Explanatory models for the effects of preparations
When searching for explanations for exceptional results or incidences, we often ask: On which mechanism of action is this based? However, we are not aware that this is a completely inappropriate and even misdirceted question. The term mechanism clearly shows that we think of the inanimate (mechanical-physical) world and its specifical principles. The processes in soil biology, plant growth and yield, however, clearly are life processes of many different organisms; they are not merely mechanically interlocking like the gear wheels of a gearing. Therefore, our perception and conceivability, which are used to the inanimated world, can not supply adequate explanations for biological phenomenons. We should rather ask: On which organism of effect is this based? But such a term is not at our disposal. This expresses to a lesser extend a linguistic problem but rather a deficiency in thinking and conceivability. We should be aware of this background when searching for explanations for effects of preparations.
To date, there were basically two different ways to try to explain effects of preparations: causal, which means: from which causes can the observed effects of preparations be deduced? And final, which means: which is the aim of the preparations' effects? What do the preparations „want“? Without claiming completeness or aiming to give a final assessment, I would like to explain two possible explanatory models corresponding to the causal and the final approach, respectively.
Hypothesis of radiation effects:
The assumption that preparations have radiation effects is directly based on Steiner's statements in the Agricultural Course. During the response of questions after the fifth lecture, he spoke of the radiation power of the compost preparations in a manure pile (Steiner, 1924). Ingo Hagel used this statement to conduct an experiment with preparations shrink-wraped in test tubes. Pots with a soil-sand-mixture and the test tube at the bottom were then used to test the seed viability. During the experiment, neither the seeds nor the substrate were in direct contact with the preparation substance. Hagel (1988) reported after such experiments an influence of preparations on the viability of seeds and thus concluded that the hypothesis of radiation effects was confirmed. However, to date corresponding results could not definitely be confirmed, not even by Ingo Hagel himself.
Hypothesis of system regualtion
This hypotheses is based on the assumption that preparations are aiming to balance extreme growth conditions and are thus enabeling plants to grow at rather harmonious conditions. Therefore, depending on the situation, it can happen that the effects of the preparations can lead in different directions. This hypothesis is based on experimental results for yields in different years (see on another page). In a series of experiments yields were either increased or decreased depending on yield levels. At medium yield levels, preparations did not show any effect. Furthermore, it was striking that preparations did not show a clear dose-response relationship. This means that generally neither the frequency nor the amount of the applied preparation influenced the effects. Schaumann (1978) already emphazised the regulatory effects of preparations which stimulate the productive and assortative forces of nature. He compared the preparations' effectiveness with homeopathic remedies.
This consideration offers a completely new perspective both for the research on preparations and for the application of preparations in agricultural practice: preparations as a kind of remedies to improve the development of soil fertility, plant growth and the whole farm. Moreover, the model of system regulation can give explanations for the (seemingly) contradicting results (both increasing and decreasing yields).
Long-term trials still are of utmost importance for the experimental investigation of such effects of preparations. It is a pity that such trials are ceased in many countries because of mainly financial considerations. Thus, established investigations on the development of soil fertility are abandoned.
Literature cited
Hagel, I. (1988). Die biologisch-dynamischen Kompostpräparate 502-506 in Verbindung mit einem Treibkraft- und Selbstzersetzungstest. Lebendige Erde 1/88, 16-23
Schaumann, W. (1987). Vom Wirken mit Stoffen. Lebendige Erde, Heft 1, 3 u. 5, 2-7, 130-132, 251-256
Steiner, R. (1924). Agriculture: A course of eight lectures; 3rd edition; 35 Park Rd., London NW1; Bio-Dynamic Agricultural Association 1974
Source of the text
Raupp, J. (2009). Bodenfruchtbarkeit - Auswirkungen der biologisch-dynamischen Wirtschaftsweise auf Bodenparameter in Langzeitversuchen. .... (at press)
Various authors on the MO of preps
Re: Various authors on the MO of preps
Secondary Objectivity
Aldous Huxley writes about what he calls "secondary objectivity" which is a phenomenon of intersubjectivity. Consider a (supposedly) sacred site. Let's pretend for a moment that the claimed miracle never happened. But enough people continue to make the pilgrimage and pray -- sincerely -- at that site. Over time, the spiritual "charge" of that spot accumulates to the point that, then, eventually, someone in need of real healing visits, and there is a sort of electrical discharge. For even Jesus remarked that he observed "power has gone forth from me." (Luke 8:46 RSV). A real miracle occurs, and then the holy site, whether legitimate originally or not, now begins to accrue real miraculous stories.
In the Tibetan buddhist tradition, it is not important whether a supposed relic of holy man turns out not to be his bones but rather the bones of a dog or a monkey. An object becomes holy because of the life of prayer of the deceased saint, but even a fake relic becomes holy because of the life of prayer of the devotees imbuing it with loving attention. It has become holy during the extended period of reverence offered to it. In western terms, we might say that such an item is a symbol or an icon that is meant to point to something else entirely. No one except those seeking selfish magical benefits settle their attention on the surface of an icon or the bones of a relic -- it is as if both are portals, windows to a broader conceptual vista.
Likewise, there is an element of "secondary objectivity" to the process of using the biodynamic preparations. Yes, they have their own innate and objective qualities, but the enthusiasm of making them and spraying them out prayerfully brings with it an emergent secondary objectivity. Once more, it is not about whether or not the original process itself was "factual" or "fake" but the direction of the impulse governing the farmer's intention using the biodynamic preparations. If biodynamics is used as a "magic potion" to fix all of a farmer's problems, the farmer is likely to judge biodynamics as "not working" even though biodynamic preparations never claimed to be such a panacea. If, on the other hand, biodynamics is used as a further expression of a farmer's love for the land and for fellow human beings, it can only improve the farm.
Aldous Huxley writes about what he calls "secondary objectivity" which is a phenomenon of intersubjectivity. Consider a (supposedly) sacred site. Let's pretend for a moment that the claimed miracle never happened. But enough people continue to make the pilgrimage and pray -- sincerely -- at that site. Over time, the spiritual "charge" of that spot accumulates to the point that, then, eventually, someone in need of real healing visits, and there is a sort of electrical discharge. For even Jesus remarked that he observed "power has gone forth from me." (Luke 8:46 RSV). A real miracle occurs, and then the holy site, whether legitimate originally or not, now begins to accrue real miraculous stories.
In the Tibetan buddhist tradition, it is not important whether a supposed relic of holy man turns out not to be his bones but rather the bones of a dog or a monkey. An object becomes holy because of the life of prayer of the deceased saint, but even a fake relic becomes holy because of the life of prayer of the devotees imbuing it with loving attention. It has become holy during the extended period of reverence offered to it. In western terms, we might say that such an item is a symbol or an icon that is meant to point to something else entirely. No one except those seeking selfish magical benefits settle their attention on the surface of an icon or the bones of a relic -- it is as if both are portals, windows to a broader conceptual vista.
Likewise, there is an element of "secondary objectivity" to the process of using the biodynamic preparations. Yes, they have their own innate and objective qualities, but the enthusiasm of making them and spraying them out prayerfully brings with it an emergent secondary objectivity. Once more, it is not about whether or not the original process itself was "factual" or "fake" but the direction of the impulse governing the farmer's intention using the biodynamic preparations. If biodynamics is used as a "magic potion" to fix all of a farmer's problems, the farmer is likely to judge biodynamics as "not working" even though biodynamic preparations never claimed to be such a panacea. If, on the other hand, biodynamics is used as a further expression of a farmer's love for the land and for fellow human beings, it can only improve the farm.
Re: Various authors on the MO of preps
The Preparations
Glen Atkinson
Most BD practitioners generally see the compost preparations as being used as soil and growth regulators, with a vague sense they work on more subtle levels as well. Most recently their activity was publicly described as being due to their bacterial and enzyme content, which arose from a bacterial reaction between the internal substance and the sheath into which it was placed. Sadly there appears to be only a small conscious appreciation of them as substances which actively work with the spiritual as well as physical realms of the land and plants.
Some BD practitioners accept that healthy life is created through a balanced interplay of the various spiritual bodies however they have little understand how this is actually achieved. The basic assumption is that this is brought about by the spraying of preparations 500 and 501 as well as including the compost preparations in the manuring cycle. But even with this activity there are still situations , especially in the changeover phase, where imbalances are evident for some years.
The question arises 'Could these preparations be used in a more active manner to correct specific examples of imbalance?'
The answer is YES, however it is a rather complex process calling on the exponent to have a thorough experience of each preparation's activity, their influence on the spiritual bodies and the spiritual bodies' activity in the living organism, be it plant, animal or human. The more I work in this field the more I discover how rapidly plants come into situations in which various bodies are imbalanced. Imbalance is caused by soil quality, mineral imbalance, weather disturbance and general neglect. They all work simultaneously and at different times and combinations. Nature is a living moving organism. The BD preps offer us a chance to moderate these swings in balance which provide the difference between the success and failure of a crop.
The Horn Manure and Silica preparations can be seen as broad stroke preparations that powerfully and generally stimulate the two primary formative growth processes. Their activities are easily seen, and at times, work too broadly and on too many levels at once to be used as specific remedies. They act directly on enhancing one pole of the plant's activity or the other. This can inhibit their ability to be used frequently.
One of the basic premise of Biodynamics is that pests and disease are an imbalance in the workings of the spiritual bodies. Therefore to remove them one must remove the conditions which allow for the problem to be there in the first place. Hugh Lovel more recently has awakened me to the words that with the BD preps we are 'organising' otherwise unorganised energy. I have often imagined it as the four bodies being more or less integrated into each other. In harmony their integration is such that there are no 'holes' or 'vacuums' in them. As physical conditions deteriorate so the bodies being to separate. Vacuum holes open up and insects and disease are literally sucked into these holes. Once the holes are closed again the insects just go away. this coming and going phenomena I have experienced many times.
When using preparations as remedies, one attempts to apply sufficient influence to the environment that the conditions fostering the growth of the pest or disease no longer exist. While 500 & 501 do this, they also carry with them the power to unnecessarily activate only one area of plant growth, so symptoms of excessive use easily arise. In the case of 501 sunburn easily occurs as does the tendency for plants to take on the stature of the dry landscape or go off to seed. Leaves thicken and become waxy, and in some instances plants that normally have leaves in a downward facing nature stand upright.
500 in excess encourages leaf development and inhibits the flowering tendency of a plant.
These preparations tend to encourage whichever pole they govern and not to harmonise and balance the activity of the spiritual bodies. So their use, especially 501, should be made with discretion.
The 'compost' preparations act as a "second tier" of the same activity. From the model it is apparent that the 'outer planet' preparations are associated to the Silica prep, and the 'inner planet' preparations work with the Manure prep. The compost preps work more specifically than the 500 & 501 and appear softer in their action.
They appear to do the required job of bringing any specific activity back into the right relationship with the others, without affecting the essential nature of the plant, so these preparations can be considered tools of dynamic husbandry. The decision to include 500 or 501 will depend on the severity of the problem.
Specialisation of these preparations can be achieved by their potentisation, however this is an area of extreme exactitude and should not be attempted by the novice. Imbalance easily occurs with prolonged and indiscriminate use of single potencies. see Garuda preparation products.
The compost preparations
One of the main limitations to the preparations being used as single preparations and as spiritual body balancers has been that there is no real work into establishing their independent functions. Also a science of spiritual activity has not been fostered within the Biodynamic movement over the last 70 years. Part of this is due to an inability for the Agriculture course to be understood in depth and discussed in a manner which allows for concrete conclusions to be drawn. This where I believe the Astrological model can solve these problems. By providing a frame of reference for Biodynamic ideas and methodologies it is possible to see how one piece of information fits in with other pieces so that some conclusions can be made. If nothing else as a basis for further practical experimentation.
While giving the making process of the preparations, RS also outlined the basic effects of each preparation. He also gave some of the chemical processes that occur in each. In two cases, he indicated the influence a preparation has on the spiritual bodies. However, he did not extend this to all of them. As this is an important aspect of the overall thrust of this work , I have made an initial attempt at extending the interpretation of each preparation to include their spiritual activity. A summary follows:
( It seems appropriate in this section to quote from Steiner directly. He was born with the Sun in the sign of Pisces with Mercury, the planet of communication conjunct Neptune, the planet of images. His method of communication, as you will see is very pictorial and imaginative.)
We have seen already how one level of activity can be associated to higher and lower levels. With the information we have accumulated already it is possible to produce the following diagram.
This diagram shows the vertical movement up the Astrological spiral with the Biodynamic cross references added. It is apparent from these associations ( and the comments made by Dr Steiner and B Lievegoed ) that conclusions can be immediately drawn as to what the complete set of spiritual workings of the compost preparations might be. It is apparent that the outer planets preparations will most likely work on organising the Astrality and Spirit functions while the inner planet preparations would most likely organise the processes of the etheric and physical bodies activity. The middle preparations would tend to harmonise the interplay of the two overall spheres.
The Outer Planet Preparations
507 - Valerian - Saturn - Tincture.
All that was said about this preparation was that it will stimulate the plant "to behave in the right way in relation to the phosphoric substance."
This is a seemingly vague comment, but seen in relation to comments regarding the other preparations, and seen in the context of the Astrological model several hints arise. Firstly being the Saturn preparation it has a relationship to the Fire/Ego pole. Phosphorus as an element is active in the strengthening of the nervous system processes within living organisms, which is in turn a manifestation of the ego's activity. In plants it is credited with creating strong root systems - the nerve sense pole. Valerian is a sedative and calmer of the nerve system. 507 has long been known as a warming preparation and is used for frost protection. 507 is also seen as a cover over the compost heap helping to contain the activity of the heap inside itself. In lecture 8 where RS talks of human nutrition we are presented with an image of the ego process (called Cosmic Forces) and how they act to cap or reflect back into the organism what has been rayed out to them from the Earthly Matter or terrestrial calcium, liberated from the digestive tract.
In "the Anthroposophical Approach to Medicine" by Hausemann & Wolff we are told phosphorus 'establishes "the connection of the ego to the substances of the body." "The astral body lives in opposites that can be best be seen in the concepts of sympathy and antipathy....hyper and hypopthyroidism etc. The ego has the task of standing in between them, but not succumbing to either" " In working from imbalanced states toward the development of those that are balanced the ego requires phosphorus"
All this information leads to the conclusion that the Valerian preparation "Strengthens the Ego against too strong an Astral activity". It works with the element of Phosphorus.
506 - Dandelion - Jupiter - Mesentery - Soil for the Winter
This preparation was discussed in length bringing several interesting facts to light. Some of this discussion is alchemical in nature and scientific minds I have discussed it with find the transmutation of elements outlined here difficult to understand.
Dr Steiner says there is " a quantitative relationship between Limestone ( Calcium Carbonate) and Hydrogen, similar to that of oxygen and nitrogen". He goes on to say "that under the influence of Hydrogen, Limestone and potash are transformed into something like Nitrogen."
To gain some clarity on this statement we can remembering that at level four, we talked of the micro polarities that existed in the elements.
Fire - Ego - Hydrogen }
Air - Astral - Nitrogen ) }
Water - Etheric - Oxygen ) }
Earth - Physical - Carbon }
Here we see the same micro polarities occurring.
R.S. goes on to say "that the oxygen/nitrogen process occurs in the air, while the Hydrogen/Limestone (Carbon) process occurs in the organic process." He does not enlarge on this element "something like nitrogen" but goes on to discuss the transmutation of silicon in the plant into a substance not yet included in the chemical elements. Silicic acid is needed to attract the "cosmic influences" to the plant and this dandelion preparation "mediates between the silicic acid in the cosmos and that which is needed in a given district."
This preparation is " thoroughly saturated with cosmic influences. He suggests the plants will become "sentient to all that is at work in their environment", so they can attract to themselves what they need."
From the Astrological model this is the Jupiter (mutable) preparation and so is sitting in between the elements of Fire and Air. This suggests that some harmonisation of the ego and Astral bodies would be involved in its action.
This is a fascinating array of information I suggest from the two references he uses, Hydrogen-Carbon & Silicic acid mediation, we are left with the image of bringing heaven and earth to meet. More specifically, the elemental diagram outlined above would suggest this preparation will help the Ego (& Astral) to enter more strongly into the physical realm.
504 - Nettle - Mars - In the Earth - All year
From the astrological model, 504s relationship to Mars places it in an intermediatary position between the elements of Air and Water, hence we can surmise that it works in some way between the Astrality and the etheric body, with an emphasis on the Astrality side of the equation.
