On Attaining Spiritual Sight (Part I)

[Federica]

Thanks all for the inputs. I will add that the way I posed the question may have misled, in a sense, because the question is itself materialistically oriented. But my point is, Cowan does that! And I believe that such an approach, although understandable, is not beneficial at the end of the day. I will also have to return to that (and yes, it's really worrying how chat-GPT has become the universal go-to oracle for whatever least mental challenge or task).

[Federica]

So I think we should make clear that no one is disputing that the cardiovascular system and heart, as an integral component of that system, have mechanical aspects in their functioning. They are, after all, comprised of physical sense-perceptible structures. That is why even Steiner uses the image of a mechanical device, a hydraulic ram, to help orient our understanding of the physical heart's function. The question is whether such mechanical understanding exhaustively illuminates the cardiovascular system and its functioning, its deviations from harmonious rhyrhms, and so forth. Standard secular science say yes, and if anything, we just need to fill in some minor details about the mechanical functioning. That is exemplified in GPT's output above, which of course mimics the standard intellectual-reductive approach.

Spiritual science, on the other hand, says we can never hope to attain a deeper practical understanding if we reduce the living and holistic system to such mechanical aspects that we have isolated in our thinking. As we have spoken many times before, the heart as a pump, a hydraulic ram, or anything similar is only useful for deeper understanding if we don't use such images literally-reductively, but metaphorically, as pointers to limited aspects of the holistic system's functioning under various conditions. They can help us anchor our intuition of the complex lawfulness involved in biological phenomena. These phenomenoligical principles are quite simple, and most people here (including Eugene) would not hesitate to acknowledge them in the cognitive-supersensible domain, but as soon we begin applying them to natural-biological systems, they are discarded and people default to the reductive mentality.

It is exactly what Cleric noted above about how we project our experience of being 'things' onto the wider World flow. When we reduce the system to a thing-like organ which mechanically pumps blood around the body, the flow and movement becomes only a secondary consideration, just like our verbal tokens feel primary and the living flow of intuitive activity from which those tokens condense is left in the blind spot. The fact that this continual flow stands in a deeper scale relation to the thing-like organs gets obscured, and thus the interrelations between the cardiovascular system and other organic and psychic systems also is minimized in the study of pathological conditions. We simply need to learn to think more carefully and completely about these things, fitting the physical facts discovered into an ever-wider harmony, also informed by expanding knowledge of the depth axis.

More generally, spiritual science will inevitably seem fantastical if its descriptions are imagined to be functioning at the same reductive level as standard materialistic thinking, using images as literal mechanisms to exhaustively explain how thing-like objects function and interact with each other.

Thanks, Ashvin.
With regards to the bold, I would add that it's only in a human corpse that the inner organs are sense-perceptible structures, (or during surgery and exams) in the way the objects of our outer environment are. Living human beings can't perceive most of their own organs with the senses: the inner world remains unconscious to itself, unless there is pain, or spiritual development. In connection to which, my understanding is that the laws of physics and chemistry conceptualized by man to make sense of the outer world, as apprehended by the senses, do not necessarily apply as is within the human organization, hence within its physical manifestation. They are inevitably lacking. Substances are met and reacted with in the body on basis of the subtle balances between interacting forces integrated in unique ways by each individual 'sheath mix'.

In particular, I think the laws of physics do not apply as is within the realm of the living inner organs. That the blood flow (movement and warmth) is the point of inception of the I-organization within the physical body creates a 'variable', an 'energy', an 'input' or however we want to call it, in the system that as such, cannot be accounted for by the laws of physics, but has physical effects. Are these spiritual inputs fully readable in terms of physical correlates ruled by the currently known external laws? Specifically, is the blood flow fully reflected in some physical properties or phenomena, like the gel phase of water, as Cowan argues? I don't think so. The laws of physics are a continuous approximation in the collective scientific mind, in progress toward a growing 'inwardization', and at their current state of conceptualization cannot fully 'account for' the becoming of a microcosmic being which comprise in himself the entire Cosmos of supersensible forces. In other words, we cannot find within a temporary, momentary human picture of how the World becomes the complete key to even only the physical body of man, as a non isolated (non dead) sheath.
And I believe Steiner gave the metaphor of the ram not so much to orient our physical understanding of the heart function, but to provide a picture that, through analogy, can help us understand the overall heart function, as a sense organ, which needs to somehow retain, sense, ponder, and characterize the multiple blood flows, as vectors of information about how the transformations of the outer world are working in the metabolic system.

