Rudolf Steiner on potentisation
Posted: 28 May 2011, 20:07
we can refer to Steiner's Medical lectures to get a clearer picture of what happens when we continue potentizing substances to ever higher and higher potencies. Steiner says:
...."we can homeopathise, we can dilute the aggregate states of the substances in question. This is what happens if one dilutes in the way of Homeopathic doses. Here something occours which does not receive due attention in the natural science of today, for mankind has a strong tendency to abstractions. They say, for example, that from a source of light - for example, the sun - the light radiates in all directions, and finally disappears into infinity. But this is not true. No such form of activity vanishes into infinite space, but it extends within a certain limited orb and then rebounds elastically, returning to its source, although the quality of this return is often different from its centrifugal quality. In nature there are only rhythmical processes, there are none which continue into infinity. They revert rhythmically upon themselves. That is not only the case in quantitative dispersion, but also in qualitative. If you subdivide any substance, it has at first certain distinctive qualities. These qualities do not decrease and diminish ad infinitum; at a certain point they are reversed and become their opposites. And this intrinsic rhythm is also the foundation of the contrast between the upper and the lower organisation ...
Spiritual Science and Medicine', Rudolf Steiner, Lecture 2, 1975 ed. Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. - 20 lectures March-April 1920.. p. 35,36.
"Increase potency and you reach a zero point; beyond that opposite effects appear. But this is not all; the further path on the negative side leads to another zero point for these opposite effects. Passing the second zero, you will come to a higher form of efficiency tending in the same direction as the first sequence, but of quite a different nature. It would be valuable and appropriate to plot out the different effect of potencies by means of curves. But it would be necessary to construct these curves in a special manner; first to delineate a curve and then, on arriving at the point where certain lower potencies cease to work and are superseded by the working of higher potencies, to turn sharply at right angles and continue the curve into space ..."
Spiritual Science and Medicine', Rudolf Steiner, Lecture 11, 1975 ed. Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. - 20 lectures March-April 1920.. p. 146.
"I have made many investigations into what actually happens in the attempt to prepare homeopathic remedies; including for our present purposes, and as corroborated by Dr. R., the Ritter Method (although Fräulein Ritter herself will not admit this). What does in fact occur, when homeopathic preparations are made? For it is the preparation which matters. Take, for instance, silicic acid, and treat it so as to raise its potency to a very high degree. What is it that you do? You work towards a certain point; and in nature everything is based on rhythmic processes. You work towards a certain zero point, through a scale in which the specific attributes of the substance, i.e., those which appear first of all, are revealed. Just as the spendthrift, who has a fortune and wastes it recklessly until he passes the zero point, comes to a condition in which there is no more positive fortune, but a negative factor, namely debts, so the essential qualities of external substances can be treated. We reach a zero point, where the effects of the substance in ponderable amounts are no longer perceptible. What if we proceed farther? The results do not simply vanish into nothingness; but the opposite effects are produced and are introduced into the surrounding medium. I have always had the experience of perceiving the opposite effect to what is normal to the substances in question, whatever medium was used to receive the minutely subdivided doses of the substance. This medium adopts a new configuration; just as one who changes from the status of owner to that of debtor, becomes a different factor in social life, so a substance changes to a state opposite to the normal, and imparts this condition, which was formerly hidden inside it to its environment. If a substance during its subdivision displays certain characteristics, it changes at a certain point in this subdivisional process, acquiring another character; it becomes able to permeate its environment with the former characteristics, and to activate the medium in which it is treated in the same direction.
This activating process may take various forms. The “opposite reaction” above mentioned may be directly provoked. But it may also happen that this opposite reaction may take the form of causing the substance affected to become fluorescent or phosphorescent, either later on or under exposure to light. The reaction provoked has thus taken the form of irradiation into the environment. These facts must be given due weight. There is no question here of a plunge into mysticism; it is a question of observing nature in its real activities, so as to enter into its rhythmic course even where we study the qualities of the substances. I might almost call this study a leit motiv, a main theme in the search for the effects of substances. Increase potency and you will reach a zero point; beyond that point opposite effects appear. But this is not all; the further path on the negative side leads to another zero point for these opposite effects. Passing the second zero, you will come to a higher form of efficiency tending in the same direction as the first sequence, but of quite a different nature. It would be valuable and appropriate to plot out the different effect of potencies by means of curves. But it would be necessary to construct these curves in a special manner; first to delineate a curve and then, on arriving at the point where certain lower potencies cease to work and are superseded by the working of higher potencies, to turn sharply at right-angles and continue the curve into space. We shall deal further with these subjects in this course; they are interwoven with the whole kinship of man to extra-human nature."