The nettle preparation follows more conventional lines of thought. Chemically R.S. suggests this preparation incorporates sulphur, potassium, and calcium with a kind of iron radiation. Stinging nettle is known for its ability to concentrate elemental iron and is often used in early spring in soup as a tonic and blood purifier. Iron is the element of Mars in traditional association. Dried blood is extremely high in nitrogen content. In lecture three R.S. discusses the role of nitrogen as the carrier of the Astral and suggests it is "a very clever fellow". Again in the description of this preparation he uses the same images. Suggesting that this preparation allows " the Manure to become inwardly sensitive, we might say" "It will permeate the soil with reason and intelligence" that " will not suffer any undue decomposition's to take place, and no improper loss of nitrogen."
Later it is suggested that "The soil will individualise itself in a nice relationship to the particular plants in the environment"
From these descriptions we can conclude that the preparation harmonises and strengthens the working of Nitrogen and likewise the working of the astral in the environment, enabling the Astral to find its proper place. Through its activity of individualising the soil it is suggested that it encourages the harmonious workings of the Astral
These are the three outer planet preparations and, as can be seen, their activity is primarily focused on the balanced interplay of the Ego and Astral, in keeping with the overall activity of "501", the Silica preparation, and with the overall associations of the Astrological Model.
The Inner Planet Preparations
502 - Yarrow - Venus - Stag Bladder - 6 months in Air/6 months in ground
R.S. described this preparations' activity as "bringing sulphur into the right relationship to the other substances" and "correcting all that is due to the weakness of the Astral body"
Further he suggests it "re-endows the manure to quicken the Earth (so) that the more cosmic substances of silicic acid and lead are caught and received."
Again we are given the picture of the astral body's interaction with the plant, but this time the preparation is aiding where the Astral body is weak and can not take a proper hold on the Etheric and Physical. Lievegoed makes the observation when talking of the invisible primary process of Venus, (it) " Opens the Etheric Formative Forces into a cup or chalice and nourishes what Mars thrusts into space."
Being in the inner planet polarity it would suggest that this preparation opens the Etheric to receive the Astral.
503 - Chamomile - Mercury - Intestines -In the ground through the winter
This preparation is described as "Helping bind the calcium substances to receive life to itself and transmit it to the environment."
The use of the word 'life' here is a reference to the Life body or the Etheric. So this preparation strengthens the Etheric body. Later R.S. suggests "It assimilates that which can chiefly help to exclude from the plant those harmful effects of fructification." Some light can be shone on the statement 'harmful affects of fructification' by looking elsewhere in the course,( lecture 6 ) to where R.S. was discussing the true nature of fungal attack. He suggested that fungus was caused by the processes of fruiting occurring at a much earlier stage of development than it otherwise should. From our model it can be seen that flowering and fruiting are activities of the Astral and Ego. So he is suggesting that this preparation will hold back the activity of the Astral and Ego if they occur to early by strengthening the Etheric body.
In summary this preparation Strengthens the Etheric against the Astral (& Ego)
505 - Oak Bark - Moon - In skull - All year
R.S. was fairly straightforward with this preparation. He suggested, "by bringing calcium into the soil it restores order when the ether body is working too strongly, that is when the astral cannot gain access to the organic entity. It dampens down the Etheric."
He describes the process as follows: "We use the bark of the Oak so that the shrinking is beautiful and regular and does not give rise to shocks in the organic life." More directly he suggested that this preparation "will lend forces prophylactically to combat or arrest any harmful plant diseases." Elsewhere RS commented that the bark of a tree should be seen as turned-up Earth and that the stalks and leaves can be seen as small plants growing out of this earth.
In summary, it retards a rampant Etheric body by sucking it more tightly to the physical.
These inner planet preparations are concerned primarily with the activity of the Etheric and Physical bodies, helping them to find their proper place with regards the Astral and Ego, assisting the Horn Manure preparation 500 in its overall activity of harmonising the terrestrial sphere.
Putting the above information all together we have the following:
Saturn - Valerian - Phosphorus - Strengthens the Ego against the Astral
Jupiter - Dandelion - Hydrogen - Helps the Ego and the Physical entwine
Mars - Nettle - Nitrogen - Harmonises the Astrality and other bodies
Venus - Yarrow - Sulphur - Opens the Etheric to receive the Astral
Mercury - Chamomile - Oxygen - Strengthens the Etheric against Astral
Moon - Oak Bark - Carbon - Sucks a rampant Etheric to the Physical
Practical experience has shown these preparations can bring balance between any irregularities in the working of the bodies ( see Case Studies)
I regard these preparations and the accompanying information as a real gift to humanity from Rudolf Steiner. They give the farmer and gardener access to a simple, safe tool kit that can heal and balance their environments. Using the view that all disease and pest attack, in plants and animal, are a result of an imbalance occurring in their physical/spiritual balance, we now have eight substances at our disposal that can consciously influence the way these bodies interplay and so a starting place for finding sensitive, purely BD remedies for pest and disease control.
These preparations are generally inserted into a compost heap or liquid manure to balance the raw Physical, Etheric, Astral and Ego forces released during these decomposition processes.
Furthermore these preparations could be used individually and potentised homeopathically to further specialise their action, to harmonise imbalances as they occur during a growing period.
It is best for the novice to use the original preparation in addition to their sprays of 500 and 501 until experience is compounded. However a healthy sense of exploration and experimentation is certainly encouraged.
Glen Atkinson
Most BD practitioners generally see the compost preparations as being used as soil and growth regulators, with a vague sense they work on more subtle levels as well. Most recently their activity was publicly described as being due to their bacterial and enzyme content, which arose from a bacterial reaction between the internal substance and the sheath into which it was placed. Sadly there appears to be only a small conscious appreciation of them as substances which actively work with the spiritual as well as physical realms of the land and plants.
Some BD practitioners accept that healthy life is created through a balanced interplay of the various spiritual bodies however they have little understand how this is actually achieved. The basic assumption is that this is brought about by the spraying of preparations 500 and 501 as well as including the compost preparations in the manuring cycle. But even with this activity there are still situations , especially in the changeover phase, where imbalances are evident for some years.
The question arises 'Could these preparations be used in a more active manner to correct specific examples of imbalance?'
The answer is YES, however it is a rather complex process calling on the exponent to have a thorough experience of each preparation's activity, their influence on the spiritual bodies and the spiritual bodies' activity in the living organism, be it plant, animal or human. The more I work in this field the more I discover how rapidly plants come into situations in which various bodies are imbalanced. Imbalance is caused by soil quality, mineral imbalance, weather disturbance and general neglect. They all work simultaneously and at different times and combinations. Nature is a living moving organism. The BD preps offer us a chance to moderate these swings in balance which provide the difference between the success and failure of a crop.
The Horn Manure and Silica preparations can be seen as broad stroke preparations that powerfully and generally stimulate the two primary formative growth processes. Their activities are easily seen, and at times, work too broadly and on too many levels at once to be used as specific remedies. They act directly on enhancing one pole of the plant's activity or the other. This can inhibit their ability to be used frequently.
One of the basic premise of Biodynamics is that pests and disease are an imbalance in the workings of the spiritual bodies. Therefore to remove them one must remove the conditions which allow for the problem to be there in the first place. Hugh Lovel more recently has awakened me to the words that with the BD preps we are 'organising' otherwise unorganised energy. I have often imagined it as the four bodies being more or less integrated into each other. In harmony their integration is such that there are no 'holes' or 'vacuums' in them. As physical conditions deteriorate so the bodies being to separate. Vacuum holes open up and insects and disease are literally sucked into these holes. Once the holes are closed again the insects just go away. this coming and going phenomena I have experienced many times.
When using preparations as remedies, one attempts to apply sufficient influence to the environment that the conditions fostering the growth of the pest or disease no longer exist. While 500 & 501 do this, they also carry with them the power to unnecessarily activate only one area of plant growth, so symptoms of excessive use easily arise. In the case of 501 sunburn easily occurs as does the tendency for plants to take on the stature of the dry landscape or go off to seed. Leaves thicken and become waxy, and in some instances plants that normally have leaves in a downward facing nature stand upright.
500 in excess encourages leaf development and inhibits the flowering tendency of a plant.
These preparations tend to encourage whichever pole they govern and not to harmonise and balance the activity of the spiritual bodies. So their use, especially 501, should be made with discretion.
The 'compost' preparations act as a "second tier" of the same activity. From the model it is apparent that the 'outer planet' preparations are associated to the Silica prep, and the 'inner planet' preparations work with the Manure prep. The compost preps work more specifically than the 500 & 501 and appear softer in their action.
They appear to do the required job of bringing any specific activity back into the right relationship with the others, without affecting the essential nature of the plant, so these preparations can be considered tools of dynamic husbandry. The decision to include 500 or 501 will depend on the severity of the problem.
Specialisation of these preparations can be achieved by their potentisation, however this is an area of extreme exactitude and should not be attempted by the novice. Imbalance easily occurs with prolonged and indiscriminate use of single potencies. see Garuda preparation products.
The compost preparations
One of the main limitations to the preparations being used as single preparations and as spiritual body balancers has been that there is no real work into establishing their independent functions. Also a science of spiritual activity has not been fostered within the Biodynamic movement over the last 70 years. Part of this is due to an inability for the Agriculture course to be understood in depth and discussed in a manner which allows for concrete conclusions to be drawn. This where I believe the Astrological model can solve these problems. By providing a frame of reference for Biodynamic ideas and methodologies it is possible to see how one piece of information fits in with other pieces so that some conclusions can be made. If nothing else as a basis for further practical experimentation.
While giving the making process of the preparations, RS also outlined the basic effects of each preparation. He also gave some of the chemical processes that occur in each. In two cases, he indicated the influence a preparation has on the spiritual bodies. However, he did not extend this to all of them. As this is an important aspect of the overall thrust of this work , I have made an initial attempt at extending the interpretation of each preparation to include their spiritual activity. A summary follows:
( It seems appropriate in this section to quote from Steiner directly. He was born with the Sun in the sign of Pisces with Mercury, the planet of communication conjunct Neptune, the planet of images. His method of communication, as you will see is very pictorial and imaginative.)
We have seen already how one level of activity can be associated to higher and lower levels. With the information we have accumulated already it is possible to produce the following diagram.
This diagram shows the vertical movement up the Astrological spiral with the Biodynamic cross references added. It is apparent from these associations ( and the comments made by Dr Steiner and B Lievegoed ) that conclusions can be immediately drawn as to what the complete set of spiritual workings of the compost preparations might be. It is apparent that the outer planets preparations will most likely work on organising the Astrality and Spirit functions while the inner planet preparations would most likely organise the processes of the etheric and physical bodies activity. The middle preparations would tend to harmonise the interplay of the two overall spheres.
The Outer Planet Preparations
507 - Valerian - Saturn - Tincture.
All that was said about this preparation was that it will stimulate the plant "to behave in the right way in relation to the phosphoric substance."
This is a seemingly vague comment, but seen in relation to comments regarding the other preparations, and seen in the context of the Astrological model several hints arise. Firstly being the Saturn preparation it has a relationship to the Fire/Ego pole. Phosphorus as an element is active in the strengthening of the nervous system processes within living organisms, which is in turn a manifestation of the ego's activity. In plants it is credited with creating strong root systems - the nerve sense pole. Valerian is a sedative and calmer of the nerve system. 507 has long been known as a warming preparation and is used for frost protection. 507 is also seen as a cover over the compost heap helping to contain the activity of the heap inside itself. In lecture 8 where RS talks of human nutrition we are presented with an image of the ego process (called Cosmic Forces) and how they act to cap or reflect back into the organism what has been rayed out to them from the Earthly Matter or terrestrial calcium, liberated from the digestive tract.
In "the Anthroposophical Approach to Medicine" by Hausemann & Wolff we are told phosphorus 'establishes "the connection of the ego to the substances of the body." "The astral body lives in opposites that can be best be seen in the concepts of sympathy and antipathy....hyper and hypopthyroidism etc. The ego has the task of standing in between them, but not succumbing to either" " In working from imbalanced states toward the development of those that are balanced the ego requires phosphorus"
All this information leads to the conclusion that the Valerian preparation "Strengthens the Ego against too strong an Astral activity". It works with the element of Phosphorus.
506 - Dandelion - Jupiter - Mesentery - Soil for the Winter
This preparation was discussed in length bringing several interesting facts to light. Some of this discussion is alchemical in nature and scientific minds I have discussed it with find the transmutation of elements outlined here difficult to understand.
Dr Steiner says there is " a quantitative relationship between Limestone ( Calcium Carbonate) and Hydrogen, similar to that of oxygen and nitrogen". He goes on to say "that under the influence of Hydrogen, Limestone and potash are transformed into something like Nitrogen."
To gain some clarity on this statement we can remembering that at level four, we talked of the micro polarities that existed in the elements.
Fire - Ego - Hydrogen }
Air - Astral - Nitrogen ) }
Water - Etheric - Oxygen ) }
Earth - Physical - Carbon }
Here we see the same micro polarities occurring.
R.S. goes on to say "that the oxygen/nitrogen process occurs in the air, while the Hydrogen/Limestone (Carbon) process occurs in the organic process." He does not enlarge on this element "something like nitrogen" but goes on to discuss the transmutation of silicon in the plant into a substance not yet included in the chemical elements. Silicic acid is needed to attract the "cosmic influences" to the plant and this dandelion preparation "mediates between the silicic acid in the cosmos and that which is needed in a given district."
This preparation is " thoroughly saturated with cosmic influences. He suggests the plants will become "sentient to all that is at work in their environment", so they can attract to themselves what they need."
From the Astrological model this is the Jupiter (mutable) preparation and so is sitting in between the elements of Fire and Air. This suggests that some harmonisation of the ego and Astral bodies would be involved in its action.
This is a fascinating array of information I suggest from the two references he uses, Hydrogen-Carbon & Silicic acid mediation, we are left with the image of bringing heaven and earth to meet. More specifically, the elemental diagram outlined above would suggest this preparation will help the Ego (& Astral) to enter more strongly into the physical realm.
504 - Nettle - Mars - In the Earth - All year
From the astrological model, 504s relationship to Mars places it in an intermediatary position between the elements of Air and Water, hence we can surmise that it works in some way between the Astrality and the etheric body, with an emphasis on the Astrality side of the equation.
The nettle preparation follows more conventional lines of thought. Chemically R.S. suggests this preparation incorporates sulphur, potassium, and calcium with a kind of iron radiation. Stinging nettle is known for its ability to concentrate elemental iron and is often used in early spring in soup as a tonic and blood purifier. Iron is the element of Mars in traditional association. Dried blood is extremely high in nitrogen content. In lecture three R.S. discusses the role of nitrogen as the carrier of the Astral and suggests it is "a very clever fellow". Again in the description of this preparation he uses the same images. Suggesting that this preparation allows " the Manure to become inwardly sensitive, we might say" "It will permeate the soil with reason and intelligence" that " will not suffer any undue decomposition's to take place, and no improper loss of nitrogen."
Later it is suggested that "The soil will individualise itself in a nice relationship to the particular plants in the environment"
From these descriptions we can conclude that the preparation harmonises and strengthens the working of Nitrogen and likewise the working of the astral in the environment, enabling the Astral to find its proper place. Through its activity of individualising the soil it is suggested that it encourages the harmonious workings of the Astral
These are the three outer planet preparations and, as can be seen, their activity is primarily focused on the balanced interplay of the Ego and Astral, in keeping with the overall activity of "501", the Silica preparation, and with the overall associations of the Astrological Model.
The Inner Planet Preparations
502 - Yarrow - Venus - Stag Bladder - 6 months in Air/6 months in ground
R.S. described this preparations' activity as "bringing sulphur into the right relationship to the other substances" and "correcting all that is due to the weakness of the Astral body"
Further he suggests it "re-endows the manure to quicken the Earth (so) that the more cosmic substances of silicic acid and lead are caught and received."
Again we are given the picture of the astral body's interaction with the plant, but this time the preparation is aiding where the Astral body is weak and can not take a proper hold on the Etheric and Physical. Lievegoed makes the observation when talking of the invisible primary process of Venus, (it) " Opens the Etheric Formative Forces into a cup or chalice and nourishes what Mars thrusts into space."
Being in the inner planet polarity it would suggest that this preparation opens the Etheric to receive the Astral.
503 - Chamomile - Mercury - Intestines -In the ground through the winter
This preparation is described as "Helping bind the calcium substances to receive life to itself and transmit it to the environment."