So, to come back to the approach adopted by Cowan (physics can easily demonstrate that the heart does not impart flow to the blood), while it's understandable, I am doubtful it is the best way to really bring forth the application of Steiner's worldview to medicine, in a way that remains above the physicalist/chat-GPT reductive objections - like "why an artificial heart-pump works well, then?", offering at the same time an intuition of the cosmic dimension of it.

[Federica]

I never talked about definitions though. Aside from that though, I agree with what you said.

My point was that cross-referencing other topics (that were hopefully created with artistic intent) might be helpful, which provide the eventual missing context and helps more with not talking past eachother as evidently happened multiple times, unfortunately. Hence, why a phpBB script of some sort would be useful for solving that. (Basically, a script that's triggered whenever a common term used and then auto-links to all relevant topics on this forum)

Alright, I see. No idea if these internal links or cross-references are possible within this forum framework, but I agree they could help!

[Cleric]

I've begun reading the book and watched the YT. I have a doubt on Cowan’s first line of reasoning in the video (Ch. 2 in the book), namely, that the heart cannot be a pump from a purely conventional scientific viewpoint. Later, he tackles the questions of what moves the blood and what the heart does. I am letting these aside here, to focus on Cowan’s point that anatomy and physics, by themselves, (commonly intended) are sufficient to show that the heart cannot do it. Has anyone looked into this? That would be great, if basic Newton laws, power, pressure, viscosity of the blood, how the network of blood vessels is structured, etc., could by themselves explain the error in the pump-conception!

But is this really the case? Cowen presents a few seemingly intuitive reasoning but these are also quite vague. He speaks of "studies" but in the book they are not referenced. What he references has to do with the further questions, mainly the phases of water. So, are Cowen lines of reasoning reasonable? These are the moments when I regret my lack of scientific education! Is it not the case that a pump, in a closed circuit, pumps on one side and exerts suction on the other, for example? (which could explain why the blue blood comes back into the heart at a higher speed that the blood speed at the periphery).

To be clear (I don't think it's necessary to say that, but who knows...) I am not questioning that the heart is not a pump. I just would like to fully understand whether or not the pump-conception is blatantly flawed, even from a merely natural scientific perspective.

Here’s my take on this issue.

From an engineering perspective, there doesn’t seem to be something mysterious in blood circulation. It should be noted that fluid dynamics are notoriously counterintuitive in some cases. Even to this day, many textbooks continue to disseminate completely misleading explanations of how the airplane wing generates lift. Even experts are caught in arguements. It is counterintuitive only with respect to our everyday intuitions of moving and throwing ball-like objects. Here are a few examples:



Unless we are already familiar with such experiments, I guess everyone’s first expectation would have been exactly the opposite of what is happening.



Above, we can speak of the pipe’s throughput, for example, in liters per second. As the fluid moves into the narrower pipe, if the same throughput is to be maintained, it needs to move faster such that the same volume per time can go through.

Think of marching soldiers in a block of 10 by 10 persons. If they reach a narrow path where only one man at a time can pass, they need to ‘serialize.’ However, if they walk at the same pace as when they were moving in the block, the whole movement will stagnate. If the second line of soldiers is not to stop and wait, every soldier from the first line would have to move ten times faster through the narrowing. When they go on the other side, they can arrange once again in a line and walk ten times slower. This gives us some intuition about the way fluid speed changes as it is forced to squeeze or expand.

In the case of the circulatory system, we have the aorta, the pipe with the greatest diameter, which then branches into many vessels. If the aorta were to squeeze into a single capillary pipe (like the image above), blood would have to flow with incredible speed if the same volume per time is to be maintained as in the aorta. However, because there are now many alternative paths, actually, the opposite happens. The same intuition also holds in electrical circuits.



