Horn

A horn is an outgrowth on the head of horn-bearers and rhinoceroses, which forms as a hollow covering over a bone cone, which is covered with a layer of skin that is well supplied with blood. Horns and claws form where the external astral-etheric forces radiate into the animal organism, shaping it deep into the digestive region. In contrast to the antlers, they grow for a whole lifetime and can be detached very easily.

From a physiological point of view, keratinisation is a process that takes place in the epidermis and in various mucous membranes of animal and human organisms, in which epithelial cells are transformed into horn cells (corneocytes) via horn-forming cells (keratinocytes). The horn substance, which consists of dead cells filled with keratin in this way, is harder and heavier than wood, but lighter and more elastic than bone.

In biodynamic agriculture, cow horns are used as suitable containers for maturing biodynamic preparations because of their ability to capture astral-etheric forces. In some countries, for legal reasons, the horn is regularly removed, ostensibly because of suspected risk of injury, so that the horn preparation may have to be imported from other parts of the world.

„The cow has horns in order to send into itself that which is to form astral-etheric, that which is to penetrate into the digestive organism, so that much work arises in the digestive organism precisely through the radiation which emanates from horns and claws. Whoever, therefore, wants to understand foot-and-mouth disease, that is, the effect of the peripheral on the digestive tract, must understand this connection. And our foot-and-mouth disease remedy is based on understanding this connection. Now, you see, in the horn you have something which, by its special nature and essence, is well suited to radiate the living and astral back into the inner life. You have something life-radiating, and even astral-radiating, in the horn. It is like this. If you were able to crawl around in the living cow's organism, you would, if you were inside the belly of the cow, smell how the astral-living flows inwards from the horns. With the claws this is the case in a similar way.“ (Lit.:GA 327, p. 97f)

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: The Apocalypse of St John: Lectures on the Book of Revelation. 'CW 104. Anthroposophic Press 1985. ISBN 978-0880101318; eBook: SteinerBooks 1993 ASIN B00AQKDZQA rsarchive.org

German

• Rudolf Steiner: Die Apokalypse des Johannes, GA 104 (1985), ISBN 3-7274-1040-X English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Geisteswissenschaftliche Grundlagen zum Gedeihen der Landwirtschaft, GA 327 (1999), ISBN 3-7274-3270-5 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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