Rhythmic subsystem

The rhythmic subsystem is one of the three 'functional subsystems' in Man as a threefold being. The rhythmic subsystem consists of the rhythmic life pulses in man: breathing, blood circulation, and circulation of other fluids. It has a balancing nature between the other two subsystems (see Schema FMC00.007 below).

Most central to the rhythmic subsystem is the process of human breathing that inserts oxygen and fine substances into the human blood circulation, see Human breath.

Circulating fluids include not just blood but also lymphic fluid and chyle (see Schema FMC00.155 below):

the blood for Man's human 'I' - see The heart's two blood circuits and Ganganda Greida
the lymph maps to the astral body of Man - in the lymph circulate moon and mars beings influencing Man's character
the chyle maps to the etheric body of Man - in chyle circulate Venus beings, impacting in lower spiritland and Man's Human temperament

Aspects

rhythmic subsystem as the carrier for the life of feeling, with a dream consciousness
correspondence with the 'leaf' aspects of Man as an inverted plant (see Schema FMC00.111)
ratio of 4:1
- Y"ou experience yourself because your head runs four times slower than the rest of your organism. That is the inner sensing of one's self, the inner perception of one's self, the running after the tempo of the limb-metabolic organism with what is function of the head. "(1922-10-20-GA218)
- a certain measure of balance exists for every organism between four and one .. it never is exactly one to four, but there are all kinds of possible conditions; in this way people are individualized. Variants or structural deviations can cause certain illnesses (cramps, polio). (1922-10-20-GA218)
ratio between breathing and heart rhythm (blood circulation) in Man
- In our in-breathing the external world pulsates: we receive the moving waves of cosmic life into ourselves, and adjust them to our inner being. In our out-breathing our own blood pulsates: we impart to the rhythm of the breath something of the vibration of the pulse in the circulating blood (1922-09-22-GA216)
- hexameter in ancient Greece:
  - "The Greek hexameter is based upon the wonderful ratio of number existing between the rhythm of the breathing and the pulse in the human being .. Homer listens to those spiritual beings of the air who use the state of equilibrium between the inbreathing and the out-breathing of Man to create a rhythm between the breathing and the circulating blood. " (1922-09-23-GA216)
  - eight pulse beats in two breaths, as follows: three long syllables (pulse beats) with the caesura, which gives a breath, and three more pulse beats with the caesura, or with the end of the verse (1921-06-26-GA205) .. "the blood places the four syllable lengths into the breath .. this first half of an hexameter properly indicates how our blood meets, impinges on, the nervous system." (1923-05-18-GA276)
rhythms of Man compared to those of the Third Hierarchy (oa 1909-01-12-GA107), the spiritual hierarchies (see Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods) and the cosmos (see: 25920)
for an overview of detailed topic pages of the rhythms in Man (breath, day, year, seven year periods, 18 years, life), see the Cosmic Breathing section on Man - the human being

Inspirational quotes

1918-10-12-GA184

If Man will only give up looking for anything coarsely material as the basis of nature — and this he will do before the fourth millennium — he will come to something quite different; he will discover rhythms, rhythmical orderings, everywhere in nature. These rhythmical orderings are there, but as a rule modern materialistic science makes fun of them. ... This rhythmical order is there in the whole of nature. In the plants one leaf follows another in rhythmical growth; the petals of the blossoms are ordered rhythmically, everything is rhythmically ordered. Fever takes a rhythmical course in sickness; the whole of life is rhythmical. The discerning of nature's rhythms — that will be true natural science.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.155 sketches how Man is traversed by spiritual beings from Moon, Mars, Venus in circulating lymph and chyle fluids, and how Saturn beings take their abode in Man's sensory perceptions. Chyle, lymph blood are also called the three bodily humors as it existed in ancient Greece and the cultures before, and that based itself on liquids for health treatment.

Schema FMC00.007 illustrates the three subsystems in Man, see also FMC00.282.

Schema FMC00.282 illustrates the three subsystems in Man, see also FMC00.007.

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

For a starter, Rudolf Steiner have two lectures in GA107 called 'Rhythm in the Bodies of Man'

Reference extracts

1908-12-21-GA107

Rhythm in the Bodies of Man (1 of 2)

covers oa:

the bodily principles by waking/sleeping
changes in the I in 24h as related to the Earth rotation
changes in the astral body in seven days in relation to the four Moon phases
changes in the etheric body every 10x7x4 days and relation to Old Saturn and Earth's orbit
rhythm and freedom, becoming independant of rhythms