The more parallel paths we provide for the current, the smaller the equivalent resistance. This seems counterintuitive when we think, “But how can this be? We add more resistors to the circuit, it should become more difficult for the electric current to flow!” The go-to analogy here is to consider what happens in the supermarket when we add more cash registers. That’s right, everyone has to wait less in line because the crowd is distributed through more pipes. Thus, even though the individual cash register has a certain throughput (it has resistance), adding more in parallel effectively reduces the resistance to the total flow of customers.

Now, if we imagine all the capillaries in the body aligned in parallel, they will form something like the braided threads of a rope. It’s easy to conceive that the thickness of that rope will be much greater than the diameter of the aorta. Thus, in reality, we have the opposite situation (the aorta is the smaller pipe) – as blood leaves the aorta, it slows down because the same throughput now passes through a far greater total cross-section. Conversely, as the flow unites once again in the venous flow, it speeds up again.

In general, from an engineering perspective, there’s nothing miraculous in the fact that the heart muscle is able to move the blood through the body. After all, if that were not the case, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) wouldn’t have been possible. Even though not as effective as the native heart action, compressing the chest is still capable of moving some amount of blood. It doesn’t make much sense that compressing the chest somehow tricks the blood into moving itself.

Now the big question is, why did Steiner maintain that the heart is not a pump? As I’ve said in the past, we can learn a ton even when certain mistakes are made. To do that, we simply need to realize that he didn’t just assert that out of thin air. He investigated certain inner experiences that motivated such a statement. What could these experiences be like?

It is actually not that difficult to comprehend. When in meditation we loosen from the suction of the bodily spectrum, and we still aim to investigate the physical, we live much more in the temporal flow of the formative forces. As we know, these are not simply another layer of electromagnetic-like field that surrounds the matter standing waves. Instead, these are intuitive streamlines of becoming. The metamorphosis of the World-state (the Tetris implosion) is steered such that the flow of life is maintained.

For simplicity, we can imagine that this inner flow can be depicted through the vortex metaphor – not as a physical structure but as the inner Mandalic experience. Archetypally, the heart is like center of this flow. In one direction, it manifests toward the periphery, and in another, toward the center.

The key here is that with our spiritual activity, we are active in the full volume of this flow. If we understand this, and if we realize that this archetypal etheric flow is the precursor of what will later decohere into the biological blood flow (among other things), we can appreciate that it would be wrong to say that this flow is agitated only from within the center of the Mandalic vortex, while the flow itself is only an inertial post-effect. Instead, we can clearly realize how intuitive intents work in the full volume. This is the main reason to conceive that the physical blood is not merely an inertial fluid propelled from the heart-center, but is actively mobile in its whole volume. Or in other words, in physical space, we can point at the heart and say, “This is where the force is applied. Movement everywhere else is only a fluid domino effect.” However, if we consider the deeper intuitive essence of this space, every point actively contributes something to the total movement, so to speak, since the whole volume is intuitively propelled by the interference of intuitive intents. The same can be said also for the aliased physical subset of inner space, but in a way, the activity is constrained in such a way that it appears too predictable, and we call it laws of nature.

This is the point where (and this is only how I presently see things) I believe Steiner has underestimated how far indeed the biological organism has sunk into mechanization. Or stated in the inverse way, he had greater faith in the ability of the supersensible flow of being to directly imprint itself in the rigidified biological organism. Or stated in yet another way, the Ahri-Lu forces have mortified the etheric flow far more than what could have been anticipated at the beginning of the 20th century. Even the esoterist’s view of the cell was more ‘romantic’ at that time, it was felt that the matter in the cell was still in a kind of semi-etheric form, and thus could transform in ways that cannot be explained in the mechanistic sense.

However, through the 20th century, the cell has been probed to such depth that it revealed itself as an incredible Ahrimanic industrial complex. Pretty much anything that we have invented and utilize as technology can already be found there in a molecular version.