The use of the word 'life' here is a reference to the Life body or the Etheric. So this preparation strengthens the Etheric body. Later R.S. suggests "It assimilates that which can chiefly help to exclude from the plant those harmful effects of fructification." Some light can be shone on the statement 'harmful affects of fructification' by looking elsewhere in the course,( lecture 6 ) to where R.S. was discussing the true nature of fungal attack. He suggested that fungus was caused by the processes of fruiting occurring at a much earlier stage of development than it otherwise should. From our model it can be seen that flowering and fruiting are activities of the Astral and Ego. So he is suggesting that this preparation will hold back the activity of the Astral and Ego if they occur to early by strengthening the Etheric body.
In summary this preparation Strengthens the Etheric against the Astral (& Ego)
505 - Oak Bark - Moon - In skull - All year
R.S. was fairly straightforward with this preparation. He suggested, "by bringing calcium into the soil it restores order when the ether body is working too strongly, that is when the astral cannot gain access to the organic entity. It dampens down the Etheric."
He describes the process as follows: "We use the bark of the Oak so that the shrinking is beautiful and regular and does not give rise to shocks in the organic life." More directly he suggested that this preparation "will lend forces prophylactically to combat or arrest any harmful plant diseases." Elsewhere RS commented that the bark of a tree should be seen as turned-up Earth and that the stalks and leaves can be seen as small plants growing out of this earth.
In summary, it retards a rampant Etheric body by sucking it more tightly to the physical.
These inner planet preparations are concerned primarily with the activity of the Etheric and Physical bodies, helping them to find their proper place with regards the Astral and Ego, assisting the Horn Manure preparation 500 in its overall activity of harmonising the terrestrial sphere.
Putting the above information all together we have the following:
Saturn - Valerian - Phosphorus - Strengthens the Ego against the Astral
Jupiter - Dandelion - Hydrogen - Helps the Ego and the Physical entwine
Mars - Nettle - Nitrogen - Harmonises the Astrality and other bodies
Venus - Yarrow - Sulphur - Opens the Etheric to receive the Astral
Mercury - Chamomile - Oxygen - Strengthens the Etheric against Astral
Moon - Oak Bark - Carbon - Sucks a rampant Etheric to the Physical
Practical experience has shown these preparations can bring balance between any irregularities in the working of the bodies ( see Case Studies)
I regard these preparations and the accompanying information as a real gift to humanity from Rudolf Steiner. They give the farmer and gardener access to a simple, safe tool kit that can heal and balance their environments. Using the view that all disease and pest attack, in plants and animal, are a result of an imbalance occurring in their physical/spiritual balance, we now have eight substances at our disposal that can consciously influence the way these bodies interplay and so a starting place for finding sensitive, purely BD remedies for pest and disease control.
These preparations are generally inserted into a compost heap or liquid manure to balance the raw Physical, Etheric, Astral and Ego forces released during these decomposition processes.
Furthermore these preparations could be used individually and potentised homeopathically to further specialise their action, to harmonise imbalances as they occur during a growing period.
It is best for the novice to use the original preparation in addition to their sprays of 500 and 501 until experience is compounded. However a healthy sense of exploration and experimentation is certainly encouraged.
Re: Various authors on the MO of preps
Walter Goldstein
Dear [Sirs]
I was glad to hear of the work in Korea that you have faithfully carried out for so many years. Also, I am glad to know of and to look at your new book. Unfortunately I cannot read Hangul, nor speak your beautiful language. Therefore, I cannot read what you have written aside from the table of contents which has been translated into English. But I did see the pictures in your book showing what you are doing and what you have accomplished. I am very impressed by them. I am glad to see that you have achieved a high level of work on your farm. Your crops and soil looked beautiful, and I am glad to see the pictures of how you are making and using preparations. My wife and I were also gladdened to see the innocent, grateful faces of your cattle. My hope is that your farm will serve as an example and stimulus for farmers in Korea to do biodynamic farming. I look forward to a future time in which I can learn what you have experienced with the effects of biodynamics, including preparations, in Korea.
I am also glad for the opportunity to try to answer the question you posed me, which is what is the role of the animal organs in making biodynamic preparations? Specifically you asked:
• 503 What does the cow's intestine do?
• 505 What is the role of the animal's skull and what does water do?
• 506 What does the cow mesentery do?
• How do the effects of cow pat pit differ from 500?
So in this letter I will build several bridges to help us to answer these questions. I will color my explanations with what I have learned and earned through observation since I started working with preparations in 1974. That includes what I have learned since I visited Korea and met with you both in 1994. Of course, my understanding of the preparations and thus my ability to answer your questions is still a work in progress.
As you know, biodynamics and biodynamic preparations are based on an understanding that works with life in new ways based on life-derived principles. It emerged in 1924 as a result of spiritual scientific research (Anthroposophy) done by Rudolf Steiner in the form of a series of lectures. Afterwards it has been continuously refined by farmers and scientists.
If that course of lectures has not already been translated accurately into Hangul, I recommend that be done soon. The most recent English version of the course might be good to translate as it contains many interesting notes giving additional insights into the lectures.
From today’s perspective, biodynamics is an underutilized, new, life-based technology. When grasped and used by people, biodynamic practices have the potential to increase the vitality of the soil in a beneficial way and to thereby bring widespread healing to the Earth. For that to happen, people first need to grasp the ideas of what biodynamics is, how it works, what it can do, and how to do it. After that, if they want to really understand biodynamics they can earn its content through personal experience.
Biodynamic lectures and practices can give a helpful conceptual framework. But beyond that, a person who follows the path outlined in the agriculture course, can, given sufficient effort, deepen empathic capacities enabling them to gain accurate, personal, intimate knowledge of soil, plants, and animals. That knowledge will be drawn out of the reality of their farms and gardens, experienced in the course of the year.
The fundamental logic behind the preparations lies in the content of the Agriculture course. Making the herbal preparations entails combining three things:
1) Specific organs of exemplary plants that by their nature demonstrate beneficial life forming patterns.
2) Wrapping several of these plant parts with specific animal organs, which by their nature have analogous or complimentary force/patterns to those specific plants.
3) Enabling the plant/animal packages to absorb forces available from the Cosmos and the Earth during the seasons of the year, with special emphasis on the life that occurs from October to May in the northern hemisphere winter.
The combination of plant parts, animal organs, and Earth life forces results in specific decompositions causing an intensification, or concentration of the forces associated with the plant substances or manure. This decomposition/fermentation takes a course not found when plant parts or manure decompose naturally outside of living bodies. These concentrated preparations then can be used as a kind of medicine to project healthy patterns through manure and compost into soil and crop plants.
In the preparations specific forces connected with a set of exemplary plants and their complementary organs, are bound into substances. According to Steiner, such substances have strong radiating (“dynamic”) effects. The intent is that those radiations should bring about a living form of nitrogen that stimulates plants to form tissues with strong integrity. Eating such food should stimulate the life and inner activity of both humans and animals.
That is the logic of the herbal preparations. Is it possible to derive the foundations for this process based solely on what is taught in schools and universities today? No; the making of biodynamic preparations is new, and naturally it may seem peculiar for today’s thinking. But today’s knowledge, though grand and often useful, is incomplete because it is based on a one-sided, reduced interpretation of life. According to the bias of modern science, life is the accidental result of molecular combinations.
It is true that chemical analyses can be useful for indicating the status of life in a body. But life itself cannot be weighed and measured with mechanical instruments. Life is more than that. It is, in itself, a mysterious, wisdom filled entity that comes in and out of bodies. It enters into partnerships with matter, but it molds matter to its use. It enables people, animals, and plants to be on the Earth in very special and specific ways.
In the following I will attempt to build with you an enhanced understanding, beginning with the basic experience of the life in the Earth. We will learn about the life engendering forces that work from the depths of the Earth up into the soil in November and their internalization during the winter by preparations. We will learn how the sheaths of the preparations assist in the internalization process. Then we will explore the preparation plants and their relationship to the animal organs.
Clearly, Steiner revealed solutions to many mysteries in agriculture and nature. But it remains up to us to build a bridge of knowledge whereby we can understand what was given. The key basic questions that can guide us are what kind of life forces are being utilized, what do the sheaths do to absorb them, and what are the specific relationships between plants and organs.
My methods for research and actual experiments and their results are described in a few notes at the end. The empathic approach to what we meet in agriculture is described in those notes. This approach can lead us into perceptive recognition of the heavenly or cosmic forces working to support life on our planet. Our ancient relatives instinctively knew something about the cosmic factors including some of those effects that we now utilize in the making of preparations. That knowledge may still be preserved in traditions of indigenous people. It is important in our era to avoid unfounded disbelief, belief or even superstition about such matters but rather to discover insight in a new way. This can be attempted by refining our perceptive capabilities and intelligence as human beings. For we, ourselves, are the instrument by which such things can be discovered.
Life forces in the Earth.
We will take our start with the fact that the preparations are placed in the topsoil to absorb forces that are available in the Earth at specific times of the year. But what are these forces? Actually, empathic participation in the life of the Earth is critical if we are to begin understand them and the preparations in a deeper way. In fact, we human beings have an inherent sense that can inwardly grasp the qualities of life and its manifestations in soil. That probably is because we ourselves are alive. If we pay attention, we can recognize qualities of life outside of ourselves because they resonate with our own inner experiences. Machines do not have that sense. That subjective sense sleeps mostly in our subconscious. But it can be consciously strengthened, refined and made objective by exercising it in the right ways.
Methods for empathic research on the life forces in the soil that we use are described in the notes below. However, a preliminary impression of the cycle of life forces working dynamically in the Earth through the seasons, based on the efforts of our biodynamic working group in the Northern part of the USA, may be summarized as follows:
Spring: In the spring, an organic or biodynamic soil that has been well taken care of in the past (supplied with adequate amounts of organic matter) is alive, vital, full of life, dynamic, fertile, fecund, and womb like, well connected with the depths, and with the atmosphere. It is also well structured into the subsoil with many small and medium sized aggregates. The vitality of the soil appears to penetrate throughout the structure to varying degrees, in some cases even creating the impression of an integrated living organ that interacts with processes in the atmosphere and in the depths of the Earth. Such spring soils have excellent structure, are full of aggregates and air space. They seem subject to levity. They are easy to dig in and show fairly uniform, crumb rich structure.
Early Summer: During the growing season, especially under a heavy feeding crop, these soils appear to give up their life, gradually lose their aggregated structure, and become compact. This occurs as the crops unfold their dynamic lives and forms. The naïve impression is that the plants are parasitic, depleting the soil of its life. The more the plant takes from the soil and gives to us, the harder the effect on the soil.
Mid-Summer: By August the life quality experience, especially under heavy-feeding crops, is that the soils seem dead, or empty of life. August soil shows massive, compacted, block-like structure, and individual clods show a decrease in aggregation and air space. They are hard to dig in but upon digging, the soil shows itself as fine powder or cloddy blocks that are horizontally layered. The soils seem strongly subject to gravity; and levity is absent. This dead condition in the soil remains until the end of October.
November: Then, especially at the end of October or beginning of November a strong re-enlivening begins in the soil, especially if in the past the soils have been supplied with adequate organic manures. This re-enlivening, which is surprising, and not generally known, is accompanied by a dramatic restructuring of both the subsoil and topsoil. This occurs before frosts occur or there is any freezing of the soil. Preliminary examination indicates that this re-enlivening occurs from below in the depths of the Earth and travels up. The soil at this time feels charged with a strong life dynamic which penetrates deeply into the aggregated condition of the soil and results in an impression seething with life.
Winter: In December, the form of the soil has been restructured. The soil looks as if it should be vital. However, as the ground goes into the deeper winter the experience with it is not of outwardly expressed vitality. Subjective impressions of the soil are that it seems introverted, quiet, inwardly awake, in a state somewhat similar to listening or to the state we have when holding our breath. The life forces which had appeared almost rampant in November now are hidden inside the soil. In November we experienced what Steiner spoke of as the life etheric force in its activity of life penetration and aggregating the soil; and we experienced the chemical etheric force in the seething, transforming activity in the soil. Now in winter we experience a dying down of the living etheric and the dawning of a life of sensing (the astral world).
When the spring comes again the soil has been further transformed and refined over the winter. It unfolds great vitality, and may be experienced, again, as having a pure, vital, fertile quality with the interconnectedness of a sensing organ.
I also attach photographs of soils from my own farm garden taken in a single year (2021) that illustrate the physical changes in the soil in the different phases mentioned above.
The effect of the organ sheaths:
The herbal preparations and the horn manure are placed in the Earth just before this great November transformation occurs. The intent is that they should absorb this life engendering influence which permeates the soil from below. A very special fermentation/decomposition occurs in the herbs or manure in consonance with this placement.
We can apply same the empathic method for assessing life quality of the soil to the preparations. The life quality experience of the finished herbs and manure, found in the preparations in the spring, is not of a rampant vital force. Instead, the life quality seems gentle, quiet, concentrated, powerful and typical yet mysterious in a different way for each of the preparations. This life quality impression has something in common with the impression of the soil in mid-winter in that it is inwardly quiet, but strong, having internalized potent life forces. The metamorphosis of substance that occurs inside the sheaths is similar to the metamorphosis of forces occurring in the soil from fall to winter but the forces remain latent in the preparation.
I studied the effects of the animal organs by replacing them with artificial sheaths (linen instead of intestines for chamomile; linen instead of mesentery for dandelion, and glass or plastic tubes instead of horns for manure). My three studies are described in the notes below.
Results were that artificial sheaths did not make good biodynamic preparations. The animal sheaths clearly play a major role in transforming the material inside them. These organs create effects that make the manure or herb look like it has been the subject of aerobic composting. Such materials hold in their smell while losing little organic matter through the decomposition. In contrast, if the preparations are made in artificial sheaths they do not appear to humify but rather ferment; and they release pungent, unpleasant smells as soon as they are released from their sheaths. This is similar to what occurs under normal anaerobic fermentation.
This is reminiscent of the fourth lecture of the Agriculture Course where Steiner remarks:
The herbs and the organs.
So far I have described the general effect of the animal organs on herbs or manure as enhancing the uptake of living forces from the soil plus inducing a unique kind of decomposition. But why are specific organs chosen to be paired with specific herbs? The answer to this question was recently articulated to me in a letter by my colleague Malcolm Gardner as follows:
As farmers and gardeners we are privileged to be able to experience how plants grow during the growing season. In a mysterious and marvelous way plants weave their bodies out of the light, air, warmth, and water while they lift and incorporate minerals from the earth into their bodies. Their intimate relationships with the light and the mineral kingdom are expressed directly in their forms. As humans we cannot directly see the light around us. But we do see how out of the same sunlight various plants produce forms and colors which differ greatly depending on the species and environmental conditions.
According to Steiner there is a world of the stars (astral) that lives in that light and in the warmth and the water that surrounds the plants. Each plant species has a unique and dynamic relationship to this astral world. The plant buds sense invisible patterns that are written by the stars into this astral world. According to those relationships, patterns of growth are laid down into the unfolding forms of leaves and stalks.
To confirm this for yourself please observe how plants grow if they are kept in the dark. And conversely, observe where they are grown on light intense sites. Exposure to direct light has a strong differentiating effect on their form. The light both encourages and also paralyzes vegetative growth leading to an articulation of form, refinement of chemistry, and stimulation of the fruit and seed forming processes.
In his Agriculture course Rudolf Steiner described yarrow, chamomile, nettle, oak, dandelion, valerian, and equisetum as model plants. Each of these plants is considered to be an example of a different pattern of how to build a body out of the light and air with the help of the mineral world. But the stimulus for the eventually partially inherited patterns of form and chemistry in these plants come from the astral world and thus from the stars.
According to other lectures given by Steiner to physicians, the stars that work through this astral world are mainly those of our solar system with a predominance of the sun and the moon. Animals and humans internalize these same astral influences in the functioning of our human organs. These influences are anchored in the organs of the heart (Sun), reproductive organs and brain (Moon), lungs (Mercury), kidneys/urinary tract/bladder (Venus), gallbladder (Mars), liver (Jupiter), and spleen (Saturn), while the gastrointestinal tract is subject to the forces of the Earth and gravity.
In the pantheon of cosmic influences some of these cosmic forces foster processes that are more earthly oriented, and others foster activities that are more oriented towards the cosmos. Steiner refers to the ‘inner’ planets (Moon, Mercury, and Venus) as working through the regents of calcium and other alkali metals and through water. These effects have a peculiar tendency of fostering the earthy production of bodies through enhanced growth, reproduction, and metabolism. Lime fosters growth, but paradoxically also dampens down life forces when those forces are excessive, so relevant astral elements can be used to better establish plants on the earth. On the other hand, effects of the outer planets are mediated by warmth and sunlight and silica rich substances, by certain trace elements. They enhance flavor and nutritional value. In the following we will see how the working of two sets of forces might be regulated through the preparations, starting with yarrow. We start with yarrow because Steiner’s descriptions with yarrow show what he intended to do with the other preparations.
