Nerve-sense subsystem

From Free Man Creator

Man's subsystem consisting of senses and nervous system is one of the three functional subsystems in Man as a threefold being.

It spreads across all Man's bodily principles, but has its center of gravity in

  • a) the head of Man, where the senses and nervous system join with cerebral nerves and the human brain, and
  • b) the human astral body which finds its expression in the nervous system

.

Renewal of mineral bodily substances occurs via formative processes originating from the head nerve-sense subsystem (and brain) that work throughout the whole organism of the physical body; so it is not so that mineral physical renewal takes place through metabolic pathways and direct digestion of food stuffs in the lower body

Aspects

  • evolutionary aspect
    • the oldest of the three subsystems
    • the forming of senses and nerves
  • the head or nerve-sense subsystem is essentially human physical body only (no direct workings of etheric or astral body) (1921-04-11-GA313) - see Schema FMC00.603.

head aspect

  • the head, which forms first in the maternal organism, is formed from the whole universe, the original causative forces for this formation work from the whole cosmos, and Man’s head is an image of it (1918-01-29-GA181)
  • in the physical human being, the head has an aspect that is sunlike, is emptier than empty. his head can always empty itself and in certain of its parts become emptier than empty, through this the head has the possibility of allowing the spirit to enter into it. (1918-08-26-GA183)
  • see also:

nervous system

  • nerves are ordered according to the laws of the planetary world - cosmic laws are actually reflected in these spinal and cerebral nerves. Deviations or irregularity is because Man is destined to be a being who is independent of what is going on outside him. (1910-03-28-GA119,1908-09-09-GA106, 1924-01-12-GA233A)
    • twelve cerebral nerves proceeding from the spinal cord, so the days of the month are regulated in accordance with the circuit of the Moon, twenty-eight days. Illustration: the development of the spinal column in the embryo corresponds with the movements and forces of the Moon.
    • Man has three additional pairs of nerves, i.e. thirty-one in all, which makes us independent beings; otherwise here too we should be governed by the number twenty-eight; thence the correspondence of thirty-one days in the month with the human nervous system
    • twelve main cerebral nerves proceed from the head and go out to the various parts of the organism; they are material densifications of what arose in the human belong through the instreaming of the twelve macrocosmic powers from the twelve directions of the zodiac, working into the human head through twelve (archangelic) rays or influences. This corresponds to the twelve months of the year and the relationship between Moon and Sun.
      • note: the twelve pairs of cranial nerves are often grouped into two categories: (a) seven pairs related to the brainstem (midbrain, pons, and medulla) and (b) five pairs associated with the cerebrum (higher brain) and other structures. It could be said (sources to be added) that the seven are governing higher consciousness, perception, and expression and linking to intuition, sight, and emotion; whereas the five are more grounded and practical, connected to speech, movement, and physical interaction with the world.
  • in the Zarathustrian teachings in Persian cultural age (1910-12-31-GA126)
    • the Zodiac was seen as an external expression or image, of 'Zervana Akarana', the primal reality of Being living and weaving through eternity. Macrocosmic forces coming from twelve directions of the universe work into Man: six directed towards the light side of the Zodiac traversed by the sun by day; the other six towards the dark side turned towards Ahriman.
    • In Man the microcosmic counterparts are to be found in the twelve main cerebral nerves or Amshaspands ... [astral beings] through which the archangels worked into the human head. In the Indian cultural age, the angels or 'Izads' formed the 28, 30 to 31 spinal nerves. Also Germanic mythology mentions twelve streams flowing from Niflheim to Muspelheim. These are now astral streams, but in the Lemurian and Atlantean epochs these were etheric streams. Note: these streams also link to the canals observed on Mars in our age.
  • interface between blood and nervous system - see Blood and nerves
  • see also: human astral body and I-organization

sense system

Inspirational quotes

1916-03-07-GA167

see also Schema FMC00.488 below (and even also Schema FMC00.321)

the human being .. consists of two portions:

  • the skull and the spinal column attached to it with the brain inside the skull and the spinal fluid in the spinal column,
  • and the rest of the human being is attached to it.

