Lime

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Lime or limestone belongs to the sedimentary rocks and consists mainly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are two different forms of crystallisation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Other minerals are often added in varying proportions, such as dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2), which, in addition to calcium, contains magnesium, which is open to light and is also found in the green leaves (chlorophyll) of plants, where it enables photosynthesis; other minerals include clay minerals, quartz, gypsum and others. Lime rich in clay minerals is called marl.

The lime process and its relationship to the astral body

Now, lime in nature outside is mainly formed from animal deposits, from shells of mussels, corals, snail shells, etc., so it has a strong relationship to the nature of animals, whereas it is of comparatively little significance for plants. We find it in the exoskeleton of lower animals and - in a much more internalised form - in the inner skeleton of higher animals and humans. This can already put us on the track to which lime is particularly related - it is the astral body, the drive and desire body, by which the animals (and the human being) differ from the plants. In fact, Rudolf Steiner very aptly described lime as the " fellow full of desire" (Lit.:GA 327, p. 83).

„The lime actually has a wonderful kinship with the human world of desire.“ (Lit.:GA 327, p. 82)

Lime ties the awake astral body (and in humans also the awake I) to the physical body. A too strong lime process therefore also leads to sleeplessness.

The animal form is entirely an expression of the astral urges and desires which are strongly under the influence of Lucifer. It would have a species-typical basic character through certain prominent instinctive and desirous forces, but would still be very fleeting and fluidly changeable in its overall form. In the case of lower animals, such as sea jellyfish, this is still largely the case. The more highly developed an animal is, i.e. the more intensively it is seized by the astral body, the stronger the calcification process also becomes and the more strongly the whole animal form is solidified first by the formation of the outer skeleton and then further by the formation of the inner skeleton. With this, however, a firm limit is also drawn to the effects of Lucifer. The lime binds the animals and the human being into a more or less solid form. This solidified figure is, as Rudolf Steiner makes clear, an imagination of Ahriman. Ahriman has a strong relationship with lime. Seen in this way, each individual animal form expresses a very specific relationship between the volatilising Luciferic and the solidifying Ahrimanic forces, although the Ahrimanic forces have increasingly gained the upper hand in the course of the earth's evolution. This also applies to the human form, which remains afflicted with the original sin as long as the influence of the two adversary powers is not brought into the right balance by the individual I. The human form has to be completely and utterly unchanged. The human form must be completely transformed into the expression of the individual I. Without the Christ power, however, this individualisation of the human form is not possible, for only the Christ is strong enough to carry the I-power into the bone system in order to have a formative effect there and to overcome the over-strong influence of Ahriman. Only the thoroughly individualised human form can later be so spiritualised that it becomes the permanent possession of the I. This throws a clear light on the question of resurrection.

The lower animals still resist very strongly against the increasing ahrimanic sclerotisation caused by the astral body, which is actually an incipient process of death. They try to expel the calcareous forces and push them out of their insides to the periphery, where they harden into the outer skeleton. In this way, they retain a comparatively much greater inner vitality than the higher animals, but in return they develop only a very dull consciousness. A good example of this are the mussels, which are highly alive inside but hardly conscious. The formation of the exoskeleton also clearly shows the rounding shaping tendency of lime. The lime creates a rounded body cavity that is strongly delimited from the environment, in the interior of which the life forces can only develop in a very restrained way, while in contrast, the plants can expand more or less freely and unhindered into space with their growth forces.

In the human being, too, lime causes centrifugal, excretory processes and does so in different ways in the three parts of the threefold human organism. In the metabolic-limb system lime has an expelling effect on the fluids, in the rhythmic system on the air, i.e. it is the driving force of exhalation, and in the nerve-sense system it has an expelling effect on the heat, it brings about, as it were, a kind of cooling of the nerve-sense organisation. Lime, which is an essential representative of the earth element, thus drives out the other elements and the forces connected with them and thereby makes the organism as a whole more earthly, more related to the earth.

„The carbonic calcium brought into the human organism has the peculiar tendency to have an excretory effect. Calcium supplied to the human organism is something that is excretory everywhere in the human organism. I should like to say that in the lowest human being it has a competitor in silver, but there too it has an excretory effect; so that lime everywhere excretes both aqueous and aerial matter from the organism. The lime forces which are localised in the human organism are also all that underlies human exhalation. Lime has within itself the force that acts as a motor for exhalation. And again it has in it those forces which drive out the heat in the nerve-sense organisation, bring about a kind of cooling of the nerve-sense organisation. So in the lower man, in the metabolic-limb system, it works to expel the fluids, in the rhythmic man it works to expel the air substances in the nerve-sense organisation it works to expel the heat ether - or the heat. In each of these relationships phosphorus acts in opposition to lime (see below). Lime binds, so to speak, the awake I and the awake astral body to the physical body. That is to say, I suffer from insomnia.“ (Lit.:GA 319, p. 121f)

Lime and the effect of the planets near the earth

While the planets far from the Sun work in everything siliceous, everything calcareous absorbs the forces of the celestial bodies near the Earth, the Moon, Mercury and Venus.