As mentioned recently, the steering of the World flow within such deep physical constraints depends on balancing on the edge of chaos. The steering is still in the cell, yet manifests in a more subtle way; it gently tips the World-state toward the directions of becoming in which the overall flow can be maintained.

The same holds for the blood flow. The latter is a way too constrained system. There’s little that gentle steering can do. Even individual neurons are quite constrained and exhibit behavior governed by building up electrochemical potentials. On the scale of the whole brain, however, where the system as a whole borders on chaos, very slight nudges can lead to very different outcomes. This is why our spiritual activity finds its reflection far better in the nervous system.

So my opinion is that Steiner has underestimated the extent to which the circulatory system has really sunk into a quite mechanized structure. It is only because of its complexity that it is difficult to see this. For example, it would probably not occur to us to say “The teeth are not grinding stones!”, even if from within the archetypal flow we discover that something far more interesting happens. The teeth-process can be seen as a spiritual hub where flows of becoming, in a way, become crossed over. If we extrapolate that to the physical, we may say, “The teeth do not grind the food. It is actually the food that moves and strives to cross over, while the teeth only follow and sense its movements.”

This is why it’s very valuable to study supersensible communications, even when they seem to be wrong. If we make the above statement about the teeth today, we’ll be sent straight into the asylum. However, when the processes are followed into their archetypal origins, it can really be said that, in a way, it’s the flows of destiny that cross over certain streams within the human vortex (we know how tribal people still see feeding as a ritual, and when they catch the game, they accept it as something provided by the gods). The physical teeth take form as a means to fulfill that destiny, so to speak.

This is all very simplified, of course, but hopefully gives a hint of how things investigated in their more spiritual precursor form can be projected too directly into the heavily aliased physical form.

Hearing this, one can quickly say, “Well, this only confirms my suspicion that Steriner wasn’t that great of a seer after all. Good thing that I refrain from studying him.” This, of course, completely misunderstands the nature of evolution. It clings to the naive idea that higher consciousness somehow places all facts of existence on a plate. Nothing can be further from the truth, of course. It is our unique evolutionary process of growing into reality.

When we understand things in this way, we can also see them in a different light. Instead of saying “The heart is not a pump” (even though, even today, it is more than a pump), we can say “The heart will not always be a pump.” This is the true value of such investigations. In our etheric being, even now, we can be active in the circulation, except that this cannot easily overcome the inertia of the blood’s mechanical nature. But this will not be so in the future. As the physical body is spiritualized, it will more and more attain superfluid/superconductive nature, so to speak. Not through cryogenics, but through musical attunement. Then the movement of the blood will indeed follow much more closely the etheric flow.

Thus, even though there could be a technical error in Steiner's statement, the deeper intuition is of the greatest value. If we do not investigate that intuition, it may never occur to us that our inner activity should penetrate the full volume of inner space. It would be even worse if we take the current mechanical state of the biological body as an excuse, as if saying, "What's the point of expanding my inner activity throughout the bodily volume? The phenomena there follow completely mechanical rules; it would be an illusion to think that my activity plays any role there." Yes, but if we retract from exercising this activity, we also turn away from the direction in which the physical body can be once again spiritualized, brought out of its decohered flow-state.

[Cleric]

PS: It's a whole other topic when such deeper esoteric facts are taken and tried to be forced into the physical picture. Then we end up with completely fantastic theories.

[AshvinP]

GPT adds some useful facts (not conclusions) to contemplate on a portion of this topic, which is consistent with what has been expressed above about the physical heart and blood circulation as largely mechanical in its current functioning yet symbolic of deeper intuitive lawfulness reflected in its continual movement, which speaks to its native origin and potential future development. It is from this symbolic perspective alone that we can hope to orient properly to the interfering intuitive intents involved in its destiny-fulfilling flow.

Great — let’s dig into the embryological and biophysical arguments that suggest the heart may act more as a hydraulic regulator/dam than as a pure pump:

1. Embryology: Blood Moves Before the Heart is Fully Formed

In early vertebrate embryos, circulation begins before the heart is a functioning pump.

