When the World Astral is too strong
“And the contrary trend towards animalisation may also exceed normality. When this happens, a region is created in the upper portion of the organism which should not exist. In this region the energetic organs are embedded as in an etheric sphere, and this favours the multiplication of what should not multiply in our organism, namely the minute forms of life between animal and plant. We need not trouble to inquire whence they come. We need only interest ourselves in the factors which create a favourable sphere of life for them. This favourable sphere of life should not exist for them. It should not arise as a specially enclosed sphere; it should permeate and operate throughout the whole organism. If it does so, it sustains the life of the whole organism. If it works only within a small enclosure, it becomes the appropriate medium for the presence and multiplication of little plant-animals, of microscopic forms of life, which can be detected in much — if not in all — that causes illness in man’s upper organic sphere.
R Steiner , Sp Sc and Med, lec 18, 7 April 1920