Yarrow and bladder: Yarrow is a very common weed across parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It is a member of the highly evolved family of plants called the Asteraceae. Yarrow is commonly used as a herb in folk medicine to regulate imbalances and normalize health in the lower organs of humans (irritable bowel syndrome, menstrual problems, circulatory problems, inflammation). Extracts of the leaves of yarrow also can staunch excessive bleeding from wounds.
Steiner takes great care in the Agriculture course to illustrate the characteristics of yarrow, its relationship to the bladder, and what he wants to achieve through the making of a preparation. He observed that yarrow optimally uses sulfur to transform how potassium salts facilitate protein rich body formation in the plant. In fact, ordinary observation of yarrow presents us with a living demonstration of a unique relationship of sulfur and potassium to body formation. This is obvious in yarrow’s vigorous yet delicately filigreed leaves with rows of tiny, well-formed leaflets, its synchronously developed corymbs with exquisitely structured flower heads, possessing both disc and ray flowers, and its strong stalks. Its tissues are permeated with ‘sulfuric’ aromatic substances into a specific tight, dry texture and they manifest a powerful dry, almost astringent taste.
According to Steiner the stag bladder is a complementary organ to yarrow, and the stag is an animal that lives strongly with its senses into its surroundings. The stag imprints the astral world found in its sensory life into its bladder, as is described in the fifth lecture of the Agriculture Course:
A deer is a creature that is intimately related, not so much to the Earth as to the Earth’s surroundings; to the cosmic aspect of the Earth’s surroundings… What is present in yarrow is especially strongly preserved in the bodies of humans and animals by means of the process that takes place between the kidneys and the bladder and this process is dependent on the material constitution of the bladder. As thin as it may be in terms of substance, in terms of its force a deer bladder is almost a replica of the cosmos. A deer is involved with forces that are quite different from those of a cow which are all related to the interior. By putting the yarrow into a deer bladder we significantly enhance its inherent ability to combine sulfur with other substances.
Chamomile and intestines:
Like yarrow, chamomile is also a member of the Asteraceae. It too has finely branched leaves and it has capitulate flowers with white ray and yellow disc petals. Its complimentary organ is the walls of the intestine. Cattle are animals with the most highly developed digestive capacity, so it makes sense to use their intestines.
According to Steiner’s fifth lecture :
Chamomile is mainly used in medicine to treat gastrointestinal problems. Use of chamomile has been shown to reduce inflammation in the intestine but also to enhance uptake of calcium by the intestines into bones thereby preventing osteoporosis. The intestine is the major site for regulating the uptake of calcium into the body. Calcium is actively absorbed in the ileum.
Chamomile produces many chemicals which reduce inflammation of the intestines. But the relationship between chamomile and intestines may go beyond that. Curiously enough, the flowers of the chamomile have a dynamic structure which mimics intestinal structure and function. As the flower progressively unfolds its development, a large hollow, bladder-like structure swell up with the yellow disc flowers on top of it. In cross section, this structure is curiously reminiscent of an enlarged hollow intestinal villus. While this bladder seems to inflate, the white ray flowers which initially point upwards, subsequently rotate to make a downward directed gesture. It is as if the mature flower turns inside out, making an inversion gesture such as what occurs when substances move across the intestinal wall.
Oak bark in the skull of a domesticated animal. White oak trees are common in the landscape I live in in Southern Wisconsin. The older trees are not graceful, but rather give the impression of predominant extrusion of massive substance. They grow very slowly, forming broad, lumpy forms, with powerful thick trunks. They have impressive heavy branches full of curves and bends and they are armed with dense foliage and branches. Branch placement can seem chaotic, and higher branches can deprive lower branches of light and kill them. The slow growth of the oaks provides dense wood suited for floors and furniture. This wood produces intense heat when it is burned.
In folk medicine, oak bark is used to treat hemorrhoids, diarrhea, and bleeding gums. Its tannins constrict tissues. The motif for its effects seems to be reducing excessive exudations that are out of place in the human body.
For biodynamic farming, oak bark was proposed as a universal remedy to counter plant disease, based on its calcium content. If chamomile is important because of the way it regulates calcium, the important thing about oak bark is the calcium it contains in itself as a living substance. The fifth lecture states:
Already with the discussion of the deer and the bladder we touched on an important fact. The nervous system and sensory/soul life of animals and humans is the realm where astrality can easily unfold on the Earth. The nervous tissue can serve for this because it dampens down the vibrant life forces found in other parts of the body in order to provide a basis for the astral world to manifest in the inner soul life of an animal or human. The lack of vitality associated with nervous tissue is also why it is so difficult to heal physical damage to it. In fact, vitality and consciousness often have an inverse relationship. For example, when human babies are growing actively, it can be observed that they have limited ability to have a conceptually-based inner life. But that this capacity increases as children age and the rate of growth body decreases.
We live in our brains inside the bony, lime-rich cave of our cranium, partly cut off from the world, dependent on images from our senses, and living in mirrored ideas, feelings and dead concepts derived from the outside and inside. In the mirror world of the brain, calcium plays a major role by enabling nervous system function. It has been called the critical element and ultimate multitasker for neurons, helping nervous system function by propagating electrical signals down axons, enabling the movement of neurotransmitters, memory formation and metabolism and growth. According to Steiner’s lectures astral influences of the moon have their home on the Earth through calcium.
Why do we put oak bark into the skull of an animal? The answer in short is that we are enhancing the ability of the oak bark to be influenced by the lunar astrality. This is accomplished by surrounding the crushed calcium-containing bark with a calcareous sheath. In Steiner’s medical book with Wegman (chap. 6), they describe nerves – and the brain in particular – as an arrested kind of bone formation. In the skull the deadening tendencies already present in the nerves reaches its limit. The home created for the oak bark is as for a brain.
Why is the skull of a domestic animal important? In my opinion this is because the domestic animals are more emancipated from regulation by their cosmic environment than are wild animals. Domestication of animals leads to smaller brain size. The smaller brain is due to reduction in tissues associated with motor control, seeing, hearing, and smelling. Thereby domesticated animals are more cut off from fully participating in the extended world of their environment which is cosmically oriented. Hence they are less shaped by it. This enables humans to re-direct the plastic forces of their development to serve human interests. But it also means that domesticates have a different mental life, more dependence on humans, more earthly- lunar, and less, as is the case of the wild deer, in synch with other cosmic aspects of their environment.
Dandelion and mesentery:
The yellow flowered dandelion is a third member of the highly developed plant family, the Asteraceae. It is one of our most common weeds in Wisconsin, and a source of aggravation for many landowners who routinely spray their lawns with herbicides to keep it from spreading. Despite this widespread antipathy, the plant thrives, to demonstrate itself again and again as a useful wonder. Dandelion is a gifted chemist, producing a wide spectrum of medically useful substances that affect metabolism, the immune system, and pathogens. These substances include minerals, carbohydrates (inulin), carotenoids (lutein), anthocyanins (luteolin), and many kinds of active phenolic compounds.
Dandelion is widely used as a folk medicine to help with spleen, liver and gallbladder problems and to counteract conditions associated with hyperglycemic problems, insulin sensitivity, type-2 diabetes, and obesity. It is used to stimulate production of stomach acid and bile, act as a diuretic and laxative, produce anti-inflammatory effects, and lower blood glucose levels. The healing gesture of the dandelion is that it dives deeply into regulating functions in the viscera including into promoting dynamic digestive and metabolic functions.
As dandelion is widely known by farmers, I will mention only a few typical characteristics of the way the plant grows. It is a plant rich in obovate, serrated leaves wrapped around a crown which conceals a deep taproot. The leaf serrations vary in depth and number seemingly in dependence with the age of the plant, and its environmental conditions. Sometimes they appear like green flames in the vigorously spreading leaves.
The plant tends to produce spheres. When weeding dandelions out of flowerbeds in the spring I have noticed how the crown of these plants is somewhat submerged into a cup like depression which form a kind of half sphere indentation in the soil. And in the spring the plants form many flower buds on the crown that appear like small spherical balloons. These buds then extended upwards to the sun to produce brilliant yellow flowers that open and close on top of hollow stalks. The stalks and leaves themselves exude a bitter latex when broken. The bulky flowers are rich in yellow colored florets and they metamorphose to reveal a wonderful radiant seed ball sphere composed of beaked seeds clustered around a spherical base with silky attached radiating structures that serve as parachutes, enabling the seeds to spread through the air. The rounded yellow flowers and spherical seed balls are especially noticed and popular with children. The seed spheres seem to epitomize the overall gesture of the plant; in them the dandelion uses its body to perform a final gesture that encompasses and summarizes the universal in an almost crystalline display.
As for its use in biodynamic preparations, the relationship between potassium and silica in dandelion was meant by Steiner to be especially significant. I have looked for information on the silica content of dandelion. Though several chemical studies show that the plant is very rich in potassium, I have not found it possible to gain data from the scientific literature on its silica content. This is because chemists in the past have not consider silica to be important and therefore have not measured it. Nevertheless, this bias against silica has been overturned by modern research. Silicic acid is recognized now as a very important, and in some cases, limiting nutrient that can protect plants from insects, diseases, stress, increase yields, and increase tissue strength. Furthermore, our soils are becoming depleted in silicic acid and other trace elements, as Steiner had warned in the Agriculture Course. This depletion affects crops differently. Some crops, such as rice, are more responsive to silicic acid fertilization than others. But undoubtedly, the general depletion needs to be remedied, and the dandelion preparation is proposed as a remedy in the fifth lecture:
Collect the yellow flowers of the dandelion and let them wilt a little. Then pack them together and sew them up in a bovine mesentery, and put them too in the Earth through the winter. When these balls are dug up in the spring, they will in fact be thoroughly saturated with cosmic influence, and can be stored until needed. This material can be added to the manure in the same way as before, and it will give the soil the ability to attract just as much silicic acid from the atmosphere and from the cosmos as is needed by the plants. In this way the plant will become sensitive to everything at work in their environment and then be able themselves to draw in whatever else they need.
Even plants, in order to grow properly, need to have a certain ability to sense and perceive. In the same way that I can pass by a dull and insensitive person without being noticed, so can everything within and above the soil pass by a dull and insensitive plant. What it does not perceive, it cannot put to use for its own growth. But if a plant is very delicately permeated and enlivened by silicic acid, it becomes sensitive to everything and can attract what it needs. However, it is very easy to weaken plants so they can only take advantage of what is present in their immediate environment, which is not good, of course. But if you treat the soil as I have described, the plants will be able to draw in what they need from a very wide area.
Why is a mesentery used? First, it is important to understand what the mesentery is. In discussion with farmers during the Agriculture Course, Steiner confirmed that what he meant by mesentery is the peritoneum. The peritoneum is a very large membrane that surrounds the viscera in the abdominal wall and also supports them. The impression is of a complex sheet within which the abdominal organs are connected and interwoven. There are different parts to it, but it is a single contiguous organ. The three parts are: 1) the parietal peritoneum which lines the abdominal wall; 2) the mesentery which is derived from a fold of the peritoneum and attaches the stomach, pancreas, spleen and small intestine to the back wall of the abdomen; and 3) The omentum which is also a fold of the peritoneum and which attaches the stomach to the other abdominal organs. The omentum is constructed of two or four layers of peritoneam and it passes between, or hangs down from the stomach, connecting it with the liver, spleen, and colon. The greater omenta or ‘net’ is mostly used for making the dandelion preparation, The greater omentum hangs down from the greater curvature of the stomach onto the transverse colon, and loops upon the intestines forming a large apron, suited for making balls with dandelions inside.
The function of this peritoneum organ is to surround, permeate, and interconnect the viscera, and to supply them with blood vessels, lymphatic systems and nerves. The mesentery also suspends the greater part of the intestines so they are not directly attached to the body wall. Thus because of the peritoneum the intestines get partially emancipated from the physics of body movement and the effects of gravity. This greatly aids digestive function.
The overall motif of the peritoneum is that it is a multipurpose service organ that interweaves the viscera, enabling function, sensing, communication, and nutrient supply functions for the vascular and digestive systems. The peritoneum literally holds the whole digestive package together for optimal viscera performance.
If we compare these motifs of activity it makes sense that the dandelion is wrapped in the peritoneum. The medical healing effects and uplifting, sphere-forming growth gestures of the dandelion, plus the ecological and sensory characteristics mentioned by Steiner, provide a good match to the work accomplished by the peritoneum. Parallel signatures include regulation and communication functions that dive deeply into fostering healthy metabolism, communication and circulation, and lifting up, quickening, and shaping activities into a harmonious whole.
How do the effects of cow pat pit differ from horn manure preparation 500?
Let’s first consider what horn manure is and what the cow pat pit is, how they are treated and what they are intended to do. The horn manure consists of cow manure that has spent the winter in a good topsoil inside a cow horn. The manure achieves a special consistency. It is then stirred for an hour in warm water using reciprocal spirals to disperse the manure before it is sprayed out on the soil and on plants. The intention is to produce a substance that has very intense cow manure like effect.
Why a cow and why a cow horn? Ruminants in general tend to form horns of one kind or another, whether they are boney horns such as those found in the sensitive deer, or horn made from a kind of thickened skin or fingernail like substance such as the horns found in cows, goats, and sheep. From an evolutionary standpoint, there is a parallel between the formation of horns and the formation of the rumen. Animals that make a rumen tend to make horns. In the fourth lecture Steiner states:
Why a cow and not a goat or sheep? The cow differs from the goat and sheep due to its more inwardly turned disposition and a greater focus on the development of its digestive tract. It has evolved a huge rumen which fills the majority of the abdominal cavity with four stomachs which break down the forage with the help of bacterial fermentation. A very long intestinal tract, accompanied by the functions of the peritoneum, vascular, and lymphatic systems, liver and gallbladder, enables the effective conversion of grass and hay into milk and meat.
Nature achieves a pinnacle of digestive efficiency in the cow. The sheep and goat are more nervous creatures and their manure is not a well transformed as is the cow’s manure.
Why stirring for an hour? Of course it is for the purpose of dispersal of the forces in the manure. For our purposes it should be noted that the ascending large intestine of a cow snakes centrifugally in a spiral into a center. Thereafter it reverses itself and goes the other direction; it snakes centripetally before reaching the descending colon and the anus. We mimic this movement of the manure in the large intestine when we stir the horn manure in water with clockwise and counterclockwise spirals to disperse the horn manure into water.
Now let’s consider the logic and function of the cow pat pit (CPP). This preparation is a practical way to intensify and extend the effects of the herbal preparations around the farm. These preparations are made from small, covered cow manure piles which are inoculated with relatively large quantities of biodynamic herbal preparations and allowed to compost. The production and use of CPP was not introduced by Rudolf Steiner, but rather by biodynamic farmer M.K. Schwartz (birch pit preparation), and then by other researchers and practitioners.
Does the CPP have a different effect than horn manure? Yes, it can, but the effects of CPP vary according to the way it is made. There are different kinds of CPP made with different additions to the manure. Some of these are used both as compost starter inoculants and also as field sprays. These varieties of CPP in common use include
• the Pfeiffer starter/field spray (developed by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer) which includes inoculation with useful bacteria;
• the Barrel Compost (developed by Maria Thun), which includes eggshells and basalt admixtures;
• Super-500 (developed by Australian farmers) which consists in horn manure treated with herbal preparations,
• and the nettle-based CPP developed by Herbert Koepf and myself which includes mixing 1% of chopped stinging nettle together with the cow manure before adding herbal preparations.
We compared these different kinds of CPP in a replicated research trial that took place over five years. We included treatments with conventional and organic farming systems and biodynamic with horn manure but with or without those different cow pat pit sprays. The strongest positive effects were found with the nettle CPP. That CPP treatment increased grain yields, root growth of maize, root health, and young particulate organic matter in the soil beyond all the other treatments. Five years of trials with maize showed average yields of 6.71, 6.77, and 7.15 t/ha of grain for the organic, biodynamic without CPP, and biodynamic with nettle CPP treatments. Four years of trials with winter wheat showed that on average the biodynamic with nettle CPP treatment had 10% more yield and greater root growth than the organic and the results were statistically significant. The nettle CPP treatment had 6% more grain yield and greater root growth than the biodynamic without CPP. The nettle CPP treatment also caused positive yield compensatory effects for maize and wheat under stress condition years. Results were higher gross financial returns than for organic grain. The greater root production and root health stimulated by preparations is linked to greater growth, enhanced stress resistance, higher yields, increased soil quality and more young organic matter carbon in soils.