You have the head like a small cosmic sphere ... and the [rest of the] human being only .. attached to it.

1922-04-01-GA211 see nearly full lecture extract on: Human breathing#1922-04-01-GA211, and also on The human brain

You see [like a vault] ... I have drawn the inside of the human head, and [like a window], the eye through which one sees, through which the impressions of light come. What I have drawn as a vault are the convolutions of the brain, the spreading nerves. The light enters there and spreads out. Instead of the vapor that I have drawn there, imagine

the inhaled air that flows up and scans what can glimmer and glisten in the brain through the light, and what then forms into thoughts in the brain. The air flows back down through the spinal canal. Instead of there being an instrument, there is the human larynx and it can give expression to what has been experienced.

There you have a picture of what actually goes on in the human head.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.670: illustrates Man as a threefold being in relation to the three worlds, with a picture and description used recurrently by Rudolf Steiner. The 'head' nerve-sense subsystem and 'limb' metabolic-limb subsystem are polar opposites, the first most and the latter least spiritualized, while the middle rhythmic subsystem modulates and balances the two. The influences of the different etheric formative forces are depicted with the open sphere at both ends,

On the left, focus is on the human head with the 'empty' part (see Schema FMC00.045) and connection with the spiritual. Connect this with the schemas and descriptions on etherization of blood, the human brain, and matter is destroyed in the brain to develop an imaginative insight of this point in the human brain between the pineal and pituitary glands. For another angle, see also Schema FMC00.463 and Man's new organ.

illustrates Man as a threefold being in relation to the three worlds, with a picture and description used recurrently by Rudolf Steiner. The 'head' nerve-sense subsystem and 'limb' metabolic-limb subsystem are polar opposites, the first most and the latter least spiritualized, while the middle rhythmic subsystem modulates and balances the two. The influences of the different etheric formative forces are depicted with the open sphere at both ends, On the left, focus is on the human head with the 'empty' part (see Schema FMC00.045) and connection with the spiritual. Connect this with the schemas and descriptions on etherization of blood, the human brain, and matter is destroyed in the brain to develop an imaginative insight of this point in the human brain between the pineal and pituitary glands. For another angle, see also Schema FMC00.463 and Man's new organ.


Schema FMC00.488 is an example of a schema that provides a synthesis to two major points from an important didactic lecture.

For lecture text, see Thinking Feeling Willing#1917-10-08-GA177

The first point (right, and left text boxes) is about the twofold nature of the human being as a result of the luciferic infection in the Lemurian epoch.

The second point (upper and lower text boxes in grey) is about the true nature of thinking: 'dead' thinking whereby our head takes in and processes living astral elementals, versus 'living' thinking whereby these thoughts are coming through the spiritual world and spiritual hierarchies, flowing through the lower part of the body and filled with feeling and willing.

For further study, this relates to:

FMC00.488.jpg

Schema FMC00.135 shows (left) the nervous system as the instrument of the human astral body, interfacing with the blood and I-organization (right).

FMC00.135.jpg

Lecture coverage and references

1908-09-09-GA106

.. what was produced in man through the influence of the various aspects of the moon. We have spoken of the twenty-eight nerves proceeding from the spinal cord, which stem from the positions of the moon during the twenty-eight days that the moon requires to return to its first form. We have probed the mystery of how, through the cosmic forces, these twenty-eight pairs of nerves were formed in man from outside.

1910-03-28-GA119

Our nerves are ordered according to the laws of the planetary world outside, for the planetary world is the outer expression of spiritual realities and spiritual worlds.

If it is the case that the world of spirit works at the forming of our nervous system, it follows that underlying our nervous system there must be a certain law and order corresponding to that of the solar system. Our nervous system must be an inner solar system, for it is organised from the heaven world. We will now ask ourselves whether this nervous system really functions as if it were a mirror-image of the solar system out yonder in the Macrocosm.

