Rudolf Steiner, the
founder of Biodynamic Agriculture, lectured extensively about the subtle
properties of substances – the actual effects that different foods have on our
body, the kind of effects that modern science is unable to recognize because it
is too focused on chemical interactions—so I wanted to see what he had to say
about salt. This is from a lecture
series called “Cosmic Workings”:
“Even when salts are
consumed in tiny quantities they not only add flavour but are an extremely
important means of nourishment. We take salt with our food not only to make it
tasty but really in order that we may be able to think. The salts
that are contained in food must reach the brain if we are to be capable of
thinking. If a person is so ill that all the salt in his food is deposited in the
stomach or intestines and not carried by the blood into the brain, he becomes
stupid, dull-witted. That is the point to which attention must be called.
We must of course be quite clear that the spirit is a reality, but if
spirit is to be an active power on the earth, it must work in the earth's
substances. In Spiritual Science, therefore, we must be able to perceive how
the spirit works in the various substances. Otherwise it would be like saying:
Oh, but we are spiritua1 people and machines are entirely material; we do not
want anything material, therefore we shall not buy iron or steel but make
machines entirely out of spirit. That, of course, is sheer nonsense! Substance
is absolutely essential. The spirit working as the creative power in nature
needs substance. And if spirit is prevented from making use of substance — for
example, if salts are deposited in the stomach and intestines instead of
reaching the brain by way of the blood — then a man becomes stupid and dull.
Needless to say, things are not as simple as all that. Man cannot derive
nourishment from salt in the form in which it is present in external nature. If
you were to make a tiny perforation in the brain and let salt trickle in, it
would be quite useless. The salt must pass into the stomach and intestines and
be brought into a finer and finer state of solution — even on the tongue it
begins to dissolve. The result of what the human organism does with the
salt is that it is already in a spiritualised condition when it reaches the
brain. The process is by no means one of simply introducing salt into the brain
— it is by no means as simple as that. But if a man's condition is such that
the effects of salt cannot work in his brain, he becomes dull and stupid.”*
AND:
“The etheric body is at
work in the fats, the astral body in the carbohydrates; the “I,” or Ego, in the
salts.”
Therefore,
our sense of self and ability to think is founded upon our body’s ability to
properly assimilate salt and send it to the brain. My case was first-hand experience of this.
I
basically was feeling “dull and stupid” or, in my own thoughts “soul-less.” The fact that our “I” establishes itself
through the salts in our brain makes a lot of sense then, considering I wasn’t
able to feel myself hardly at all.
This
has profound implications when we consider the kind of salt most people eat
everyday.
Unfortunately,
most people are not sensitive or in touch with their bodies enough to notice
the damage that refined salt is doing not only to their physical body but to
their soul life as well. Although I
admit feeling frustrated with such sensitivity (I was thinking to myself: so I
can never eat out again? it hasn’t been
a problem before, or is it compounding?) at least I am able to make the
connection and hopefully help other people make it too.