Analogous forces in different directions? Let us summarize our discussion of the mode of action of the preparations. Steiner intended with the use of the herbal preparations. According to Steiner, the preparations are all about sucking in, enlivening, stimulating, sensitizing, and directing. These are all astral functions which in the living soil should have to do with nitrogen as well as other substances. He stated that he wanted to strengthen the ability of the soil to suck in cosmic forces carried by trace elements from cosmic dust, and thereby stimulate the plant to form its proteinaceous body in healthy ways. The herbal preparations were meant to enliven organic manures and soils, to sensitize them, to avoid undue losses of nitrogen, and to stimulate nutrient uptake. The herbs were also meant to provide force patterns that would help the plant form itself. By means of these preparations, living nitrogen was to be regulated in the manure, formed in soils, and should help the plant to correctly form its body.
The intent of using the animal organs is to lift the plant parts to the astral level. Nikolaus Remer describes in his book on Laws of Life, that making the preparations led to a strong increase in the nitrogen content of the plant parts. Steiner spoke of his intent for the preparations being to penetrate the soil by stimulating a living nitrogen, which he mentions is the carrier of the astral.
In preceding thoughts we have indicated that the organs needed for the preparations are analogous to each other, i.e., yarrow is like the process between the kidney and the bladder, chamomile is like the wall of the intestines. From this perspective, the plants and their corresponding organs belong together, they are similar. However, if we consider what Rudolf Steiner said about those organs in the lecture cycle Spiritual Science and Medicine the reality appears more complex. It seems probable that the decomposition processes in the preparations might have to do with a kind of canceling out effect achieved by matching the herbs with organs that dealt with parallel processes, but in opposite directions. It seems probable that when we make the preparations we create zero points where forces may be lifted to higher levels Let us re-consider the preparations in light of this insight:
In Spiritual Science and Medicine, Steiner states that the forces that form plant protein and animal protein are different. In fact, they oppose each other. “The functions of animal protein are impaired or abolished by those of vegetable protein.”
According to the Medical course the Kidney-Bladder system is concerned with dissolving carbon from the body and removing salts. However, in the agriculture course, yarrow is is to be used in the preparation as an active model of how to form a body correctly by combining sulfur, potassium, and protein.
In the medical course the small intestine is described as being active in destroying, and isolating substances, and de-vitalizing the flora and fauna that live in the gut. However, in the agriculture course chamomile should help us to combine substances in the right way and to enliven manure and soils.
Though the skull and the formation of oak bark both have to do with a common astralizing/devitalization process, the Medical course describes that the saline process in the head is formed under the formative forces of silica representing tin and lead, while Agriculture course describes that the saline process in the bark is formed with lime. Silica and lime represent polar opposite forces.
The mesentery and the dandelion may share themes of transmutation and transformation of substance with living forces, but they have to do with polar opposite gestures. The mesentery harbors the most inner, private nutrition streams. Foodstuffs are led across the walls of the intestine in a devitalized, destroyed state but then they are created anew in an enlivened form and led through the venous and lymph systems of the mesentery back into the blood. According to the Agriculture Course, the dandelion on the other hand is all about mediating cosmic silica forces over large regions of space and land. In its way of growing, its curvy, rounded, jagged leaf forms, its curious rounded crown and spherical flower buds, its hollow flower stalks, and spherical seed heads it shows its strong relationship to the surrounding cosmos. It is ‘a messenger of heaven’ while the mesentery is the guardian of inside earthly nutrition.
And in the fourth lecture of the agriculture course, we learn that bovine horns have the purpose of holding the forces radiating from the digestive system in check.
On several different levels we have the theme of bringing together analogous but opposing forces that tend to resist each other or might cancel each other out. It seems probable that this is the principle that is at work underlying the preparations. Of course, one can ask, how else could one produce forces of active balance in specific directions other than by bringing together opposing forces in analogous processes?
Summary: Learning to understand biodynamics and the preparations is a long-term adventure. It is rich in meaning because it looks deeply into reality with an empathic approach. But it takes courage to take a step beyond the status quo into a more spiritual relationship with agriculture. Biodynamic farming challenges each of us to gain experiences and to shape our human capacities to learn and accomplish things beyond what any machine could accomplish.
First, the logic of the preparations was described. Then we built bridges to answer your specific questions. We considered empathic experiences with the living soil through the year. Results from the empathic approach also helped to understand why we bury the preparations in the fall. Then we addressed the general effect of the sheaths on the quality of preparations. We examined the herbs and their related organs and why they belong together. We started with yarrow, but then researched chamomile, oak bark, and dandelion.
Finally we focused on horn manure and CPP, why they can be expected to have fundamentally complimentary effects. We did not investigate the nettle and valerian, which do not need to be wrapped in animal organs. But the nettle was mentioned in order to make a more effective CPP.
My hope is that these thoughts will help you and the readers of your book to better understand biodynamics and help them to build a bridge to doing it and having the best results. I recognize that Korea has a long and rich agricultural tradition and that tradition has its roots in a profound approach to life. I hope these remarks will help the biodynamic approach and methods to take root and bear fruit in Korea in a deeper way, and look forward to learning more about how biodynamics will look, Korean-style.
In preparing these thoughts for you I acknowledge the help of Malcolm Gardner, who is a good resource in the USA on the Agriculture Course. I have attached some notes below on empathic research on soils, and more detail on research with the biodynamic preparations, for those who may be interested in those aspects of the work.
Notes:
Methods for doing emphatic research on the life of the soil: How should we as modern human beings explore life quality experiences so that they may serve to guide our farming work?
Let us start with the life in the soil. A primal foundation of agriculture is that people take soil in their hands, look at its form, crumble it, smell it, and have an intimate experience of its life. Most farmers have some kind of sense for whether a soil is alive or dead or something in between. In fact, it is the nature of soil to fluctuate between more alive and deader states during the seasons in consonance with the crops and the life of the Earth. We can discover life quality experiences that are anchored in specific soils. Such experiences are spontaneous but often not discussed because it is difficult to find the right words or social settings to express them. In English some expressions for these experiences that I have heard include:
alive, vital, fertile, fecund, healthy, virgin, womb-like, fresh, dynamic, crawling with life.
Or conversely, burned-out, dead or dying, exhausted, worn out, dirt, sick, compacted, tired.
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As soils become enlivened or die their form can be observed shifting back and forth from deader, compact, horizontal, heavy material that is subject to gravity to more porous, aggregated, crumbly and lighter, and living crumbs that are subject to life activity, levity and air.
A world of smells and tastes is also associated with soil quality. Smells are harder to describe other than as analogies, often accompanied by sympathetic or unsympathetic feelings. For example, a soil in the spring may have a fruit like smell or it may stink like sewage.
In the United States we have formed a small biodynamic research group around this ‘soil-to-soul’ research. Members of our group are spread out across the northern part of the North American continent from New York State to Nebraska. Once each month participants should carefully extract two blocks of soil (20 x 20 x 20 cm) from a chosen garden or field, break off and discard the shovel-disturbed edges, and describe what they experience in the remaining soil. It is important that we accurately describe the physical condition of the soil, its smells, structure. But we should also meditate on what the soil reveals about its life quality, allow that quality to resound in their souls, and then find fitting words to describe the spontaneous imaginations that pop up in us that belong to that soil.
All these observations should take place in a soil that is growing a crop, in fact. In fact, we recommend following the course of the soils’ life under a heavy feeding cereal or vegetable crop. Critical to the work is that the experiences of the living Earth are derived solely from genuine attention to the soil, and not from preconceived ideas. Photographs are taken of the soil to record its physical structure, but descriptions of the inner life of the soil are written down. It is not necessary to demand that the inner experiences of soil life must correspond directly to the physical condition of the soil. Once monthly, the group meets to discuss our often surprising findings and to show pictures of their soils and how they have changed from month to month.
Dear [Sirs]
I was glad to hear of the work in Korea that you have faithfully carried out for so many years. Also, I am glad to know of and to look at your new book. Unfortunately I cannot read Hangul, nor speak your beautiful language. Therefore, I cannot read what you have written aside from the table of contents which has been translated into English. But I did see the pictures in your book showing what you are doing and what you have accomplished. I am very impressed by them. I am glad to see that you have achieved a high level of work on your farm. Your crops and soil looked beautiful, and I am glad to see the pictures of how you are making and using preparations. My wife and I were also gladdened to see the innocent, grateful faces of your cattle. My hope is that your farm will serve as an example and stimulus for farmers in Korea to do biodynamic farming. I look forward to a future time in which I can learn what you have experienced with the effects of biodynamics, including preparations, in Korea.
I am also glad for the opportunity to try to answer the question you posed me, which is what is the role of the animal organs in making biodynamic preparations? Specifically you asked:
• 503 What does the cow's intestine do?
• 505 What is the role of the animal's skull and what does water do?
• 506 What does the cow mesentery do?
• How do the effects of cow pat pit differ from 500?
So in this letter I will build several bridges to help us to answer these questions. I will color my explanations with what I have learned and earned through observation since I started working with preparations in 1974. That includes what I have learned since I visited Korea and met with you both in 1994. Of course, my understanding of the preparations and thus my ability to answer your questions is still a work in progress.
As you know, biodynamics and biodynamic preparations are based on an understanding that works with life in new ways based on life-derived principles. It emerged in 1924 as a result of spiritual scientific research (Anthroposophy) done by Rudolf Steiner in the form of a series of lectures. Afterwards it has been continuously refined by farmers and scientists.
If that course of lectures has not already been translated accurately into Hangul, I recommend that be done soon. The most recent English version of the course might be good to translate as it contains many interesting notes giving additional insights into the lectures.
From today’s perspective, biodynamics is an underutilized, new, life-based technology. When grasped and used by people, biodynamic practices have the potential to increase the vitality of the soil in a beneficial way and to thereby bring widespread healing to the Earth. For that to happen, people first need to grasp the ideas of what biodynamics is, how it works, what it can do, and how to do it. After that, if they want to really understand biodynamics they can earn its content through personal experience.
Biodynamic lectures and practices can give a helpful conceptual framework. But beyond that, a person who follows the path outlined in the agriculture course, can, given sufficient effort, deepen empathic capacities enabling them to gain accurate, personal, intimate knowledge of soil, plants, and animals. That knowledge will be drawn out of the reality of their farms and gardens, experienced in the course of the year.
The fundamental logic behind the preparations lies in the content of the Agriculture course. Making the herbal preparations entails combining three things:
1) Specific organs of exemplary plants that by their nature demonstrate beneficial life forming patterns.
2) Wrapping several of these plant parts with specific animal organs, which by their nature have analogous or complimentary force/patterns to those specific plants.
3) Enabling the plant/animal packages to absorb forces available from the Cosmos and the Earth during the seasons of the year, with special emphasis on the life that occurs from October to May in the northern hemisphere winter.
The combination of plant parts, animal organs, and Earth life forces results in specific decompositions causing an intensification, or concentration of the forces associated with the plant substances or manure. This decomposition/fermentation takes a course not found when plant parts or manure decompose naturally outside of living bodies. These concentrated preparations then can be used as a kind of medicine to project healthy patterns through manure and compost into soil and crop plants.
In the preparations specific forces connected with a set of exemplary plants and their complementary organs, are bound into substances. According to Steiner, such substances have strong radiating (“dynamic”) effects. The intent is that those radiations should bring about a living form of nitrogen that stimulates plants to form tissues with strong integrity. Eating such food should stimulate the life and inner activity of both humans and animals.
That is the logic of the herbal preparations. Is it possible to derive the foundations for this process based solely on what is taught in schools and universities today? No; the making of biodynamic preparations is new, and naturally it may seem peculiar for today’s thinking. But today’s knowledge, though grand and often useful, is incomplete because it is based on a one-sided, reduced interpretation of life. According to the bias of modern science, life is the accidental result of molecular combinations.
It is true that chemical analyses can be useful for indicating the status of life in a body. But life itself cannot be weighed and measured with mechanical instruments. Life is more than that. It is, in itself, a mysterious, wisdom filled entity that comes in and out of bodies. It enters into partnerships with matter, but it molds matter to its use. It enables people, animals, and plants to be on the Earth in very special and specific ways.
In the following I will attempt to build with you an enhanced understanding, beginning with the basic experience of the life in the Earth. We will learn about the life engendering forces that work from the depths of the Earth up into the soil in November and their internalization during the winter by preparations. We will learn how the sheaths of the preparations assist in the internalization process. Then we will explore the preparation plants and their relationship to the animal organs.
Clearly, Steiner revealed solutions to many mysteries in agriculture and nature. But it remains up to us to build a bridge of knowledge whereby we can understand what was given. The key basic questions that can guide us are what kind of life forces are being utilized, what do the sheaths do to absorb them, and what are the specific relationships between plants and organs.
My methods for research and actual experiments and their results are described in a few notes at the end. The empathic approach to what we meet in agriculture is described in those notes. This approach can lead us into perceptive recognition of the heavenly or cosmic forces working to support life on our planet. Our ancient relatives instinctively knew something about the cosmic factors including some of those effects that we now utilize in the making of preparations. That knowledge may still be preserved in traditions of indigenous people. It is important in our era to avoid unfounded disbelief, belief or even superstition about such matters but rather to discover insight in a new way. This can be attempted by refining our perceptive capabilities and intelligence as human beings. For we, ourselves, are the instrument by which such things can be discovered.
Life forces in the Earth.
We will take our start with the fact that the preparations are placed in the topsoil to absorb forces that are available in the Earth at specific times of the year. But what are these forces? Actually, empathic participation in the life of the Earth is critical if we are to begin understand them and the preparations in a deeper way. In fact, we human beings have an inherent sense that can inwardly grasp the qualities of life and its manifestations in soil. That probably is because we ourselves are alive. If we pay attention, we can recognize qualities of life outside of ourselves because they resonate with our own inner experiences. Machines do not have that sense. That subjective sense sleeps mostly in our subconscious. But it can be consciously strengthened, refined and made objective by exercising it in the right ways.
Methods for empathic research on the life forces in the soil that we use are described in the notes below. However, a preliminary impression of the cycle of life forces working dynamically in the Earth through the seasons, based on the efforts of our biodynamic working group in the Northern part of the USA, may be summarized as follows:
Spring: In the spring, an organic or biodynamic soil that has been well taken care of in the past (supplied with adequate amounts of organic matter) is alive, vital, full of life, dynamic, fertile, fecund, and womb like, well connected with the depths, and with the atmosphere. It is also well structured into the subsoil with many small and medium sized aggregates. The vitality of the soil appears to penetrate throughout the structure to varying degrees, in some cases even creating the impression of an integrated living organ that interacts with processes in the atmosphere and in the depths of the Earth. Such spring soils have excellent structure, are full of aggregates and air space. They seem subject to levity. They are easy to dig in and show fairly uniform, crumb rich structure.
Early Summer: During the growing season, especially under a heavy feeding crop, these soils appear to give up their life, gradually lose their aggregated structure, and become compact. This occurs as the crops unfold their dynamic lives and forms. The naïve impression is that the plants are parasitic, depleting the soil of its life. The more the plant takes from the soil and gives to us, the harder the effect on the soil.
Mid-Summer: By August the life quality experience, especially under heavy-feeding crops, is that the soils seem dead, or empty of life. August soil shows massive, compacted, block-like structure, and individual clods show a decrease in aggregation and air space. They are hard to dig in but upon digging, the soil shows itself as fine powder or cloddy blocks that are horizontally layered. The soils seem strongly subject to gravity; and levity is absent. This dead condition in the soil remains until the end of October.
November: Then, especially at the end of October or beginning of November a strong re-enlivening begins in the soil, especially if in the past the soils have been supplied with adequate organic manures. This re-enlivening, which is surprising, and not generally known, is accompanied by a dramatic restructuring of both the subsoil and topsoil. This occurs before frosts occur or there is any freezing of the soil. Preliminary examination indicates that this re-enlivening occurs from below in the depths of the Earth and travels up. The soil at this time feels charged with a strong life dynamic which penetrates deeply into the aggregated condition of the soil and results in an impression seething with life.
Winter: In December, the form of the soil has been restructured. The soil looks as if it should be vital. However, as the ground goes into the deeper winter the experience with it is not of outwardly expressed vitality. Subjective impressions of the soil are that it seems introverted, quiet, inwardly awake, in a state somewhat similar to listening or to the state we have when holding our breath. The life forces which had appeared almost rampant in November now are hidden inside the soil. In November we experienced what Steiner spoke of as the life etheric force in its activity of life penetration and aggregating the soil; and we experienced the chemical etheric force in the seething, transforming activity in the soil. Now in winter we experience a dying down of the living etheric and the dawning of a life of sensing (the astral world).
