Heart

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The heart is the central organ of the blood circulation. It is a hollow muscular organ about the size of a fist, resembling a rounded cone with the tip pointing downwards and to the left, slightly offset to the left side of the body behind the sternum. Only in the relatively rare case of right-heart disease is it more offset to the right side of the body, usually with an overall mirror-inverted organ arrangement (situs inversus). In the macrocosm, the heart corresponds to the Sun and, as a planetary metal, to gold.

The heart as a future voluntary organ

The heart consists mainly of striated muscles, similar to our skeletal musculature, which we can activate at will. According to Rudolf Steiner, this already heralds the future development through which the heart will one day become an voluntary organ:

„It is that organ which is intimately connected with the circulation of the blood. Now science believes that the heart is a kind of pump. This is a grotesquely fantastic idea. Never has occultism made such a fantastic assertion as the materialism of today. That which is the moving force of the blood is the feelings of the soul. The soul drives the blood, and the heart moves because it is driven by the blood. So exactly the reverse is true of what materialistic science says. Only, man today cannot yet direct his heart arbitrarily; when he is afraid, it beats faster because the feeling acts on the blood and this accelerates the movement of the heart. But what man now suffers involuntarily he will later, at a higher stage of development, have under his control. Later on he will drive his blood and move his heart as he does the muscles of his hands today. The heart with its peculiar construction is a crux, a cross, for present-day science. It has striated muscle fibres that are otherwise only found in voluntary muscles. Why? Because the heart has not yet reached the end of its development, but is an organ of the future, because it will become an arbitrary muscle. Therefore it already shows the disposition for this in its construction.

Thus everything that goes on in the soul of man changes the structure of the human organism.“ (Lit.:GA 99, p. 147f)

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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