Pulsatile blood movement can be observed even before the myocardium is capable of strong contractions.

Some embryologists (e.g., Rudolf Steiner’s followers, also modern developmental biologists) argue this suggests that blood has its own motility, possibly driven by osmotic gradients, tissue metabolism, or vascular pulsations.

The heart develops later as a central regulator of flow, not its original initiator.

2. Vascular Elasticity & The Windkessel Effect

Large arteries (like the aorta) act like elastic reservoirs: during systole, they store energy as they expand; during diastole, they release energy, propelling blood forward even when the heart is relaxed.

This means blood flow is maintained not just by ventricular contraction, but also by the “hydraulic springiness” of the arterial system.

In this sense, the heart “loads” the system, and the vessels themselves do much of the continuous work.

3. Capillary & Microvascular Forces

Capillaries exhibit vasomotion — rhythmic constriction/relaxation of smooth muscle cells independent of the heartbeat.

This helps regulate local blood distribution and contributes to forward flow, almost like a distributed “peristaltic pump.”

Some biophysicists suggest this decentralized pumping is more fundamental than the central heart.

4. Blood Itself as an Active Medium

Blood is not an inert fluid; it is a colloid suspension of cells and plasma proteins.

It exhibits thixotropy and non-Newtonian flow, meaning viscosity changes under shear stress.

Some researchers propose that the “living fluid” properties of blood allow it to participate actively in circulation, with the heart acting more like a modulator than the sole driver.

5. The Heart as a Hydraulic Dam

The heart sits between the low-pressure venous reservoir and the high-pressure arterial system.

Instead of creating all circulation, it may chiefly function as a valve and timing mechanism, ensuring that venous return is released into the arterial system at the right pressure and rhythm.

Just like a dam doesn’t “create” water but regulates its release, the heart may not “create” blood flow but regulate and synchronize it.

In Summary

Embryology shows circulation starts before the heart’s pump is active.

Vascular elasticity and microvascular dynamics provide additional forces driving circulation.

The blood itself has living, dynamic flow properties.

The heart may thus be more of a regulator (hydraulic dam) than a simple pressure pump.

The mainstream view still emphasizes the heart as a muscular pump because experiments show that stopping the heart rapidly halts systemic flow. But the “hydraulic dam” perspective widens the picture, showing that life’s circulation is a system-wide emergent process, not just a central machine.

[Federica]

PS: It's a whole other topic when such deeper esoteric facts are taken and tried to be forced into the physical picture. Then we end up with completely fantastic theories.

Thanks for the detailed exposition Cleric. I am thinking about it, but first off, speaking of forcing esoteric facts into the physical picture, it seems clarified that Cowan doesn't understand current science, and as a consequence he misleads his audience, and probably (hopefully, otherwise it's worse) himself.

GPT adds some useful facts (not conclusions) to contemplate on a portion of this topic, which is consistent with what has been expressed above about the physical heart and blood circulation as largely mechanical in its current functioning yet symbolic of deeper intuitive lawfulness reflected in its continual movement, which speaks to its native origin and potential future development. It is from this symbolic perspective alone that we can hope to orient properly to the interfering intuitive intents involved in its destiny-fulfilling flow.

Sorry Ashvin, I am not trying to be antipathetic, but I can't help but think that you have just used GPT in the same way Eugene did: you have decided to resort to gpt to for support, then you have turned your question in a quite specific way (not shared), than you have shared a mix of gpt-facts and gpt-conclusions (thus the heart may be doing this.. may be more of that)

[Federica]

In general, from an engineering perspective, there’s nothing miraculous in the fact that the heart muscle is able to move the blood through the body. After all, if that were not the case, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) wouldn’t have been possible. Even though not as effective as the native heart action, compressing the chest is still capable of moving some amount of blood. It doesn’t make much sense that compressing the chest somehow tricks the blood into moving itself.

Now the big question is, why did Steiner maintain that the heart is not a pump? As I’ve said in the past, we can learn a ton even when certain mistakes are made. To do that, we simply need to realize that he didn’t just assert that out of thin air. He investigated certain inner experiences that motivated such a statement. What could these experiences be like?