1909-01-12-GA107

Rhythm in the Bodies of Man (1 of 2)

covers oa:

rhythms of I, astral body, etheric body and physical body in relation 1 : 7 :(4x7) : (10x4x7)
relationships between
- the various rhythms of astral and etheric bodies to eachother
- the human bodily principles and the movements of the heavenly bodies
- rhythms of Man and those of the beings of the Third Hierarchy
growing independence of ancient outer rhythms and the development of a new inner rhythm
relationships between human bodily principles and incarnations in ratio 4:7

1921-06-26-GA205

If one grasps with Imagination what I described two days ago as the weaving and being of the plant world and, parallel with this, the weaving and being of the human etheric body, then one remains still within the world in which one normally resides. One must think of oneself as being transported from the earth, so to speak, and poured out into the entire cosmos.
Then, however, in passing into the airy element, one must remove oneself from space. Then there must be the possibility of knowing oneself in a world that is no longer spatial but that exists only in time, a world in which only the time element holds a certain significance. In the times in which such things were still livingly perceived, it was seen that what belonged to such worlds could really be observed in the way that the spiritual played into human activity through rhythm.
I pointed out to you how the ancient Greek formulated the hexameter: three pulse beats with the caesura, which gives a breath, and three more pulse beats with the caesura, or with the end of the verse, which gives the full hexameter.
In two breaths one has the corresponding eight pulse beats. The harmonious resounding of the pulse beats with the breathing was shaped artistically in the recitation of the Greek hexameter.
The way in which the spiritual, super-sensible world permeates the human being, how it permeates the blood circulation, the blood rhythm, synthesizes four pulse beats, four pulse rhythms, to one breathing rhythm — all this was reflected in every speech formation that is in the hexameter. All original strivings to build verse derive from this rhythmic organization of the human being.

1922-09-22-GA216

Thus we must look into the spiritual world if we would gain knowledge of what has come to pass in external history. Think of what I said some time ago, namely, that scansion, the development of the art of ancient recitative, of the hexameter, is based on the relation between the rhythms of breathing and blood-circulation in Man. Remind yourselves of what I once said in a series of lectures about the development of the hexameter. The study that led to the creation of the hexameter was, for the Greek Initiates, full of concrete realities.
As we breathe in, we receive the moving waves of cosmic life into ourselves, and adjust them to our inner being.

As we breathe out we impart to the rhythm of the breath something of the vibration of the pulse in the circulating blood.

Thus we can say:

The external world pulsates into our inbreathing.

In our out-breathing our own blood pulsates.

And so a Greek Initiate who was schooled in these things was able to observe how in and around the human being, in his ether-body and astral body, cosmic rhythm and the rhythm of the blood were meeting and intermingling and how denizens of the air were moving and dancing in these rhythms.
Such was the study to which Homer applied himself when he was developing the hexameter, in particular, to its highest perfection of form — for the hexameter is born from the connection between the human being and the world.
Many things become clear for the first time when we study history with the eye of knowledge permeated by art, and with the eye of art permeated by knowledge. I have no desire to speak about the materialistic mentality of today, which instead of pondering deeply about the origin of, let us say, the “Songs of Homer” finds a way out by saying that Homer never existed. That is the simplest way out of the difficulty, from the standpoint of modern materialism. It is not possible for materialistic science to understand Homer, and according to a mentality that has become so vain and self-glorious in our times, anything that is incomprehensible cannot possibly exist. Things that cannot be explained by the academic mind do not exist! Homer is incomprehensible — therefore he never existed. He cannot be explained, so he doesn't exist ... but after all, surely there is it more sensible explanation than this!
In museums everywhere you will find sculptured heads of Homer. I am not saying that the likeness is particularly good, but when we look at this blind Homer, whose eyes, in spite of blindness, have such a mysterious expression and whose head has a striking pose, the portrayal is good enough to make us feel perhaps he blinded himself voluntarily — I am, of course, speaking metaphorically — perhaps he deliberately made himself blind in order that sight should not disturb a certain kind of listening; for Homer listens. Without the distraction of sight, he experiences the interplay between the pulsation of the cosmos and the pulsing of human blood, the pulsing of the human ether body, where the Beings of the air carry out their dance of harmony and melody. In a kind of whirring ... as when one listens to the whirring of a swarm of flies ... Homer heard the hexameter and, undisturbed by sight or the ordinary clear light of day, it is as if his ears were touching at the same time as hearing.