As you know, our measurement of time is governed by the relation of the planets to the Sun and again in the yearly cycle by the passage of the Sun through the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. That is an arrangement of time based upon the law contained in the number twelve as a number which expresses the movements taking place in the solar system. There are also twelve months in the year, and in the longest months there are thirty-one days. That again is based upon the mutual relations of the heavenly bodies and is connected with our time-system. There is a certain irregularity for which there is a good reason, but we cannot go into it now.

Let us try to picture this remarkable time-system in the universe and ask ourselves how these cosmic processes would be reflected in our nervous system. If the forces underlying the Macrocosm are also the forces which have formed our nervous system, we shall certainly find a reflection of them in ourselves; and in fact we have twelve cerebral nerves and thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves.

The cosmic laws are actually reflected in these spinal and cerebral nerves.

The existence of a certain irregularity is explained by the fact that Man is destined to be a being who is independent of what is going on outside him.

Just as the Sun's passage through the constellations of the Zodiac takes place in twelve months, and this is reflected in the twelve cerebral nerves, so the days of the month are regulated in accordance with the circuit of the Moon, twenty-eight days.

How is the connection of the thirty-one days in the month with the human nervous system to be explained?

We have three additional pairs of nerves, i.e. thirty-one in all, which makes us independent beings; otherwise here too we should be governed by the number twenty-eight. Here you can glimpse a deep mystery, a wonderful connection between our nervous system and what is expressed in the great symbols of space—symbols which in themselves are mirrorings of spiritual beings and activities.

1910-12-31-GA126

makes the link with the concept of the Zodiac man

It should not be beyond the scope of modern physiology to know where the microcosmic counterparts of the twelve Amshaspands are to be found. They are the twelve main nerves proceeding from the head; these are nothing else than material densifications of what arose in the human belong through the instreaming of the twelve macrocosmic powers.

The ancient Persians pictured the twelve archangel beings working from the twelve directions of the Zodiac, working into the human head in twelve rays, in order gradually to produce what is now our intelligence. Naturally they did not work into man for the first time in the ancient Persian epoch, but finally they worked in such a way that we can speak of twelve cosmic radiations, twelve archangel-radiations, which then densified in the human head into twelve main cerebral nerves.

And just as knowledge in a later age includes what was already known in an earlier one, so could the Persians also know that Spirits of a lower rank than the Archangels had been at work previously, in the Indian epoch. The Persians called the Beings of the rank below the Amshaspands, “Izads,” and of these they enumerated 28 to 31. The Izads, therefore, are Beings who give rise to a less lofty activity; to soul-activity in man. They send in their rays, which correspond to the 28, 30 to 31 spinal nerves. And so in Zarathustrianism you have our modern physiology translated into terms of the spiritual, the macrocosmic, in the twelve Amshaspands and in the 28 to 31 Izads of the next lower Hierarchy.

A true fact of historical evolution is that what was originally seen spiritually is now presented to us through anatomical dissection; things that were formerly accessible to clairvoyant vision appear in later epochs in materialistic form. A wonderful bridge is disclosed here between Zarathustrianism, with its spirituality, and modern physiology, with its materialism. Of course, the destiny of the great majority of mankind makes it inevitable that such an idea as that of the connection between the Persian Amshaspands and Izads and our nerves is regarded as lunacy, especially by those who study the materialistic physiology of to-day. But after all, we have plenty of time, for the Persian epoch will be fully recapitulated only in the sixth cultural age which follows our own. Then, for the first time, the conditions prevailing will enable such things to be intelligible to a large part of humanity. Therefore we have to content ourselves with the fact that indications of them can be given today as part of the spiritual-scientific outlook. And such indications must be given if a spiritual-scientific conception of the world is to be spoken of in the true sense, and attention called, not merely in general phrases, to the fact that man is a microcosmic replica of the macrocosm.

1916-03-07-GA167

When you study the human being more accurately, you can see in every skeleton that it consists of two portions.

You have

  • the skull and the spinal column attached to it with the brain inside the skull and the spinal fluid in the spinal column,
  • and the rest of the human being is attached to it.

You can consider the human being only as being attached to it. You have the head like a small cosmic sphere attached to the whole thing.

...