It is actually not that difficult to comprehend. When in meditation we loosen from the suction of the bodily spectrum, and we still aim to investigate the physical, we live much more in the temporal flow of the formative forces. As we know, these are not simply another layer of electromagnetic-like field that surrounds the matter standing waves. Instead, these are intuitive streamlines of becoming. The metamorphosis of the World-state (the Tetris implosion) is steered such that the flow of life is maintained.

For simplicity, we can imagine that this inner flow can be depicted through the vortex metaphor – not as a physical structure but as the inner Mandalic experience. Archetypally, the heart is like center of this flow. In one direction, it manifests toward the periphery, and in another, toward the center.

The key here is that with our spiritual activity, we are active in the full volume of this flow. If we understand this, and if we realize that this archetypal etheric flow is the precursor of what will later decohere into the biological blood flow (among other things), we can appreciate that it would be wrong to say that this flow is agitated only from within the center of the Mandalic vortex, while the flow itself is only an inertial post-effect. Instead, we can clearly realize how intuitive intents work in the full volume. This is the main reason to conceive that the physical blood is not merely an inertial fluid propelled from the heart-center, but is actively mobile in its whole volume. Or in other words, in physical space, we can point at the heart and say, “This is where the force is applied. Movement everywhere else is only a fluid domino effect.” However, if we consider the deeper intuitive essence of this space, every point actively contributes something to the total movement, so to speak, since the whole volume is intuitively propelled by the interference of intuitive intents. The same can be said also for the aliased physical subset of inner space, but in a way, the activity is constrained in such a way that it appears too predictable, and we call it laws of nature.

This is the point where (and this is only how I presently see things) I believe Steiner has underestimated how far indeed the biological organism has sunk into mechanization. Or stated in the inverse way, he had greater faith in the ability of the supersensible flow of being to directly imprint itself in the rigidified biological organism. Or stated in yet another way, the Ahri-Lu forces have mortified the etheric flow far more than what could have been anticipated at the beginning of the 20th century. Even the esoterist’s view of the cell was more ‘romantic’ at that time, it was felt that the matter in the cell was still in a kind of semi-etheric form, and thus could transform in ways that cannot be explained in the mechanistic sense.

However, through the 20th century, the cell has been probed to such depth that it revealed itself as an incredible Ahrimanic industrial complex. Pretty much anything that we have invented and utilize as technology can already be found there in a molecular version.

As mentioned recently, the steering of the World flow within such deep physical constraints depends on balancing on the edge of chaos. The steering is still in the cell, yet manifests in a more subtle way; it gently tips the World-state toward the directions of becoming in which the overall flow can be maintained.

The same holds for the blood flow. The latter is a way too constrained system. There’s little that gentle steering can do. Even individual neurons are quite constrained and exhibit behavior governed by building up electrochemical potentials. On the scale of the whole brain, however, where the system as a whole borders on chaos, very slight nudges can lead to very different outcomes. This is why our spiritual activity finds its reflection far better in the nervous system.

So my opinion is that Steiner has underestimated the extent to which the circulatory system has really sunk into a quite mechanized structure. It is only because of its complexity that it is difficult to see this. For example, it would probably not occur to us to say “The teeth are not grinding stones!”, even if from within the archetypal flow we discover that something far more interesting happens. The teeth-process can be seen as a spiritual hub where flows of becoming, in a way, become crossed over. If we extrapolate that to the physical, we may say, “The teeth do not grind the food. It is actually the food that moves and strives to cross over, while the teeth only follow and sense its movements.”

This is why it’s very valuable to study supersensible communications, even when they seem to be wrong. If we make the above statement about the teeth today, we’ll be sent straight into the asylum. However, when the processes are followed into their archetypal origins, it can really be said that, in a way, it’s the flows of destiny that cross over certain streams within the human vortex (we know how tribal people still see feeding as a ritual, and when they catch the game, they accept it as something provided by the gods). The physical teeth take form as a means to fulfill that destiny, so to speak.