When the spring comes again the soil has been further transformed and refined over the winter. It unfolds great vitality, and may be experienced, again, as having a pure, vital, fertile quality with the interconnectedness of a sensing organ.
I also attach photographs of soils from my own farm garden taken in a single year (2021) that illustrate the physical changes in the soil in the different phases mentioned above.
The effect of the organ sheaths:
The herbal preparations and the horn manure are placed in the Earth just before this great November transformation occurs. The intent is that they should absorb this life engendering influence which permeates the soil from below. A very special fermentation/decomposition occurs in the herbs or manure in consonance with this placement.
We can apply same the empathic method for assessing life quality of the soil to the preparations. The life quality experience of the finished herbs and manure, found in the preparations in the spring, is not of a rampant vital force. Instead, the life quality seems gentle, quiet, concentrated, powerful and typical yet mysterious in a different way for each of the preparations. This life quality impression has something in common with the impression of the soil in mid-winter in that it is inwardly quiet, but strong, having internalized potent life forces. The metamorphosis of substance that occurs inside the sheaths is similar to the metamorphosis of forces occurring in the soil from fall to winter but the forces remain latent in the preparation.
I studied the effects of the animal organs by replacing them with artificial sheaths (linen instead of intestines for chamomile; linen instead of mesentery for dandelion, and glass or plastic tubes instead of horns for manure). My three studies are described in the notes below.
Results were that artificial sheaths did not make good biodynamic preparations. The animal sheaths clearly play a major role in transforming the material inside them. These organs create effects that make the manure or herb look like it has been the subject of aerobic composting. Such materials hold in their smell while losing little organic matter through the decomposition. In contrast, if the preparations are made in artificial sheaths they do not appear to humify but rather ferment; and they release pungent, unpleasant smells as soon as they are released from their sheaths. This is similar to what occurs under normal anaerobic fermentation.
This is reminiscent of the fourth lecture of the Agriculture Course where Steiner remarks:
Similarly, mesenteries with thick layers of fat do not result in optimal transformation of the dandelion blossoms. The fat must be removed to achieve optimal results. Oak bark from a dead tree does not transform in the same way as oak bark from a living tree. The quality of the substance of the organs and the herbs is critical for success.An organism lives in such a way that it allows as little as possible of the odor generated by the life within it to slip past the boundary of its skin. You might say that the healthier an organism is, the more it smells on the inside and the less it smells on the outside.
The quality of the sheaths and herbs also determines the success of the process. The horn manure does not develop well in horns that are cooked or in old horns, where the inner lining of the horn has aged or been broken. Bull horns also are not as effective at transforming manure.
The herbs and the organs.
So far I have described the general effect of the animal organs on herbs or manure as enhancing the uptake of living forces from the soil plus inducing a unique kind of decomposition. But why are specific organs chosen to be paired with specific herbs? The answer to this question was recently articulated to me in a letter by my colleague Malcolm Gardner as follows:
To grasp Gardner’s thoughts we must take a further step beyond forces of vitality to address what is called astral patterning forces.“My basic understanding of the animal sheaths is that they enhance and further concentrate the tendencies inherent in the herbs by virtue of having a more intimate or internalized relation to the same forces of astrality that work on a given plant from outside.“
As farmers and gardeners we are privileged to be able to experience how plants grow during the growing season. In a mysterious and marvelous way plants weave their bodies out of the light, air, warmth, and water while they lift and incorporate minerals from the earth into their bodies. Their intimate relationships with the light and the mineral kingdom are expressed directly in their forms. As humans we cannot directly see the light around us. But we do see how out of the same sunlight various plants produce forms and colors which differ greatly depending on the species and environmental conditions.
According to Steiner there is a world of the stars (astral) that lives in that light and in the warmth and the water that surrounds the plants. Each plant species has a unique and dynamic relationship to this astral world. The plant buds sense invisible patterns that are written by the stars into this astral world. According to those relationships, patterns of growth are laid down into the unfolding forms of leaves and stalks.
To confirm this for yourself please observe how plants grow if they are kept in the dark. And conversely, observe where they are grown on light intense sites. Exposure to direct light has a strong differentiating effect on their form. The light both encourages and also paralyzes vegetative growth leading to an articulation of form, refinement of chemistry, and stimulation of the fruit and seed forming processes.
In his Agriculture course Rudolf Steiner described yarrow, chamomile, nettle, oak, dandelion, valerian, and equisetum as model plants. Each of these plants is considered to be an example of a different pattern of how to build a body out of the light and air with the help of the mineral world. But the stimulus for the eventually partially inherited patterns of form and chemistry in these plants come from the astral world and thus from the stars.
According to other lectures given by Steiner to physicians, the stars that work through this astral world are mainly those of our solar system with a predominance of the sun and the moon. Animals and humans internalize these same astral influences in the functioning of our human organs. These influences are anchored in the organs of the heart (Sun), reproductive organs and brain (Moon), lungs (Mercury), kidneys/urinary tract/bladder (Venus), gallbladder (Mars), liver (Jupiter), and spleen (Saturn), while the gastrointestinal tract is subject to the forces of the Earth and gravity.
In the pantheon of cosmic influences some of these cosmic forces foster processes that are more earthly oriented, and others foster activities that are more oriented towards the cosmos. Steiner refers to the ‘inner’ planets (Moon, Mercury, and Venus) as working through the regents of calcium and other alkali metals and through water. These effects have a peculiar tendency of fostering the earthy production of bodies through enhanced growth, reproduction, and metabolism. Lime fosters growth, but paradoxically also dampens down life forces when those forces are excessive, so relevant astral elements can be used to better establish plants on the earth. On the other hand, effects of the outer planets are mediated by warmth and sunlight and silica rich substances, by certain trace elements. They enhance flavor and nutritional value. In the following we will see how the working of two sets of forces might be regulated through the preparations, starting with yarrow. We start with yarrow because Steiner’s descriptions with yarrow show what he intended to do with the other preparations.
Yarrow and bladder: Yarrow is a very common weed across parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It is a member of the highly evolved family of plants called the Asteraceae. Yarrow is commonly used as a herb in folk medicine to regulate imbalances and normalize health in the lower organs of humans (irritable bowel syndrome, menstrual problems, circulatory problems, inflammation). Extracts of the leaves of yarrow also can staunch excessive bleeding from wounds.
Steiner takes great care in the Agriculture course to illustrate the characteristics of yarrow, its relationship to the bladder, and what he wants to achieve through the making of a preparation. He observed that yarrow optimally uses sulfur to transform how potassium salts facilitate protein rich body formation in the plant. In fact, ordinary observation of yarrow presents us with a living demonstration of a unique relationship of sulfur and potassium to body formation. This is obvious in yarrow’s vigorous yet delicately filigreed leaves with rows of tiny, well-formed leaflets, its synchronously developed corymbs with exquisitely structured flower heads, possessing both disc and ray flowers, and its strong stalks. Its tissues are permeated with ‘sulfuric’ aromatic substances into a specific tight, dry texture and they manifest a powerful dry, almost astringent taste.
According to Steiner the stag bladder is a complementary organ to yarrow, and the stag is an animal that lives strongly with its senses into its surroundings. The stag imprints the astral world found in its sensory life into its bladder, as is described in the fifth lecture of the Agriculture Course:
A deer is a creature that is intimately related, not so much to the Earth as to the Earth’s surroundings; to the cosmic aspect of the Earth’s surroundings… What is present in yarrow is especially strongly preserved in the bodies of humans and animals by means of the process that takes place between the kidneys and the bladder and this process is dependent on the material constitution of the bladder. As thin as it may be in terms of substance, in terms of its force a deer bladder is almost a replica of the cosmos. A deer is involved with forces that are quite different from those of a cow which are all related to the interior. By putting the yarrow into a deer bladder we significantly enhance its inherent ability to combine sulfur with other substances.
Chamomile and intestines:
Like yarrow, chamomile is also a member of the Asteraceae. It too has finely branched leaves and it has capitulate flowers with white ray and yellow disc petals. Its complimentary organ is the walls of the intestine. Cattle are animals with the most highly developed digestive capacity, so it makes sense to use their intestines.
According to Steiner’s fifth lecture :
According to Steiner, chamomile uses sulfur to transform how calcium as well as potassium forms the plants body. During the Agricultural course he again and again refers to the importance of calcium or lime as a kind of safety valve that can release excess growth forces and thereby dampen down the overly rampant ‘etheric’ forces in plants; thereby allowing the astral forces to act directly. The chamomile preparation was intended by Steiner to be a prophylactic, dampening excessive plant vitality. Such excess of etheric vitality might cause premature flowering, lead to too early programmed death of the plant, and thereby enable subsequent fungal problems in harvested products.You will find that the results of spiritual research are always derived from the greater whole, from macrocosmic rather than microcosmic relations. We shall see this if we now trace the process that chamomile undergoes after having been ingested by a human being or animal. Here the bladder is of no particular significance; what is of great significance is the substance of the walls of the intestines.
Chamomile is mainly used in medicine to treat gastrointestinal problems. Use of chamomile has been shown to reduce inflammation in the intestine but also to enhance uptake of calcium by the intestines into bones thereby preventing osteoporosis. The intestine is the major site for regulating the uptake of calcium into the body. Calcium is actively absorbed in the ileum.
Chamomile produces many chemicals which reduce inflammation of the intestines. But the relationship between chamomile and intestines may go beyond that. Curiously enough, the flowers of the chamomile have a dynamic structure which mimics intestinal structure and function. As the flower progressively unfolds its development, a large hollow, bladder-like structure swell up with the yellow disc flowers on top of it. In cross section, this structure is curiously reminiscent of an enlarged hollow intestinal villus. While this bladder seems to inflate, the white ray flowers which initially point upwards, subsequently rotate to make a downward directed gesture. It is as if the mature flower turns inside out, making an inversion gesture such as what occurs when substances move across the intestinal wall.
Oak bark in the skull of a domesticated animal. White oak trees are common in the landscape I live in in Southern Wisconsin. The older trees are not graceful, but rather give the impression of predominant extrusion of massive substance. They grow very slowly, forming broad, lumpy forms, with powerful thick trunks. They have impressive heavy branches full of curves and bends and they are armed with dense foliage and branches. Branch placement can seem chaotic, and higher branches can deprive lower branches of light and kill them. The slow growth of the oaks provides dense wood suited for floors and furniture. This wood produces intense heat when it is burned.
In folk medicine, oak bark is used to treat hemorrhoids, diarrhea, and bleeding gums. Its tannins constrict tissues. The motif for its effects seems to be reducing excessive exudations that are out of place in the human body.
For biodynamic farming, oak bark was proposed as a universal remedy to counter plant disease, based on its calcium content. If chamomile is important because of the way it regulates calcium, the important thing about oak bark is the calcium it contains in itself as a living substance. The fifth lecture states:
For this purpose we collect the oak bark that can be easily obtained; we do not need a great deal. Then we chop it up until it is of crumb-like consistency, put it into a skull from any one of our domestic animals, it hardly matters which one; and finally close up the skull, preferably with a piece of bone. Next we place the skull in a relatively shallow hole in the ground, cover it with loose peat, and set up some kind of a pipe or gutter so that as much rainwater as possible flows into the hole. You might even put the skull into a rain-barrel where water can constantly flow in and out. Then add some kind of plant matter that will decay, so that the oak bark in its bony container lies in this organic muck for the whole winter, or better still for the whole autumn and winter. Water from melting snow will do just as well as rainwater. When this material is added to your manure pile, it will truly provide the forces to prevent or arrest harmful plant diseases.Now one plant that contains plenty of calcium is the oak. Seventy seven percent of its substance consists of finely distributed calcium. And oak bark, in particular, represents a kind of intermediate product between the plant and the living earth element, in the same sense as I already described the kinship between bark and living earth. Of the many forms in which calcium can appear, the calcium structure of oak bark is the most ideal. Calcium has the effect that I have already described. It creates order when the etheric body is working too strongly, so that the astrality cannot influence whatever organic entity is involved. Calcium in any form will kill off or dampen the etheric body and thereby free up the influence of the astral body, but when we want a rampant etheric development to contract in a beautiful and regular manner, without any shocks, then we need to use calcium in the particular form in which it is found in oak bark.
Already with the discussion of the deer and the bladder we touched on an important fact. The nervous system and sensory/soul life of animals and humans is the realm where astrality can easily unfold on the Earth. The nervous tissue can serve for this because it dampens down the vibrant life forces found in other parts of the body in order to provide a basis for the astral world to manifest in the inner soul life of an animal or human. The lack of vitality associated with nervous tissue is also why it is so difficult to heal physical damage to it. In fact, vitality and consciousness often have an inverse relationship. For example, when human babies are growing actively, it can be observed that they have limited ability to have a conceptually-based inner life. But that this capacity increases as children age and the rate of growth body decreases.
We live in our brains inside the bony, lime-rich cave of our cranium, partly cut off from the world, dependent on images from our senses, and living in mirrored ideas, feelings and dead concepts derived from the outside and inside. In the mirror world of the brain, calcium plays a major role by enabling nervous system function. It has been called the critical element and ultimate multitasker for neurons, helping nervous system function by propagating electrical signals down axons, enabling the movement of neurotransmitters, memory formation and metabolism and growth. According to Steiner’s lectures astral influences of the moon have their home on the Earth through calcium.
Why do we put oak bark into the skull of an animal? The answer in short is that we are enhancing the ability of the oak bark to be influenced by the lunar astrality. This is accomplished by surrounding the crushed calcium-containing bark with a calcareous sheath. In Steiner’s medical book with Wegman (chap. 6), they describe nerves – and the brain in particular – as an arrested kind of bone formation. In the skull the deadening tendencies already present in the nerves reaches its limit. The home created for the oak bark is as for a brain.
Why is the skull of a domestic animal important? In my opinion this is because the domestic animals are more emancipated from regulation by their cosmic environment than are wild animals. Domestication of animals leads to smaller brain size. The smaller brain is due to reduction in tissues associated with motor control, seeing, hearing, and smelling. Thereby domesticated animals are more cut off from fully participating in the extended world of their environment which is cosmically oriented. Hence they are less shaped by it. This enables humans to re-direct the plastic forces of their development to serve human interests. But it also means that domesticates have a different mental life, more dependence on humans, more earthly- lunar, and less, as is the case of the wild deer, in synch with other cosmic aspects of their environment.
Dandelion and mesentery:
The yellow flowered dandelion is a third member of the highly developed plant family, the Asteraceae. It is one of our most common weeds in Wisconsin, and a source of aggravation for many landowners who routinely spray their lawns with herbicides to keep it from spreading. Despite this widespread antipathy, the plant thrives, to demonstrate itself again and again as a useful wonder. Dandelion is a gifted chemist, producing a wide spectrum of medically useful substances that affect metabolism, the immune system, and pathogens. These substances include minerals, carbohydrates (inulin), carotenoids (lutein), anthocyanins (luteolin), and many kinds of active phenolic compounds.
Dandelion is widely used as a folk medicine to help with spleen, liver and gallbladder problems and to counteract conditions associated with hyperglycemic problems, insulin sensitivity, type-2 diabetes, and obesity. It is used to stimulate production of stomach acid and bile, act as a diuretic and laxative, produce anti-inflammatory effects, and lower blood glucose levels. The healing gesture of the dandelion is that it dives deeply into regulating functions in the viscera including into promoting dynamic digestive and metabolic functions.
As dandelion is widely known by farmers, I will mention only a few typical characteristics of the way the plant grows. It is a plant rich in obovate, serrated leaves wrapped around a crown which conceals a deep taproot. The leaf serrations vary in depth and number seemingly in dependence with the age of the plant, and its environmental conditions. Sometimes they appear like green flames in the vigorously spreading leaves.
The plant tends to produce spheres. When weeding dandelions out of flowerbeds in the spring I have noticed how the crown of these plants is somewhat submerged into a cup like depression which form a kind of half sphere indentation in the soil. And in the spring the plants form many flower buds on the crown that appear like small spherical balloons. These buds then extended upwards to the sun to produce brilliant yellow flowers that open and close on top of hollow stalks. The stalks and leaves themselves exude a bitter latex when broken. The bulky flowers are rich in yellow colored florets and they metamorphose to reveal a wonderful radiant seed ball sphere composed of beaked seeds clustered around a spherical base with silky attached radiating structures that serve as parachutes, enabling the seeds to spread through the air. The rounded yellow flowers and spherical seed balls are especially noticed and popular with children. The seed spheres seem to epitomize the overall gesture of the plant; in them the dandelion uses its body to perform a final gesture that encompasses and summarizes the universal in an almost crystalline display.