This human head comes into existence between death and a new birth as in a large sphere which we could compare with our blue heavenly sphere, that in which our karma is woven and is an organization which as it goes towards incarnation, becomes smaller and smaller and then unites itself with the mother. That which then becomes our head is woven through by countless beings of the hierarchies out of the whole cosmic all. It is a wisdom of the most immense magnitude, a wisdom which has embodied in it all the experiences.

Our head is an inheritance of the Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon incarnations. The earth with all its forces could not have been able to produce this head. It is only possible to bring into existence that which is added to the head, not the head with all its forces.

The other part of the human being, not the head with the spinal column, but that which is attached to it actually is earth man.

1918-01-29-GA181

It would not occur to anyone who takes a compass, a magnetic needle in hand, to seek in the needle itself the cause of its pointing with one end to the North and with the other to the South; the physicist feels himself compelled to regard the magnetic force proceeding from the needle, and the directing magnetic force coming from the North Pole of the earth, as a whole. The cause of what takes place in the small space of the needle is sought in the great universe.

Yet this is not done in other cases where it should be done, and where it is of importance. If anyone — especially a scientist — observes that one living being is formed within another living being, as, for instance, the egg is formed in the body of the hen, he sees there how something forms in the smallest space; but what does not usually strike him is to apply what he knows of the magnetic needle and say, that the reason why the germ of the egg develops in the body of the hen lies in the entire cosmos, not in the hen. Exactly as the great universe has a part in the magnetic needle, so too the whole cosmos has a share in the hen’s body, — no matter what other processes also take part in it — the whole cosmos in its spherical form co-operate. […]

That of course is heresy in the eyes of official science, but it is a truth. The forces of the cosmos co-operate in the most varied ways. Just as it is true that in the case of Man (empirical embryology proves this) the head, in its germinal rudiments is formed from the whole universe, — the human head forms first in the maternal organism — so too is it true that, on the other hand, the original causative forces for this formation work from the whole cosmos, and Man’s head is an image of it.

1918-08-26-GA183

... because science - the general worldview of our time - does not recognize the meaning of what is 'emptier than empty', it is locked in materialism. There is in the human being, if I may express it so, a place which is emptier than empty - not in its whole, but included in its parts. The whole human being - and I mean the physical human being - is a being which fills out a material space, but a particular member of this human nature ... has actually an aspect that is sunlike, is emptier than empty. This is the human head. And just because the human being is so organized that his head can always empty itself and in certain of its parts become emptier than empty, through this the head has the possibility of allowing the spirit to enter into it.

1923-08-23-GA227

also on: Man and the spiritual hierarchies#1923-08-23-GA227

To begin with, I shall give you only a schematic account of all this, but from the way these three worlds are related to Man you will gather many things about them. To these three worlds as they appear in three ascending stages—the lowest, the middle one, and the highest—I will then relate Man's three members—the head; then the breast-organisation embracing all that is rhythmical, the breathing system and blood circulation; thirdly, the metabolic-limb system, which includes nutrition, digestion and the distribution throughout the body of the products of digestion, all of which engender movement. All this has to do with the metabolic-limb system.

If this scheme were drawn, there would have to be a closed circle for the breast; for the head a circle left open, and open also for the limb system.

When perceived physically, Man's head appears to be closed above and would have to be drawn so, but perceived spiritually, it is open. The part of a Man which does not belong at all to the realm of the spirit is the bony system, which is entirely of a physical nature; and when spiritually you study the human head, its thick skull is not seen. Only the skin is visible where the hair grows.

When this is looked at spiritually, however, something else appears. Ordinary hair is not there at all, but purely spiritual hair; in other words, rays which penetrate into the human organism and are held back, to some extent, only by the physical hair.

But it is just where there is bone in the organism that the spirit can enter most easily, and this it does in the form of rays.

So, on first looking at a Man with your physical eyes, you see his physical form with the head above, and on his head—if he is not already bald—there is hair. But then, where the dome of the skull comes, spiritually you see nothing of the physical man; you see rays, sun-like rays, pouring into him from the spiritual worlds.

Thus the reason for the circle not being closed for the head is that the surrounding bony vault of the skull enables the spirit to have continual access there.