This is all very simplified, of course, but hopefully gives a hint of how things investigated in their more spiritual precursor form can be projected too directly into the heavily aliased physical form.

Hearing this, one can quickly say, “Well, this only confirms my suspicion that Steriner wasn’t that great of a seer after all. Good thing that I refrain from studying him.” This, of course, completely misunderstands the nature of evolution. It clings to the naive idea that higher consciousness somehow places all facts of existence on a plate. Nothing can be further from the truth, of course. It is our unique evolutionary process of growing into reality.

When we understand things in this way, we can also see them in a different light. Instead of saying “The heart is not a pump” (even though, even today, it is more than a pump), we can say “The heart will not always be a pump.” This is the true value of such investigations. In our etheric being, even now, we can be active in the circulation, except that this cannot easily overcome the inertia of the blood’s mechanical nature. But this will not be so in the future. As the physical body is spiritualized, it will more and more attain superfluid/superconductive nature, so to speak. Not through cryogenics, but through musical attunement. Then the movement of the blood will indeed follow much more closely the etheric flow.

Thus, even though there could be a technical error in Steiner's statement, the deeper intuition is of the greatest value. If we do not investigate that intuition, it may never occur to us that our inner activity should penetrate the full volume of inner space. It would be even worse if we take the current mechanical state of the biological body as an excuse, as if saying, "What's the point of expanding my inner activity throughout the bodily volume? The phenomena there follow completely mechanical rules; it would be an illusion to think that my activity plays any role there." Yes, but if we retract from exercising this activity, we also turn away from the direction in which the physical body can be once again spiritualized, brought out of its decohered flow-state.

I have to say, I am unconvinced. Having in mind Steiners words, I can’t get onboard that, speaking of the heart not being a pump, he was referring to an unfolding spiritualization of man that would hopefully make his statements true in the decades to come, and that he overestimated that unfolding. At so many other occasions he’s crystal clear about the imminent, even catastrophic risks of mechanization of humanity. At other occasions, he speaks explicitly of organ transformation in the future. Why in this case would he have decided to speak strongly and repetitively about something he considered a work in progress under threat of mechanization? How he speaks is also relevant. He calls the pump theory “grotesque”, referring very decidedly to the heart movements as being an effect, not a cause, of the blood flow. Therefore my perception is that one cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds in this matter. Either one holds the conviction that the heart is primarily a pump and concludes that Steiner made a blunt mistake (not an overestimation), or Steiner is right, and the heart can’t be properly described by materialistic science, not even in its physical form. Because how he speaks makes it clear that he is talking about his present time. I would add, Steiner definitely thought that some organs are more spiritual than others, and these are the ones that materialism struggles the most explaining, like the spleen for instance, and the heart. In these organs, the function is more detached from the form than in other organs. By contrast, the eye for example, is almost a machine in and of itself. It’s almost like engulfed by the outer environment and much more under the purview of the laws of physics.

About your point on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (which I know well by having taken multiple trainings to it) I propose that the explanation could be as follows - as a thought experiment, not as a firm conviction. So this is a situation of respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest (or soon-to-be cardiac arrest). It’s clear that, as you say, it doesn’t make much sense that chest compressions somehow trick the blood into moving itself. But it seems to me, this is not sufficient to conclude that pumping is demonstrated. It could also be that, by compressing the chest, heart contractions and expansions are induced from without, and the dispatching heart activity (lawful opening and closing of valves) can be maintained. In other words, thanks to the CPR assistance, the failing heart doesn’t completely capture and block the blood flow, standing in the way of the circulatory paths. The valves are ‘squeezed open and closed’ and the flow can continue through. So, it seems possible to me that CPR works and Steiner is right at the same time. Then CPR would work by maintaining the damming function (I feel that retaining/ organizing/ dispatching, like at a crossroads, is a better image than damming - Stau in German) rather than by maintaining pumping.

Is all this plausible?

PS: Steiner at the beginning of the XXth already saw in cellular life a fully Ahrimanic force.