1922-10-20-GA218

It is not as coarse as one generally presents it; instead it is so that the arteries of the blood have their own course and the veins join in again (diagram red), so that not one also loins the other. In the eye especially, the artery runs so that the blood flows out so to say, and is there only then absorbed in turn by the vein, so that a slight flowing off and a reabsorbtion comes about in the eye.
It is an entirely false and coarse view, if one believes that arterial blood immediately goes over there into the veinous blood. It is not so. A fine flowing out and again an absorbtion takes place. In what takes place as the outflowing vibrates the rhythm of circulation and in the nerve adjacent to it, the rhythm of the respiration vibrates really in these two rhythms which hit into each other. Imagine these two rhythms were alike, then we would not see.
Imagine you run along next to a wagon. If you run just as fast as the wagon, you will not notice the wagon. But when you walk four times slower and yet hold the wagon, then you will notice the pull. The wagon will go on and you will have to hold back if you want to slow it down. And so it is inside the eye. That is the function of the optic nerve which wants to hold back the rhythm which is four times faster. In the arresting is formed what then is perception, which appears as perception of sight, just as you notice the wagon if you run times slower; if you run in the same speed you will not feel it.
And you yourself, how do you experience yourself as an I?
You experience yourself because your head runs four times slower than the rest of your organism. That is the inner sensing of one's self, the inner perception of one's self, the running after the tempo of the limb-metabolic organism with what is function of the head.
Numberless cases of illnesses in people are based on the following; a certain measure of balance exists for every organism between four and one. One can always say: according to the way a person is organized a certain measure of balance is there.
Of course, it never is exactly one to four, but there are all kinds of possible conditions; in this way people are individualized. But for every human individuality a certain relationship exists.
[illness]
If that is disturbed and if conditions would arise, by which the relation is then not one to four, but one to 4 1/7 the dissolving force then works too strongly, then the person cannot become a statue sufficiently. You only have to remember certain forms of illness, where Man dissolves too much in himself, and you have the type of such kind of illness.
The other condition can come about just as well. Then those phenomena appear, which present cramp-like conditions. When the astral forces vibrate too fast through the etheric and physical organism, when the astral forces quiver through too fast and do not approach slowly enough, the cramp-like phenomena come about.
For example, take the ordinary children's cramps. These common cramps are based on nothing else than on the necessity that with the child the astral organism and the I have to permeate first the etheric and physical organism in the right way. Now imagine, the astral organism and the I which vibrate then into the limb-metabolic Man, are vibrating too fast. The other part of Man cannot take that right away. If it vibrates in the right way then you have, for example a part of physical and etheric man, which have to be permeated by astral and Io-man so that it gets slowly permeated. I would like to say: every current of the astral force seizes always in the right way a droplet of living water, through which the etheric flows. It adapts to each other, if the right tempo is in it. But if that vibrates in too fast (see drawing 6, red, light), then the astral bursts through the etheric and with that also through the living water, cramp-like conditions come about as can especially appear in children's cramps, because here the right rhythm must assert itself first in the entering of this streaming in. (red, blue drawing 7)
This has a far reaching meaning. It has for example, the meaning that a very bad form of illness, which causes much headache today, finds its explanation here at least: namely that the right beat together is disturbed in a special way. Such an illness for example, is the bitterly bad illness of polio, which can be explained this way, though the healing is not found at the same time, because conditions lying farther back have caused that things are not tuned in together.

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Rudolf Steiner: 'Ritmes in de mens' (2012 NL translation of ' Über den Rhythmus der menschlichen Leiber, en Rhythmen in der Menschennatur' 1988) - see GA107 in Lecture coverage above
Gunther Hildebrandt
- Biologische Rhythmen und Arbeit: Bausteine zur Chronobiologie und Chronohygiene der Arbeitsgestaltung (1976)
- Chronobiology & Chronomedicine- Basic Research and Applications: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the European Society for Chronobiology (1986)
- as editor: 'Chronobiology & Chronomedicine: Basic Research and Applications- Proceedings of the 7th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Chronobiology' (Marburg 1991)
- Need for Rhythm Studies in Anthroposophic and Goethean Science
- with Yuko Agishi: 'Chronologische Gesichtspunkte zur Physikalischen Therapie und Kurortbehandlung' (1997)
Wilhelm Hoerner: 'Zeit und Rhythmus: die Ordnungsgesetze der Erde und des Menschen' (1978, 1991)
Thale Bout: 'Oefenen met tijd en ritme: een practicum naar aanleiding van Wilhelm Hoerners boek; Zeit und Rhythmus ; een proeve tot een practicum' (1980)
Gunther Hildebrandt, Maximilian Moser, Michael Lehofer: 'Chronobiology and Chronomedicine: Biological Rhythms, Medical Consequences' (2021)
- original in DE as 'Chronobiologie und Chronomedizin. Biologische Rythmen - Medizinische Konsequenzen' (1998); also in ES as 'Cronobiología y Cronomedicina: ritmos biológicos - consecuencias médicas'; in IT as 'Cronobiologia e Cronomedicina: ritmi biologici, conseguenze mediche'
Wolfgang Held: 'Der siebenfache Flügelschlag der Seele: Leben mit dem Rhythmus der Woche' (2004)