Nothing in a Man is without purpose. By deliberate intent of the ruling powers—one might say—he has been given a head thus closed above, for here the spirit has the easiest access to his inner being because of the very thickness of the bone.

When we are in a position to observe man spiritually, we are astonished to discover how empty his head is of anything drawn from his own inner being. As regards the spiritual, he has almost nothing in him to fill the hollow globe sitting on his shoulders. Everything spiritual has to enter it from outside.

1924-01-12-GA233A

Thus, profound and solemn attention was given in this school to the passage of the Moon through First Quarter, Full Moon, Last Quarter, New Moon; they learned to watch how the Moon in this way goes through twenty-eight to thirty phases. They watched out in the Cosmos the passage of the Moon through her phases. They watched the Moon as she moves within her orbit.

They saw how she describes her twenty-eight to thirty curves or turns and they understood

  • how Man has in his spinal column these twenty-eight to thirty vertebrae and
  • how the development of the spinal column in the embryo corresponds with the movements and forces of the Moon.

They saw in the form and shape of the human spinal column the copy of the monthly movement of the Moon. And in the twenty-eight to thirty nerves that go out from the spinal column into the whole organism, they saw a copy of the streams that the Moon sends down continually upon the Earth, sending them down at the various stages of her path in the heavens.

Actually and literally, in these continuations of the vertebrae they saw a reflection of the inpouring of the Moon-streams. In short, in what the human being bears within him in the nerves of the spinal marrow together with the spinal marrow itself, they saw something that unites him with the Cosmos, that brings him into living connection with the Cosmos.

All this that I have indicated to you was presented to the pupil. And he was then made to observe something else. It was said to him:

“Look at the optic nerve: watch how it goes from the brain across into the eye. You will see that in the course of its passage into the eye it is divided into very fine threads. How many threads? The threads that go from the optic nerve into the inside of the eye are exactly as many in number as the nerves that go out from the spinal marrow; there are twenty-eight to thirty of them. So that we may say, a spinal marrow system in miniature goes from the brain through the optic nerve into the eye.”

Thus has Man — so said the teacher to his pupils — thus has man received this thirty-membered system of nerves and spinal marrow from the Gods, who in primeval antiquity formed and shaped his existence; but Man himself has fashioned, in his eye, in his sense-world-beholding eye, a copy of the same; there, in the front of the head-organism he has fashioned for himself a copy of what the Gods have made of him.

After this, the pupil's attention was directed to the following. The organisation of the spinal marrow stands, as we have seen, in connection with the Moon. But on the other hand, through the special relationship that the Moon has to the Sun, we have a year of twelve months; and from the human brain twelve nerves go out to the various parts of the organism, the twelve chief nerves of the brain. In this respect, Man, in his head organisation, is a microcosm, in respect, namely, of the relationship between Sun and Moon. In the whole form and figure of Man is expressed an imitation of the processes out yonder in the Cosmos.

Discussion

Note 1 - Head nerve-sense system at the basis for mineral renewal of physical body

Introduction and key statement

This is a work area to gather and integrate reference quotes to support and explain the statement below but approaching it from different angles:

Renewal of mineral bodily substances occurs via etheric formative processes originating from the head nerve-sense subsystem (and brain) that work throughout the whole organism of the physical body.

It is not so that mineral physical renewal takes place through metabolic pathways and direct digestion of food stuffs in the lower body

Commentary

Schemas illustrating this:

  • Schema FMC00.513 shows the intake of foodstuff and the process upto to the head
    • see right and upper right part of this Schema (oa phosphor)
  • Schema FMC00.015A shows the finer cosmic breathing process of formative forces; below is the process of transmutation via warmth
    • the mineral renewal is part of what is called, below, the 'exhalation' process of what has been inhaled

.

The challenge for our mind is, through soul work, to let go of the flow of physical substance and visualization of the mineral physical body ('earth'), and see this in all its dimensions of the spectrum of elements and ethers (so including the astral/air process, the etheric formative forces ..).