As for its use in biodynamic preparations, the relationship between potassium and silica in dandelion was meant by Steiner to be especially significant. I have looked for information on the silica content of dandelion. Though several chemical studies show that the plant is very rich in potassium, I have not found it possible to gain data from the scientific literature on its silica content. This is because chemists in the past have not consider silica to be important and therefore have not measured it. Nevertheless, this bias against silica has been overturned by modern research. Silicic acid is recognized now as a very important, and in some cases, limiting nutrient that can protect plants from insects, diseases, stress, increase yields, and increase tissue strength. Furthermore, our soils are becoming depleted in silicic acid and other trace elements, as Steiner had warned in the Agriculture Course. This depletion affects crops differently. Some crops, such as rice, are more responsive to silicic acid fertilization than others. But undoubtedly, the general depletion needs to be remedied, and the dandelion preparation is proposed as a remedy in the fifth lecture:
We can readily find this in a plant. It is Taraxacum, the dandelion. Here again, just to have it growing on our farm is already beneficial. The innocent, yellow dandelion is a tremendous asset because it mediates between the fine homeopathic distribution of silicic acid in the cosmos, and the silicic aid that is actually used over the whole region. The dandelion is really a kind of messenger from heaven. But if we need this plant and want to make it effective in the manure, we have to utilize it in the right way. It must be exposed, of course to the Earth’s influence, to the Earth’s winter influence, but in order to acquire the surrounding force, we must also treat it just as we have the others.Silicic acid is needed to draw in the cosmic factor, and a thorough interaction must come about between the silicic acid in the plant and the potassium (not the calcium). We have to enliven the soil through manuring so that it can facilitate this interaction. We need to look for a plant whose own potassium-silicic acid relationship will enable it to impart this power to the manure, when again it is added to the manure in a kind of homeopathic dosage.
Collect the yellow flowers of the dandelion and let them wilt a little. Then pack them together and sew them up in a bovine mesentery, and put them too in the Earth through the winter. When these balls are dug up in the spring, they will in fact be thoroughly saturated with cosmic influence, and can be stored until needed. This material can be added to the manure in the same way as before, and it will give the soil the ability to attract just as much silicic acid from the atmosphere and from the cosmos as is needed by the plants. In this way the plant will become sensitive to everything at work in their environment and then be able themselves to draw in whatever else they need.
Even plants, in order to grow properly, need to have a certain ability to sense and perceive. In the same way that I can pass by a dull and insensitive person without being noticed, so can everything within and above the soil pass by a dull and insensitive plant. What it does not perceive, it cannot put to use for its own growth. But if a plant is very delicately permeated and enlivened by silicic acid, it becomes sensitive to everything and can attract what it needs. However, it is very easy to weaken plants so they can only take advantage of what is present in their immediate environment, which is not good, of course. But if you treat the soil as I have described, the plants will be able to draw in what they need from a very wide area.
Why is a mesentery used? First, it is important to understand what the mesentery is. In discussion with farmers during the Agriculture Course, Steiner confirmed that what he meant by mesentery is the peritoneum. The peritoneum is a very large membrane that surrounds the viscera in the abdominal wall and also supports them. The impression is of a complex sheet within which the abdominal organs are connected and interwoven. There are different parts to it, but it is a single contiguous organ. The three parts are: 1) the parietal peritoneum which lines the abdominal wall; 2) the mesentery which is derived from a fold of the peritoneum and attaches the stomach, pancreas, spleen and small intestine to the back wall of the abdomen; and 3) The omentum which is also a fold of the peritoneum and which attaches the stomach to the other abdominal organs. The omentum is constructed of two or four layers of peritoneam and it passes between, or hangs down from the stomach, connecting it with the liver, spleen, and colon. The greater omenta or ‘net’ is mostly used for making the dandelion preparation, The greater omentum hangs down from the greater curvature of the stomach onto the transverse colon, and loops upon the intestines forming a large apron, suited for making balls with dandelions inside.
The function of this peritoneum organ is to surround, permeate, and interconnect the viscera, and to supply them with blood vessels, lymphatic systems and nerves. The mesentery also suspends the greater part of the intestines so they are not directly attached to the body wall. Thus because of the peritoneum the intestines get partially emancipated from the physics of body movement and the effects of gravity. This greatly aids digestive function.
The overall motif of the peritoneum is that it is a multipurpose service organ that interweaves the viscera, enabling function, sensing, communication, and nutrient supply functions for the vascular and digestive systems. The peritoneum literally holds the whole digestive package together for optimal viscera performance.
If we compare these motifs of activity it makes sense that the dandelion is wrapped in the peritoneum. The medical healing effects and uplifting, sphere-forming growth gestures of the dandelion, plus the ecological and sensory characteristics mentioned by Steiner, provide a good match to the work accomplished by the peritoneum. Parallel signatures include regulation and communication functions that dive deeply into fostering healthy metabolism, communication and circulation, and lifting up, quickening, and shaping activities into a harmonious whole.
How do the effects of cow pat pit differ from horn manure preparation 500?
Let’s first consider what horn manure is and what the cow pat pit is, how they are treated and what they are intended to do. The horn manure consists of cow manure that has spent the winter in a good topsoil inside a cow horn. The manure achieves a special consistency. It is then stirred for an hour in warm water using reciprocal spirals to disperse the manure before it is sprayed out on the soil and on plants. The intention is to produce a substance that has very intense cow manure like effect.
Why a cow and why a cow horn? Ruminants in general tend to form horns of one kind or another, whether they are boney horns such as those found in the sensitive deer, or horn made from a kind of thickened skin or fingernail like substance such as the horns found in cows, goats, and sheep. From an evolutionary standpoint, there is a parallel between the formation of horns and the formation of the rumen. Animals that make a rumen tend to make horns. In the fourth lecture Steiner states:
A cow has horns in order to send the formative astral-etheric forces back into its digestive system, so that much work can be accomplished there by means of these radiations from the horns and hoofs.Let us try to answer this question of why cows have horns. Remember that I said that something living need not have forces that only stream outward, it can also have forces that stream in both directions. If that were all there was to it, we would have a rather irregular lumpy creature. A cow would look very peculiar. Its limbs would stay tiny, the way they are in the earliest embryonic stages. It would simply look grotesque. But that’s not how a cow is put together; a cow has horns and also hoofs. What happens at the places where the horns and hoofs grow At these places the streams are especially strongly turned back inward, and the outside is particularly strongly shut off. All outward communication, such as can occur through skin or hair, is completely ruled out. In this way the development of the horns and hoofs is connected to the form and development of the animal as a whole…
Why a cow and not a goat or sheep? The cow differs from the goat and sheep due to its more inwardly turned disposition and a greater focus on the development of its digestive tract. It has evolved a huge rumen which fills the majority of the abdominal cavity with four stomachs which break down the forage with the help of bacterial fermentation. A very long intestinal tract, accompanied by the functions of the peritoneum, vascular, and lymphatic systems, liver and gallbladder, enables the effective conversion of grass and hay into milk and meat.
Nature achieves a pinnacle of digestive efficiency in the cow. The sheep and goat are more nervous creatures and their manure is not a well transformed as is the cow’s manure.
Why stirring for an hour? Of course it is for the purpose of dispersal of the forces in the manure. For our purposes it should be noted that the ascending large intestine of a cow snakes centrifugally in a spiral into a center. Thereafter it reverses itself and goes the other direction; it snakes centripetally before reaching the descending colon and the anus. We mimic this movement of the manure in the large intestine when we stir the horn manure in water with clockwise and counterclockwise spirals to disperse the horn manure into water.
Now let’s consider the logic and function of the cow pat pit (CPP). This preparation is a practical way to intensify and extend the effects of the herbal preparations around the farm. These preparations are made from small, covered cow manure piles which are inoculated with relatively large quantities of biodynamic herbal preparations and allowed to compost. The production and use of CPP was not introduced by Rudolf Steiner, but rather by biodynamic farmer M.K. Schwartz (birch pit preparation), and then by other researchers and practitioners.
Does the CPP have a different effect than horn manure? Yes, it can, but the effects of CPP vary according to the way it is made. There are different kinds of CPP made with different additions to the manure. Some of these are used both as compost starter inoculants and also as field sprays. These varieties of CPP in common use include
• the Pfeiffer starter/field spray (developed by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer) which includes inoculation with useful bacteria;
• the Barrel Compost (developed by Maria Thun), which includes eggshells and basalt admixtures;
• Super-500 (developed by Australian farmers) which consists in horn manure treated with herbal preparations,
• and the nettle-based CPP developed by Herbert Koepf and myself which includes mixing 1% of chopped stinging nettle together with the cow manure before adding herbal preparations.
We compared these different kinds of CPP in a replicated research trial that took place over five years. We included treatments with conventional and organic farming systems and biodynamic with horn manure but with or without those different cow pat pit sprays. The strongest positive effects were found with the nettle CPP. That CPP treatment increased grain yields, root growth of maize, root health, and young particulate organic matter in the soil beyond all the other treatments. Five years of trials with maize showed average yields of 6.71, 6.77, and 7.15 t/ha of grain for the organic, biodynamic without CPP, and biodynamic with nettle CPP treatments. Four years of trials with winter wheat showed that on average the biodynamic with nettle CPP treatment had 10% more yield and greater root growth than the organic and the results were statistically significant. The nettle CPP treatment had 6% more grain yield and greater root growth than the biodynamic without CPP. The nettle CPP treatment also caused positive yield compensatory effects for maize and wheat under stress condition years. Results were higher gross financial returns than for organic grain. The greater root production and root health stimulated by preparations is linked to greater growth, enhanced stress resistance, higher yields, increased soil quality and more young organic matter carbon in soils.
Analogous forces in different directions? Let us summarize our discussion of the mode of action of the preparations. Steiner intended with the use of the herbal preparations. According to Steiner, the preparations are all about sucking in, enlivening, stimulating, sensitizing, and directing. These are all astral functions which in the living soil should have to do with nitrogen as well as other substances. He stated that he wanted to strengthen the ability of the soil to suck in cosmic forces carried by trace elements from cosmic dust, and thereby stimulate the plant to form its proteinaceous body in healthy ways. The herbal preparations were meant to enliven organic manures and soils, to sensitize them, to avoid undue losses of nitrogen, and to stimulate nutrient uptake. The herbs were also meant to provide force patterns that would help the plant form itself. By means of these preparations, living nitrogen was to be regulated in the manure, formed in soils, and should help the plant to correctly form its body.
The intent of using the animal organs is to lift the plant parts to the astral level. Nikolaus Remer describes in his book on Laws of Life, that making the preparations led to a strong increase in the nitrogen content of the plant parts. Steiner spoke of his intent for the preparations being to penetrate the soil by stimulating a living nitrogen, which he mentions is the carrier of the astral.
In preceding thoughts we have indicated that the organs needed for the preparations are analogous to each other, i.e., yarrow is like the process between the kidney and the bladder, chamomile is like the wall of the intestines. From this perspective, the plants and their corresponding organs belong together, they are similar. However, if we consider what Rudolf Steiner said about those organs in the lecture cycle Spiritual Science and Medicine the reality appears more complex. It seems probable that the decomposition processes in the preparations might have to do with a kind of canceling out effect achieved by matching the herbs with organs that dealt with parallel processes, but in opposite directions. It seems probable that when we make the preparations we create zero points where forces may be lifted to higher levels Let us re-consider the preparations in light of this insight:
In Spiritual Science and Medicine, Steiner states that the forces that form plant protein and animal protein are different. In fact, they oppose each other. “The functions of animal protein are impaired or abolished by those of vegetable protein.”
According to the Medical course the Kidney-Bladder system is concerned with dissolving carbon from the body and removing salts. However, in the agriculture course, yarrow is is to be used in the preparation as an active model of how to form a body correctly by combining sulfur, potassium, and protein.
In the medical course the small intestine is described as being active in destroying, and isolating substances, and de-vitalizing the flora and fauna that live in the gut. However, in the agriculture course chamomile should help us to combine substances in the right way and to enliven manure and soils.
Though the skull and the formation of oak bark both have to do with a common astralizing/devitalization process, the Medical course describes that the saline process in the head is formed under the formative forces of silica representing tin and lead, while Agriculture course describes that the saline process in the bark is formed with lime. Silica and lime represent polar opposite forces.
The mesentery and the dandelion may share themes of transmutation and transformation of substance with living forces, but they have to do with polar opposite gestures. The mesentery harbors the most inner, private nutrition streams. Foodstuffs are led across the walls of the intestine in a devitalized, destroyed state but then they are created anew in an enlivened form and led through the venous and lymph systems of the mesentery back into the blood. According to the Agriculture Course, the dandelion on the other hand is all about mediating cosmic silica forces over large regions of space and land. In its way of growing, its curvy, rounded, jagged leaf forms, its curious rounded crown and spherical flower buds, its hollow flower stalks, and spherical seed heads it shows its strong relationship to the surrounding cosmos. It is ‘a messenger of heaven’ while the mesentery is the guardian of inside earthly nutrition.
And in the fourth lecture of the agriculture course, we learn that bovine horns have the purpose of holding the forces radiating from the digestive system in check.
On several different levels we have the theme of bringing together analogous but opposing forces that tend to resist each other or might cancel each other out. It seems probable that this is the principle that is at work underlying the preparations. Of course, one can ask, how else could one produce forces of active balance in specific directions other than by bringing together opposing forces in analogous processes?
Summary: Learning to understand biodynamics and the preparations is a long-term adventure. It is rich in meaning because it looks deeply into reality with an empathic approach. But it takes courage to take a step beyond the status quo into a more spiritual relationship with agriculture. Biodynamic farming challenges each of us to gain experiences and to shape our human capacities to learn and accomplish things beyond what any machine could accomplish.
First, the logic of the preparations was described. Then we built bridges to answer your specific questions. We considered empathic experiences with the living soil through the year. Results from the empathic approach also helped to understand why we bury the preparations in the fall. Then we addressed the general effect of the sheaths on the quality of preparations. We examined the herbs and their related organs and why they belong together. We started with yarrow, but then researched chamomile, oak bark, and dandelion.
Finally we focused on horn manure and CPP, why they can be expected to have fundamentally complimentary effects. We did not investigate the nettle and valerian, which do not need to be wrapped in animal organs. But the nettle was mentioned in order to make a more effective CPP.
My hope is that these thoughts will help you and the readers of your book to better understand biodynamics and help them to build a bridge to doing it and having the best results. I recognize that Korea has a long and rich agricultural tradition and that tradition has its roots in a profound approach to life. I hope these remarks will help the biodynamic approach and methods to take root and bear fruit in Korea in a deeper way, and look forward to learning more about how biodynamics will look, Korean-style.
In preparing these thoughts for you I acknowledge the help of Malcolm Gardner, who is a good resource in the USA on the Agriculture Course. I have attached some notes below on empathic research on soils, and more detail on research with the biodynamic preparations, for those who may be interested in those aspects of the work.
Notes:
Methods for doing emphatic research on the life of the soil: How should we as modern human beings explore life quality experiences so that they may serve to guide our farming work?
Let us start with the life in the soil. A primal foundation of agriculture is that people take soil in their hands, look at its form, crumble it, smell it, and have an intimate experience of its life. Most farmers have some kind of sense for whether a soil is alive or dead or something in between. In fact, it is the nature of soil to fluctuate between more alive and deader states during the seasons in consonance with the crops and the life of the Earth. We can discover life quality experiences that are anchored in specific soils. Such experiences are spontaneous but often not discussed because it is difficult to find the right words or social settings to express them. In English some expressions for these experiences that I have heard include:
alive, vital, fertile, fecund, healthy, virgin, womb-like, fresh, dynamic, crawling with life.
Or conversely, burned-out, dead or dying, exhausted, worn out, dirt, sick, compacted, tired.
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As soils become enlivened or die their form can be observed shifting back and forth from deader, compact, horizontal, heavy material that is subject to gravity to more porous, aggregated, crumbly and lighter, and living crumbs that are subject to life activity, levity and air.
A world of smells and tastes is also associated with soil quality. Smells are harder to describe other than as analogies, often accompanied by sympathetic or unsympathetic feelings. For example, a soil in the spring may have a fruit like smell or it may stink like sewage.
