then that which arises as lower drives and instincts may not speak. There arises a sum of thoughts in mighty pictures, they reveal what Man was before birth. The pupil is transported into the time before birth.
That which we see as a vision through our heart, which has become a sense organ, that is our own eternal being. We experience our own self in our eternal being. When we continue to press forward into our own being, the Sun-like quality changes. We come to a definite point where we meet inspired knowledge and where we weave with inspired cognition in a real picture-world. Now in complete consciousness through a sudden inner jolt in our spirit soul it feels as if we fuse with the Sun itself ... But at the same moment when we come to inspired cognition, when our heart-sense becomes a cognitive organ, we suddenly feel as if our very heart is being transplanted into the sun, we feel as if we go with the sun, the sun is in us, belonging to us. The Sun becomes our eye, our ear as well as our warmth organ. We are jolted into the Sun-like. “We stand within the light, we touch spirit-beings with our light-organs.” Here supersensible knowledge reaches another stage, a little step further. Then we not only feel ourselves within the Sun but we perceive ourselves “on the other side of the Sun” as well. We have now moved fully into the Sun, we feel part of the Sun with our innermost being and we experience the world within our being, previously it was outside of ourselves, around us. These are Rudolf Steiner's words. It is an experience which we go through unconsciously during sleep.
Now we need to reach beyond the Sun-sphere but this only happens through inspiration and later intuition. Here the physical Sun separates us from the place in which we live between death and a new birth. The physical Sun hinders us from seeing the spiritual. Through the added step, however, we now consciously experience the spirit of the Sun and we feel as if we were within the Sun wandering along world paths. We reach outside that which is Sun-like as “the Sun has a Spirit Being”, a kind of Super-Sun. Just as the moon has a powerful influence on the physical of man so the Sun has a strong influence on his soul.
Something else is said, that in the past through an instinctive clairvoyance, one knew that especially the spiritually inclined people are not only what they are through Sun and Moon, but that they are what they are through the great Sun-Being. That is the reason why people in the past were painted with golden auras. It was meant to show that a person was able to reach not only into the soul realm but into the spirit and further so that the extension could become visible in the etheric. See Rudolf Steiner's drawing. No drives, passions and desires stream from that which is connected to the super-sun, but rather world-soul. One experiences an inner warmth as well as an inner enthusiasm, but in pure spiritual form, not through drives and passions. There is warmth which comes from the world, from the Great Sun-Being.
[conclusion]
All this, in summary, is the crowning of that which can one day be perceived and spiritually known by the new etheric heart organ as a Sun-eye, when the Sun as spiritual Super-Sun becomes the cognitive eye of the etheric heart.
Everything that has been mentioned here, especially the stupendous possibilities for the etheric heart, is of great significance because at its foundation lies a free Michaelic deed creatively taken in hand by the pupil.
It is the powerful esoteric call to each pupil of Michael, to help in the creation of a new Sun-Earth. This co-working can be undertaken when the etheric body and the etheric heart become increasingly christianized out of the new faculties of the etheric heart-sun-eye, while the heart learns to interpret karmic events by reading within the actively creating Logos.
Learning to speak the Word which structures human life requires that the awakened Michaelic culture of will forces strengthens wills. Through this mystery magic capabilities will arise for the human being of the future. At some stage, the new etheric heart of Man will become an active organ which through karmic insight can become increasingly helpful and healing in the social sphere. To the pillar of cognition the pillar of will must be added as a column of christianized blood.
In this way the secret of the Grail lives in the magnificent occult soul spiritual unfolding of the etheric heart. The new etheric heart as cognitive spirit-eye of Man's eternal being is the place where in the Grail-Cup the etheric organ lights up as the real force, as the blood of the Redeemer.
Christian Morgenstern utters:
"I lift my heart to you as a true vessel of the Grail ...”It is the experience of being totally imbued with the spirit of eternity which fills the receiving soul of the Grail youth in a cultic spirit event at the Sun-altar. Here Spirit and soul truly unite. It is the Michaelic path to the heavenly city of the New Jerusalem.

Discussion

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References and further reading

Ehrenfried Pfeiffer 'The Heart Lectures' - see more on The human heart as a future organ
Heinz Herbert Schoeffler: 'Die Zeitgestalt des Herzens' (1974 or 1975)
Werner Christian Simonis: 'Das verkannte Herz' (1975)
James J. Lynch: 'The language of the heart' (the body's response to human dialogue) (1985)
- discusses the nature of blood pressure and how it is measured, shows its connection with human communication, and considers the implications for health care
- see also 'How Words Do Things: James J. Lynch, The Language of the Heart' by Anastasia Kucharski (published online by Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Craig Holdrege: 'The Dynamic Heart and Circulation' (2002 or 2004)
- Based on years of phenomenological research, doctors, scientists, and teachers present dynamic pictures of the circulatory system that give perspective to the prevailing mechanistic ideas that dominate science and medicine today. People today are usually taught that the heart is only a pump. This book transcends this narrow view and restores life to our understanding of the heart and circulation. These essays, inspired by a Goethean view of nature and science, attempt to portray rather than explain. Some give precise descriptions of physiological processes, while others portray the heart and circulation within broader developmental and evolutionary contexts.
- Craig Holdrege is the director of The Nature Institute in Harlemville, New York. The institute is dedicated to research and educational activities that apply a Goethean, phenomena-centered method. www.natureinstitute.org.
- Contents: 1. The Heart: A Pulsing and Perceptive Center (Craig Holdrege) 2. The Polarity of Center and Periphery in the Circulatory System (Heinrich Brettschneider) 3. The Physiology of Circulation: A Reappraisal (Hermann Lauboeck) 4. A Dynamic Morphology of the Cardiovascular System (Wolfgang Schad) 5. Patterns in the Evolution of the Heart and Circulatory System (Christiane Liesche) 6. The Embryonic Development of the Cardiovascular System (Matthias Woernle with a Preface by Heinrich Brettschneider) Appendix A: Heart Anatomy Appendix B: The Hydraulic Ram
Peter Selg: 'The mystery of the heart' (2012)
Branko Furst: 'The Heart and Circulation: An Integrative Mode (2013, second edition 2020)
- online see oa source A and source B
Walter Alexander: 'Branko Furst’s Radical Alternative - Is the Heart Moved by the Blood, Rather Than Vice Versa (2017), PDF online
Rafael Dalmau: 'Continuing the Debate: Branko Furst’s Alternative Model And the Role of the Heart (2017) - online
Armin J. Husemann: 'What Makes Blood Move?: A Mind-Body Physiology of the Heart' (2022, original 'Die Blutbewegung und das Herz' 2019, in FR as 'Le mouvement du sang et le cœur')
Ruth Haertl (1912-)
- 'Auf der Suche nach der Wirklichkeit der Erkenntnis im Denken des Herzens aus Anthropos-Sophia im Lichte des Heiligen Gral' (2014)