[AshvinP]

Sorry Ashvin, I am not trying to be antipathetic, but I can't help but think that you have just used GPT in the same way Eugene did: you have decided to resort to gpt to for support, then you have turned your question in a quite specific way (not shared), than you have shared a mix of gpt-facts and gpt-conclusions (thus the heart may be doing this.. may be more of that)

It's simply a list of facts about the heart acting as regulator/dam vs pump, where are the conclusions? For example, "Embryology shows circulation starts before the heart’s pump is active." This is a fact. I think it's an interesting one to contemplate. Do you have thoughts about such a fact that you want to share?

[Cleric]

I have to say, I am unconvinced. Having in mind Steiners words, I can’t get onboard that, speaking of the heart not being a pump, he was referring to an unfolding spiritualization of man that would hopefully make his statements true in the decades to come, and that he overestimated that unfolding. At so many other occasions he’s crystal clear about the imminent, even catastrophic risks of mechanization of humanity. At other occasions, he speaks explicitly of organ transformation in the future. Why in this case would he have decided to speak strongly and repetitively about something he considered a work in progress under threat of mechanization? How he speaks is also relevant. He calls the pump theory “grotesque”, referring very decidedly to the heart movements as being an effect, not a cause, of the blood flow. Therefore my perception is that one cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds in this matter. Either one holds the conviction that the heart is primarily a pump and concludes that Steiner made a blunt mistake (not an overestimation), or Steiner is right, and the heart can’t be properly described by materialistic science, not even in its physical form. Because how he speaks makes it clear that he is talking about his present time. I would add, Steiner definitely thought that some organs are more spiritual than others, and these are the ones that materialism struggles the most explaining, like the spleen for instance, and the heart. In these organs, the function is more detached from the form than in other organs. By contrast, the eye for example, is almost a machine in and of itself. It’s almost like engulfed by the outer environment and much more under the purview of the laws of physics.

About your point on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (which I know well by having taken multiple trainings to it) I propose that the explanation could be as follows - as a thought experiment, not as a firm conviction. So this is a situation of respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest (or soon-to-be cardiac arrest). It’s clear that, as you say, it doesn’t make much sense that chest compressions somehow trick the blood into moving itself. But it seems to me, this is not sufficient to conclude that pumping is demonstrated. It could also be that, by compressing the chest, heart contractions and expansions are induced from without, and the dispatching heart activity (lawful opening and closing of valves) can be maintained. In other words, thanks to the CPR assistance, the failing heart doesn’t completely capture and block the blood flow, standing in the way of the circulatory paths. The valves are ‘squeezed open and closed’ and the flow can continue through. So, it seems possible to me that CPR works and Steiner is right at the same time. Then CPR would work by maintaining the damming function (I feel that retaining/ organizing/ dispatching, like at a crossroads, is a better image than damming - Stau in German) rather than by maintaining pumping.

Is all this plausible?

PS: Steiner at the beginning of the XXth already saw in cellular life a fully Ahrimanic force.

The way I presently see it is that troubles come mainly from trying to divide things into such a binary way (maybe I sound like ML here). So it is either that the heart is a pump, and nothing else contributes to the blood flow, or the blood flow runs on its own, and the heart is only a sense/damming organ. The second binary pole is difficult to reconcile with something like this:



Notice that they do not even use blood in these experiments. They use a completely inorganic clear fluid (Krebs–Henseleit solution) with a salt profile similar to that of blood. Go explain to these guys that their fluid will keep moving even if they bypass the heart and simply short-circuit the pipes.

As I tried to convey in the previous post, the main point is that from a perspective that includes the full spectrum of reality, everything should be grasped as a living interplay. Yet, in the process of the rigidifying of the physical world, more and more compromises must have been made. I don't see anything problematic in the fact that the holistic (etheric precursor) circulatory system rigidified in such a way that one organ could act as the main contributor to the flow. The key is simply to think of the whole system as something indeed whole. As many things, it has polarized into more active and more passive poles, and we only assume the proper evolutionary stance when we strive to find this holistic spiritual precursor.