Peppers - Introduction

In lecture six of the Agriculture Course, Dr Steiner talks about these peppers for weeds, animals and insects;

"Now a large number of plants - notably those which we ordinarily count as weeds - are greatly influenced by the workings of the Moon. These are often medicinal plants. Precisely amongst the 'weeds', so called, we often find the strongest curative herbs.... we get the strongest of weeds if we let the kind Moon work down upon them - if we do nothing to arrest its influence upon our weeds. For there are wet years when the Moon forces work more than in the dry. The weeds then reproduce themselves and increase greatly.

If on the other hand we reckon with these cosmic forces, then we shall say to ourselves: We must contrive to check the full influence of the Moon upon the weeds .... Then we shall set a limit to the propagation of the weeds; they will be unable to reproduce themselves. Now we cannot 'switch off' the Moon. Therefore, we must treat the soil in such a way that the earth is disinclined to receive the lunar influences. Indeed not only the earth but the plants too (ie the weeds) can thus become disinclined to receive the lunar influences. We can make the weeds reluctant, in a sense, to grow in earth which has thus been treated ....

So now you gather a number of the seeds of the weed in question. For in the seed the force of which I have just spoken has reached its final culmination. Now light a flame - a simple wood-flame is best - and burn the seeds. Carefully gather all the resulting ash. You get comparatively little ash, but that does not matter. Quite literally, for the plants thus treated by letting their seeds pass through the fire and turn to ash, you will have concentrated in the ash the very opposite force to that which is developed in attracting the Moon forces.

Now use the tiny amount of substance you have thus prepared from a variety of weeds, and scatter it over your fields ... Already in the second year you will see, there is far less of the kind of weed you have thus treated. It no longer grows as rampantly. Moreover, many things in Nature being subject to a cycle of four years, after the fourth year you will see, if you continue sprinkling the pepper year by year, the weed will have ceased to exist on the field in question ....

... But we can no longer speak so generally when we come to the animal pests ... And now, imagine that you do the following: You catch a fairly young mouse and skin it, so as to get the skin, There you have the skin of a fairly young mouse, (There are always enough mice - albeit, they must be field-mice if you wish to make this experiment). But you must obtain this skin of the field-mouse at a time when Venus is in the sign of Scorpio.

Those people of olden time, you see, were not so stupid with their instinctive science! Now that we are passing from plants to animals, we come to the "animal circle" - that is, the "Zodiac." It was not called so in a meaningless way. To attain our end within the plant ­world we can stop at the planetary system. For the animal world, that is not enough, There we need ideas that reckon with the surrounding sphere of the fixed stars, notably the fixed stars of the Zodiac,

Moreover, in the growth of plants the Moon-influence is well ­nigh sufficient to bring about the reproductive process. In the animal kingdom, on the other hand, the Moon-influence must be supported by that of Venus. Nay, for the animal kingdom the Moon­ influence does not need to be considered very much. For the animal kingdom conserves the lunar forces; it emancipates itself from the Moon. The Moon-force is developed in the animal kingdom even when it does not happen to be full Moon. The animal carries the force of the full Moon within it, conserves it, and so emancipates itself from limitations of time,

This does not apply to what we here have to do; it does not apply to the other planetary forces. For you must do something quite definite with the mouse-skin. At the time when Venus is in Scorpio, you obtain the skin of the mouse and burn it. Carefully collect the ash and the other constituents that remain over from the burning. It will not be much, but if you have a number of mice, it is enough, You can easily get enough,

Thus you obtain your burned mouse-skin at the time when Venus is in Scorpio. And there remains, in what is thus destroyed by the fire, the corresponding negative force as against the reproductive power of the field-mouse, Take the pepper you get in this way, and sprinkle it over your fields. In some districts it may be difficult to carry out; then you can afford to do it even more homoeopathically: you do not need a whole plateful.

Provided it has been led through the fire at the high conjunction of Venus and Scorpio, you will find this an excellent remedy. Henceforth, your mice will avoid the field, No doubt they are cheeky little beasts; they will soon come out again if the pepper has been so sprinkled that a few areas remain unpeppered in the neighbourhood. There they will settle down again. Undoubtedly the influence of it rays out far and wide; nevertheless, it may not have been done quite thoroughly, But the effect will certainly be radical if the same is done in the whole neighbourhood,

.. you do not take part of the insect as you do with the mouse, You must take the entire insect. ... It is best to burn it; that is the quickest way, You might also let it decay; possibly this would be even more thorough, only it is difficult to collect the products of decay, But you will certainly attain what you need by burning the whole insect.

Now it is necessary to perform this operation when the Sun is in the sign of Taurus, (If need be, you can keep the insect and burn it when the time comes), This, you see, is precisely the opposite of the constellation in which Venus must be when you prepare your mouse-skin pepper. In effect, the insect world is connected with the forces that evolve when the Sun is passing through Aquarius, Pisces, Aries and Gemini and on to Cancer, In Cancer it appears quite feebly, and it is feeble again when you come to Aquarius, It is while passing through these regions that the Sun rays out the forces which relate to the insect world."

Some notes from Maria Thun's experiments with peppers;

• We noted an increase in the effects when the ashes had been stirred for an hour prior to their application. Homoeopathic dilution to D8 (8X) is recommended for 'certain deterrent effects'.
• Field mice skin, birds skin and feathers - Venus in Scorpio (Venus behind the sun) (Steiner) and the moon is in Taurus (Thun)
• Insects - entire insect - Sun in Taurus (Entire insect world Sun passing through Aquarius, Pisces, Aries and gemini on to Cancer. Feeble in Aquarius and Cancer) (Imago more towards Aquarius, larva more towards Cancer)
• Stable fly - Sun and Moon in Gemini
• Wax moth - Sun and Moon in Aries
• Cabbage fly, turnip gall weevil Colorado beetle, and Varroa Mite - Sun and Moon in Taurus
• Mole cricket - Sun in taurus, Moon in Scorpio
• During longer nodal periods animal pests are more prevalent. In the case of Saturn these animal pests affect the roots; in the case of Jupiter the leafy region of the plant is most affected.
• Slugs and snails - Moon in cancer