For this it may help to first read Force substance representation, and contemplate Man: an integrated view#Illustrations (a.o. schemas 245 and 644)

Reference extracts

Disclaimer: the RSL references and quotes below come through an AI system that sometimes gives completely wrong lecture references, so still to be checked and validated.

1920-10-09-GA314

see quote on: Man: an integrated view#1920-10-09-GA314 and Schema FMC00.669

1921-04-11-GA313

see also: Working of substances and their forces#1921-04-11-GA313

and Schema FMC00.603 captures this as: the head nerve-sense subsystem, regarded as a process, is essentially physical body

discusses how the crystalline, mineral-forming processes in the organism originate in the head. Particularly, how silica and limestone formation depend not directly on metabolism but stem from the nerve-sense system and its higher processes

1921-04-12-GA313

elaborates how I activity in the head (via warmth differentiation) governs mineral substances such as phosphorus and sulphur

1923-11-09-GA230

see: Working of substances and their forces#1923-11-09-GA230

synopsis

Origin of the different systems of man. Limb system from the Earth, Metabolic system from the Moon, Rhythmic system from the Sun, Nerve-senses system from Saturn. All substances taken into the body must be transformed: Mineral into Warmth ether, Plant into Air processes, Animal into Water processes. Only the pure human may be saved. Carbon created in man disperses ether, which penetrates sense organs and opens man to spiritual influences. Metabolic processes would cause illness, if they were not kept in check by healing processes born on Sun. Breathing has a cosmic rhythm and restrains the circulation rhythm. Comparison with Saturn. Joy of the first two hierarchies in this healing process. Man's spiritual activity in relation to healing. Inflammation caused by blood processes entering nerves: swellings and growths, by nerve processes entering the blood. Relation of education to health. World healing processes in the function of metals. Human therapy a microcosm of world therapy.

    “All substances taken into the body must be transformed: Mineral into Warmth‑ether…”

1923-11-10-GA230

synopsis

All food must be transformed in the human organism. Mineral substance must be turned to warmth ether to receive cosmic forces for the building of the body. Children can only transform milk. Untransformed substances cause disease, e.g. diabetes. External warmth also must not enter the body. What root and flower in the plant say to man. Roots laid down when moon was united with the earth. The plant was liberated when the moon left the earth. Earthbound root and heaven-striving flower reverse their position when the plant becomes an air-being in man. In digestion pod-bearing plants (e.g. beans) do not reach the head. The reversal of the plant cannot properly take place in animal digestion. Elemental spirits of fear counter the animal's satisfaction in digestion. Kamaloka of carnivorous animals. Anthroposophy never fanatical (e.g. in diet) but only shows the truth. Milk working in the head for young children has its counterpart for old people in honey, the beestock being a head without a skull in outer nature. “A land flowing with milk and honey.”

    “Mineral substance must be turned to warmth ether to receive cosmic forces for the building of the body.”

1925-GA027 Chapter 6

see also: Human skeleton#1925-GA027 Ch. 6

for carbonic acid, juxtapose Schema FMC00.589 and Schema FMC00.542

distinguishes three regions of nerve organization and substances.

notes that respiratory carbonic acid, when brought to the head, combines with calcium and is directed by the head nerves and I activity toward bone formation.

Related pages

References and further reading

Nervous system

  • Karl Ballmer: Briefwechsel über die motorischen Nerve (1953)
  • Wolfgang Schad (editor/publisher)
    • Die menschliche Nervenorganisation und die Soziale Frage: Teil 1: Ein anthropologisch-anthroposophisches Gespräch (1991)
    • Die menschliche Nervenorganisation und die Soziale Frage: Teil 2: Dokumentarischer Anhang, Verlag Freies Geistesleben (1992)
    • Die Doppelnatur des Ich: Der übersinnliche Mensch und seine Nervenorganisation (2014)
  • Peter Wyssling: Rudolf Steiners Kampf gegen die motorischen Nerven. Das Schicksal einer Weltanschauungsentscheidung in Karl Ballmer und Gerhard Kienle
  • L.F.C. Mees: 'Hoe beweegt de mens zich ? : het probleem van de motorische zenuwen' (1988)


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