Steiner's: Spiritual Science and Medicine, 3.31.1920
"When he was asked about the use of higher potencies, Rudolf Steiner indicated that the 30th potency, D30, represented a certain boundary beyond which a physician would be entering an area to explore which human insight was as yet too limited. "
Theodor Schwenk's "The Basis of Potentization Research"
...."we can homeopathise, we can dilute the aggregate states of the substances in question. This is what happens if one dilutes in the way of Homeopathic doses. Here something occours which does not receive due attention in the natural science of today, for mankind has a strong tendency to abstractions. They say, for example, that from a source of light - for example, the sun - the light radiates in all directions, and finally disappears into infinity. But this is not true. No such form of activity vanishes into infinite space, but it extends within a certain limited orb and then rebounds elastically, returning to its source, although the quality of this return is often different from its centrifugal quality. In nature there are only rhythmical processes, there are none which continue into infinity. They revert rhythmically upon themselves. That is not only the case in quantitative dispersion, but also in qualitative. If you subdivide any substance, it has at first certain distinctive qualities. These qualities do not decrease and diminish ad infinitum; at a certain point they are reversed and become their opposites. And this intrinsic rhythm is also the foundation of the contrast between the upper and the lower organisation ...
Spiritual Science and Medicine', Rudolf Steiner, Lecture 2, 1975 ed. Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. - 20 lectures March-April 1920.. p. 35,36.
"Increase potency and you reach a zero point; beyond that opposite effects appear. But this is not all; the further path on the negative side leads to another zero point for these opposite effects. Passing the second zero, you will come to a higher form of efficiency tending in the same direction as the first sequence, but of quite a different nature. It would be valuable and appropriate to plot out the different effect of potencies by means of curves. But it would be necessary to construct these curves in a special manner; first to delineate a curve and then, on arriving at the point where certain lower potencies cease to work and are superseded by the working of higher potencies, to turn sharply at right angles and continue the curve into space ..."
Spiritual Science and Medicine', Rudolf Steiner, Lecture 11, 1975 ed. Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. - 20 lectures March-April 1920.. p. 146.
"I have made many investigations into what actually happens in the attempt to prepare homeopathic remedies; including for our present purposes, and as corroborated by Dr. R., the Ritter Method (although Fräulein Ritter herself will not admit this). What does in fact occur, when homeopathic preparations are made? For it is the preparation which matters. Take, for instance, silicic acid, and treat it so as to raise its potency to a very high degree. What is it that you do? You work towards a certain point; and in nature everything is based on rhythmic processes. You work towards a certain zero point, through a scale in which the specific attributes of the substance, i.e., those which appear first of all, are revealed. Just as the spendthrift, who has a fortune and wastes it recklessly until he passes the zero point, comes to a condition in which there is no more positive fortune, but a negative factor, namely debts, so the essential qualities of external substances can be treated. We reach a zero point, where the effects of the substance in ponderable amounts are no longer perceptible. What if we proceed farther? The results do not simply vanish into nothingness; but the opposite effects are produced and are introduced into the surrounding medium. I have always had the experience of perceiving the opposite effect to what is normal to the substances in question, whatever medium was used to receive the minutely subdivided doses of the substance. This medium adopts a new configuration; just as one who changes from the status of owner to that of debtor, becomes a different factor in social life, so a substance changes to a state opposite to the normal, and imparts this condition, which was formerly hidden inside it to its environment. If a substance during its subdivision displays certain characteristics, it changes at a certain point in this subdivisional process, acquiring another character; it becomes able to permeate its environment with the former characteristics, and to activate the medium in which it is treated in the same direction.
This activating process may take various forms. The “opposite reaction” above mentioned may be directly provoked. But it may also happen that this opposite reaction may take the form of causing the substance affected to become fluorescent or phosphorescent, either later on or under exposure to light. The reaction provoked has thus taken the form of irradiation into the environment. These facts must be given due weight. There is no question here of a plunge into mysticism; it is a question of observing nature in its real activities, so as to enter into its rhythmic course even where we study the qualities of the substances. I might almost call this study a leit motiv, a main theme in the search for the effects of substances. Increase potency and you will reach a zero point; beyond that point opposite effects appear. But this is not all; the further path on the negative side leads to another zero point for these opposite effects. Passing the second zero, you will come to a higher form of efficiency tending in the same direction as the first sequence, but of quite a different nature. It would be valuable and appropriate to plot out the different effect of potencies by means of curves. But it would be necessary to construct these curves in a special manner; first to delineate a curve and then, on arriving at the point where certain lower potencies cease to work and are superseded by the working of higher potencies, to turn sharply at right-angles and continue the curve into space. We shall deal further with these subjects in this course; they are interwoven with the whole kinship of man to extra-human nature."
Steiner's: Spiritual Science and Medicine, 3.31.1920
"When he was asked about the use of higher potencies, Rudolf Steiner indicated that the 30th potency, D30, represented a certain boundary beyond which a physician would be entering an area to explore which human insight was as yet too limited. "
Theodor Schwenk's "The Basis of Potentization Research"