„You see, all that lives in the siliceous has forces that do not come from the earth, but from the so-called planets far from the Sun: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. That which emanates from these planets affects plant life in a roundabout way through the pebbles and related things. But from all that which is near the earth planets: Moon, Mercury, Venus, the forces act on the plant life, also on the animal life of the earth, by the diversions of the calcareous. In this way we can speak of every field that is cultivated: pebbles and lime work in it. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars work in the siliceous, Moon, Venus, Mercury in the calcareous.“ (Lit.:GA 327, p. 36f)

The lime process in the course of the year

Limestone undergoes significant metamorphoses in the course of the year, if one pays attention to its soul-spiritual qualities. The spring lime is quite different from the winter lime. The winter lime in its entirety is, as it were, a thoroughly satisfied being. In winter, the spiritual of the Earth, the manifold elemental beings, have completely returned to the bosom of the Earth. The salts of the Earth - and especially the limestone - are completely spiritualised. This means a deep satisfaction for the lime. In a way, it is as satisfied as a human head that has struggled for a long time to find a solution to a difficult problem and now carries the solution within itself in the form of crystal-clear thoughts.

As spring approaches, the elementary beings are gradually released from the depths of the Earth, the spiritual-soul of the Earth is breathed out again. As a result, however, the limestone becomes dull in relation to its spiritual qualities. But it now develops a lively inner vitality and above all it now becomes desirous, and all the more so the more the plants sprout out of the earth. The plants extract some of the water and some of the carbonic acid from the lime, and the lime is deprived of this, but it thereby becomes more and more inwardly alive. This process continues well into the summer.

„If one moves spiritually in the course of the lime formations, one perceives satisfaction everywhere during the winter time, which lives itself out in inner lives, penetrations of this winter lime with livingly transforming formations of a spiritual kind. But when spring approaches, especially when March comes, then the lime becomes, we may say, dull with regard to its spiritual qualities. It no longer has these spiritual qualities, because the elementary beings take their way out into the universe through a kind of spiritual-cosmic breathing. It becomes dull in relation to its mental-spiritual qualities. But the strange thing is that it now becomes desirous. It develops a kind of inner liveliness. There is more and more fine life in the lime, and this life in the lime becomes all the more inwardly agitated towards spring, and then also towards summer, the more the plants sprout. These processes take place in the fine. The plants that grow out take some of the water and some of the carbonic acid from the lime, especially from the lime distributed in the earth, and the lime is deprived of this. And this means for it an inner vitality, but through this it acquires a tremendous attraction for the ahrimanic beings. These ahrimanic beings get hopes every time spring approaches. They have no other special hopes for nature, because they can only live their nature within the human being. These ahrimanic beings can otherwise work in the animal nature of man. But when it comes to spring, the impression which the spring lime makes on them gives them the opinion that they can unfold their dragon nature out into the general nature, and that by finding the spring lime alive they can also gain the possibility of attracting astral matter from the universe in order to animate this living lime, to permeate it with soul. So that, as March approaches, this strange spectacle arises for the true visionary observer of nature: One sees everywhere how the hopes of the ahrimanic beings play over the earth in imaginations, I would like to say like a spiritual wind that blows over everything, and one sees how the ahrimanic beings now make an effort to call forth from above, as it were, a rain of the astral. This rain of the astral would, if they could - they always strive for it with all possible forces -, transform the earth during the summertime, at least partially, as far as it is lime, into an animate living being.“ (Lit.:GA 229, p. 42f)

The lower ahrimanic figure as part of the wooden sculpture "The Representative of Humanity between Lucifer and Ahriman" created by Rudolf Steiner.

Because the lime becomes inwardly more and more alive, it exerts a tremendous attraction on the ahrimanic beings. They themselves are mainly ethereal in nature, but cold and soulless. Every year at this time the hope of the ahrimanic beings awakens that they can draw down astral matter, which they themselves lack, from the cosmos in order to animate the living lime with it. They want to imbue the earth, in so far as lime is active in it, with the soul in such a way that it would feel pain at every step, indeed at every slight touch. This would give the ahrimanic beings a tremendous sense of well-being. In tremendous imaginings these ahrimanic hopes chase over the earth in spring. But they are only illusions that the ahrimanic entities make for themselves; their hopes are regularly destroyed again every year. Ahriman does not have direct access to nature.

Man, however, does not remain unharmed by these ahrimanic illusions. By enjoying the food that thrives in this atmosphere of hopes and illusions, he also becomes imbued with these ahrimanic forces. And if these already cannot pull down the astral of the cosmos, they now reach all the more for the spiritual of man and try to assimilate it into the earth. Little by little the earth would absorb the human being. From the earth would gradually emerge a great unified earth entity in which, as it were, all human beings would be dissolved. On the way there, the human organism would be more and more permeated by the living lime. An ever more sclerotic human form with bat-like wings and a completely ossified head would emerge, as Rudolf Steiner has indicated in the lower part of the statue of the Representative of Humanity. This figure would finally dissolve completely in the earthly, become entirely a component of the earthly-Ahrimanic entity, indeed even more, the whole human being, including his I, would become part of this Ahrimanic world. Man would himself become an ahrimanic being and would no longer be able to participate in the further spiritual development intended for humanity. He would be eliminated from the regular development and banished to the so-called eighth sphere.

„These illusions are destroyed every year. But man does not remain, so to speak, unharmed under these illusions. Man enjoys those natural products which flourish in this atmosphere of hopes and illusions, and it is actually basically a naivety of man if he believes to eat his bread from mere ground and baked grain. Inside this ground and baked grain are the illusions of the ahrimanic beings and the hopes of the ahrimanic beings. Outside they are destroyed. So much the more does the longing awaken in the ahrimanic beings, where there is already soul, in man, to reach their goal with what they want. So that every spring, even if it takes place in the intimate sphere, the human being is actually in danger of falling victim to the ahrimanic beings. Man is really much more exposed to all the ahrimanic forces in the cosmos in this respect in spring than he is in any other season.“ (Lit.:GA 229, p. 44)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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