In the United States we have formed a small biodynamic research group around this ‘soil-to-soul’ research. Members of our group are spread out across the northern part of the North American continent from New York State to Nebraska. Once each month participants should carefully extract two blocks of soil (20 x 20 x 20 cm) from a chosen garden or field, break off and discard the shovel-disturbed edges, and describe what they experience in the remaining soil. It is important that we accurately describe the physical condition of the soil, its smells, structure. But we should also meditate on what the soil reveals about its life quality, allow that quality to resound in their souls, and then find fitting words to describe the spontaneous imaginations that pop up in us that belong to that soil.
All these observations should take place in a soil that is growing a crop, in fact. In fact, we recommend following the course of the soils’ life under a heavy feeding cereal or vegetable crop. Critical to the work is that the experiences of the living Earth are derived solely from genuine attention to the soil, and not from preconceived ideas. Photographs are taken of the soil to record its physical structure, but descriptions of the inner life of the soil are written down. It is not necessary to demand that the inner experiences of soil life must correspond directly to the physical condition of the soil. Once monthly, the group meets to discuss our often surprising findings and to show pictures of their soils and how they have changed from month to month.
Re: Various authors on the MO of preps
Goldstein continued
Research on preparations:
The effects of the sheaths on the making of preparations: My first study of this question took place with preparation 500 in the fall/winter/spring of 1976/1977 at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, in cooperation with gardener Manfred Stauffer. I filled glass bottles and plastic tubes with cow manure, with and without stoppers and they were buried in the topsoil alongside cow horns filled with the same cow manure. In the spring we unburied the tubes and horns and found that the manure in the horns had transformed into dark brown and brown-colored, mild-smelling of cow manure, which we judged as being good quality preparation 500. However, the manure in the glass or plastic tubes had not transformed in a desirable way. It was green-brown tinged with yellow and had a manure stench that was raw and unpleasant. The smell could hardly be contained after the manure was released from the vessels.
My second study took place the following year at Emerson College in Forest Row, England, in conjunction with Herbert Koepf and the students of the Agriculture Course held there. We made linen sheaths for yarrow and chamomile preparations and filled those herbs into their linen packages. In the fall they were buried in the soil. The yarrow in linen was buried next to yarrow in a stag’s bladder. The chamomile in linen was buried next to chamomile in a cow’s intestine.
In the spring we unburied the preparations. The yarrow that had been fermented inside a stag’s bladder was brown and fairly decomposed. It had a slight smell of yarrow. The yarrow from the linen casing was reddish and upon release from the sheath it had a very strong smell similar to peppermint tea. The smell was very strong and permeated the near environment affecting all the participants in the environment.
The chamomile extracted from the intestines was fairly well decomposed and brownish. It had the faint odor of chamomile tea. If I recall correctly the chamomile from the linen sheath was yellower, and in any case not as dark brown as the normal preparation. It had a very disagreeable smell usually associated with manure that has gone through putrification in sewage.
Let us for a moment consider the results of the decomposition that takes place inside the sheaths. This takes place under conditions that are limited in oxygen. Striking is that though the material appears somewhat humified, relatively little of it has disappeared. There are only slight smells, typical for the plant or for manure. This shows that the dispersal of nitrogenous or sulfurous substances is suppressed.
Such a decomposition is not normally found outside of living bodies. If such plant bodies or manure were spread on the soil or in compost and allowed to decompose, the majority of their matter would quickly disappears into the air as carbon dioxide. Some humified substances would result as a residue of this decomposition but within a few months there would have been little material left. If, in contrast, those materials had undergone a normal anaerobic decomposition in a pit or in a jar, the manure or plant parts would have been pickled. Though the resulting material might have slowly darkened, it would not form lasting humus. If such anaerobically prepared manure had been spread out on the soil it would quickly release much of its substance and smells into the air including its nitrogen.
Methods for testing the quality of biodynamic preparations: From 1977 to 1979 I researched the effects of biodynamic preparations on wheat seedlings together with Herbert Koepf. The seedlings were grown in nutrient solutions with and without different nutrients to see how the preparations might compensate for the lack of minerals. In general, concentrated nutrient solutions with lots of nitrogen and calcium caused short, stumpy roots and large leaf growth and thus a high leaf to root length ratio. If trace elements (iron, copper, zinc, etc) were added to the solution the roots grew longer and the ratio balanced out towards one to one. If small amounts of valerian juice were added to a solution that was rich in other nutrients without trace elements, the valerian juice induced long, even root growth. The oak bark preparation, in very small quantities, induced extremely short roots that even appeared to look like oak branches, short, stumpy, and twisty. This same effect could be induced by adding a lot of calcium containing fertilizer. Adding small quantities of the chamomile preparation or a CPP with all the herbal preparations caused the roots to grow more. This induced greater balance in the leaf to root ratio.
These results show that the oak bark preparation has a direct calcium effect on growth while the chamomile preparation has a regulatory effect.
Later, in the 1990’s we discovered that adding nettle to the CPP accentuated both the balancing effect and the growth of both leaves and roots for the wheat seedlings. This led to the development of a new nettle CPP preparation. Field research with that preparation is described below.
Research on different kinds of cow-pat pit. We compared the addition of different kinds of CPP in the context of a six year crop rotation for organic and biodynamic treatments, and a two year rotation for conventional farming. The biodynamic parcels were split into treatments with different CPP preparations. All biodynamic treatments received preparations 500 and 501. The results were summarized in a research paper that can be found on the internet authored by myself, Chris Koopmans and Herbert Koepf.
Aside from the nettle CPP treatment, which produced the highest yields, the other compound preparations rarely showed statistically significant effects on grain yields relative to the organic or biodynamic without CPP. From 1995 to 1998, the nettle CPP treatment had the highest yields of wheat grain. Average yields were 10% lower for the organic, 6% lower for the biodynamic without CPP, 5% lower for barrel compost, 1% lower for prepared 500, and 2% lower for the Pfeiffer preparations.
From 1994 to 1998, nettle CPP had the highest maize grain yields. Yields were 7% lower for the organic, 6% lower for the biodynamic without CPP, 7% lower both for the barrel compost and the prepared 500 and 4% lower for the biodynamic with Pfeiffer preparations.
The difference in wheat yields ranged from 337 to 607 kg /ha more wheat grain for the biodynamic nettle CPP system than for the organic system.. In three years the differences were significant at p = 5%. In 1998 the biodynamic without CPP also significantly out-yielded the organic.
The largest positive effects of the nettle CPP treatments relative to the organic treatments occurred in those years where the overall yields were naturally low. In fact, there was a significant negative relationship between the yield of the organic treatment and the response to the biodynamic treatment. This suggests that the biodynamic treatment as a whole is having a yield balancing effect.
We suspect that balancing effect in difficult years has to do with greater root growth induced by the nettle CPP. Relative to the organic treatment the biodynamic and biodynamic + nettle CPP treatments respectively increased maize root length 10% and 10% in 1998, but 23% and 37% in 1999. The biodynamic and biodynamic + nettle CPP, respectively, increased maize root weight 12% and 33% in 1998, but 28% and 39%in 1999.
The increases in roots should positively affect organic matter accumulation in the soil and carbon deposition. In fact, the content of young (particulate) organic matter in the soil for the conventional, organic, and biodynamic nettle CPP treatments were 4,213, 4,289, and 4,664 kg C/ha, respectively. The difference in quantities between the biodynamic nettle CPP treatment and conventional was 11%; the difference between the nettle CPP and the organic was 9%. Both differences were significant at p = 5%.
Photographs of soil through the seasons. - only available on pdf
A sequence of soil photographs from the topsoil of the Goldstein garden farm, which has been under long-term biodynamic management:
Photo 1. April 2021. Biodynamic management. Topsoil before planting maize.
Photo 2. July 6th, 2021
August 7th, 2021.
November 6th, 2021.
December 2nd, 2021.
Research on preparations:
The effects of the sheaths on the making of preparations: My first study of this question took place with preparation 500 in the fall/winter/spring of 1976/1977 at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, in cooperation with gardener Manfred Stauffer. I filled glass bottles and plastic tubes with cow manure, with and without stoppers and they were buried in the topsoil alongside cow horns filled with the same cow manure. In the spring we unburied the tubes and horns and found that the manure in the horns had transformed into dark brown and brown-colored, mild-smelling of cow manure, which we judged as being good quality preparation 500. However, the manure in the glass or plastic tubes had not transformed in a desirable way. It was green-brown tinged with yellow and had a manure stench that was raw and unpleasant. The smell could hardly be contained after the manure was released from the vessels.
My second study took place the following year at Emerson College in Forest Row, England, in conjunction with Herbert Koepf and the students of the Agriculture Course held there. We made linen sheaths for yarrow and chamomile preparations and filled those herbs into their linen packages. In the fall they were buried in the soil. The yarrow in linen was buried next to yarrow in a stag’s bladder. The chamomile in linen was buried next to chamomile in a cow’s intestine.
In the spring we unburied the preparations. The yarrow that had been fermented inside a stag’s bladder was brown and fairly decomposed. It had a slight smell of yarrow. The yarrow from the linen casing was reddish and upon release from the sheath it had a very strong smell similar to peppermint tea. The smell was very strong and permeated the near environment affecting all the participants in the environment.
The chamomile extracted from the intestines was fairly well decomposed and brownish. It had the faint odor of chamomile tea. If I recall correctly the chamomile from the linen sheath was yellower, and in any case not as dark brown as the normal preparation. It had a very disagreeable smell usually associated with manure that has gone through putrification in sewage.
Let us for a moment consider the results of the decomposition that takes place inside the sheaths. This takes place under conditions that are limited in oxygen. Striking is that though the material appears somewhat humified, relatively little of it has disappeared. There are only slight smells, typical for the plant or for manure. This shows that the dispersal of nitrogenous or sulfurous substances is suppressed.
Such a decomposition is not normally found outside of living bodies. If such plant bodies or manure were spread on the soil or in compost and allowed to decompose, the majority of their matter would quickly disappears into the air as carbon dioxide. Some humified substances would result as a residue of this decomposition but within a few months there would have been little material left. If, in contrast, those materials had undergone a normal anaerobic decomposition in a pit or in a jar, the manure or plant parts would have been pickled. Though the resulting material might have slowly darkened, it would not form lasting humus. If such anaerobically prepared manure had been spread out on the soil it would quickly release much of its substance and smells into the air including its nitrogen.
Methods for testing the quality of biodynamic preparations: From 1977 to 1979 I researched the effects of biodynamic preparations on wheat seedlings together with Herbert Koepf. The seedlings were grown in nutrient solutions with and without different nutrients to see how the preparations might compensate for the lack of minerals. In general, concentrated nutrient solutions with lots of nitrogen and calcium caused short, stumpy roots and large leaf growth and thus a high leaf to root length ratio. If trace elements (iron, copper, zinc, etc) were added to the solution the roots grew longer and the ratio balanced out towards one to one. If small amounts of valerian juice were added to a solution that was rich in other nutrients without trace elements, the valerian juice induced long, even root growth. The oak bark preparation, in very small quantities, induced extremely short roots that even appeared to look like oak branches, short, stumpy, and twisty. This same effect could be induced by adding a lot of calcium containing fertilizer. Adding small quantities of the chamomile preparation or a CPP with all the herbal preparations caused the roots to grow more. This induced greater balance in the leaf to root ratio.
These results show that the oak bark preparation has a direct calcium effect on growth while the chamomile preparation has a regulatory effect.
Later, in the 1990’s we discovered that adding nettle to the CPP accentuated both the balancing effect and the growth of both leaves and roots for the wheat seedlings. This led to the development of a new nettle CPP preparation. Field research with that preparation is described below.
Research on different kinds of cow-pat pit. We compared the addition of different kinds of CPP in the context of a six year crop rotation for organic and biodynamic treatments, and a two year rotation for conventional farming. The biodynamic parcels were split into treatments with different CPP preparations. All biodynamic treatments received preparations 500 and 501. The results were summarized in a research paper that can be found on the internet authored by myself, Chris Koopmans and Herbert Koepf.
Aside from the nettle CPP treatment, which produced the highest yields, the other compound preparations rarely showed statistically significant effects on grain yields relative to the organic or biodynamic without CPP. From 1995 to 1998, the nettle CPP treatment had the highest yields of wheat grain. Average yields were 10% lower for the organic, 6% lower for the biodynamic without CPP, 5% lower for barrel compost, 1% lower for prepared 500, and 2% lower for the Pfeiffer preparations.
From 1994 to 1998, nettle CPP had the highest maize grain yields. Yields were 7% lower for the organic, 6% lower for the biodynamic without CPP, 7% lower both for the barrel compost and the prepared 500 and 4% lower for the biodynamic with Pfeiffer preparations.
The difference in wheat yields ranged from 337 to 607 kg /ha more wheat grain for the biodynamic nettle CPP system than for the organic system.. In three years the differences were significant at p = 5%. In 1998 the biodynamic without CPP also significantly out-yielded the organic.
The largest positive effects of the nettle CPP treatments relative to the organic treatments occurred in those years where the overall yields were naturally low. In fact, there was a significant negative relationship between the yield of the organic treatment and the response to the biodynamic treatment. This suggests that the biodynamic treatment as a whole is having a yield balancing effect.
We suspect that balancing effect in difficult years has to do with greater root growth induced by the nettle CPP. Relative to the organic treatment the biodynamic and biodynamic + nettle CPP treatments respectively increased maize root length 10% and 10% in 1998, but 23% and 37% in 1999. The biodynamic and biodynamic + nettle CPP, respectively, increased maize root weight 12% and 33% in 1998, but 28% and 39%in 1999.
The increases in roots should positively affect organic matter accumulation in the soil and carbon deposition. In fact, the content of young (particulate) organic matter in the soil for the conventional, organic, and biodynamic nettle CPP treatments were 4,213, 4,289, and 4,664 kg C/ha, respectively. The difference in quantities between the biodynamic nettle CPP treatment and conventional was 11%; the difference between the nettle CPP and the organic was 9%. Both differences were significant at p = 5%.
Photographs of soil through the seasons. - only available on pdf
A sequence of soil photographs from the topsoil of the Goldstein garden farm, which has been under long-term biodynamic management:
Photo 1. April 2021. Biodynamic management. Topsoil before planting maize.
Photo 2. July 6th, 2021
August 7th, 2021.
November 6th, 2021.
December 2nd, 2021.
Re: Various authors on the MO of preps
Hugh Lovel again
How BD Works
Applying the BD preps establishes patterns that organize the energies and substances in nature. The patterns of light and warmth associated with silica bring about photosynthesis, blossoming, fruiting and ripening in the atmosphere where the elements of air and fire are organized in plants. The patterns of tone and life associated with lime bring about digestion and nourishment in the soil where the elements of water and earth are organized by the soil food web. In between these are the ebb and flow of sap in plants that brings sugars down from above to the roots and brings nutrients back up from the soil.
The biodynamic practice of burying cow horns with quartz powder, cow manure and bentonite in them focuses the cosmic pattern energies on the materials in the horns and the material within the horn cavity resonates (inaudibly) like a bell ringing. Ever hold a conch shell to your ear and hear the roar within? The cow horn does something similar though it resonates to the cosmos rather than just to the sea.
This imparts a tremendous pattern force to the horn preparations. Then when these preparations are stirred and sprayed the droplets act as seeds to establish resonant patterns that, in the case of horn silica enhance photosynthesis and ripening, in the case of horn manure enhance digestion and nourishment, and in the case of horn clay enhance the ebb and flow of sap within the plant.
How BD Works
Applying the BD preps establishes patterns that organize the energies and substances in nature. The patterns of light and warmth associated with silica bring about photosynthesis, blossoming, fruiting and ripening in the atmosphere where the elements of air and fire are organized in plants. The patterns of tone and life associated with lime bring about digestion and nourishment in the soil where the elements of water and earth are organized by the soil food web. In between these are the ebb and flow of sap in plants that brings sugars down from above to the roots and brings nutrients back up from the soil.
The biodynamic practice of burying cow horns with quartz powder, cow manure and bentonite in them focuses the cosmic pattern energies on the materials in the horns and the material within the horn cavity resonates (inaudibly) like a bell ringing. Ever hold a conch shell to your ear and hear the roar within? The cow horn does something similar though it resonates to the cosmos rather than just to the sea.
This imparts a tremendous pattern force to the horn preparations. Then when these preparations are stirred and sprayed the droplets act as seeds to establish resonant patterns that, in the case of horn silica enhance photosynthesis and ripening, in the case of horn manure enhance digestion and nourishment, and in the case of horn clay enhance the ebb and flow of sap within the plant.