The Individual Path of Personal Biodynamic Practice: Concepts, Intention, and Enthusiasm

“Every system of the universe is such that in one respect it may be correct and in another it may be wrong. You cannot tell with absolute certainty. This is how it is. You really cannot say which system of the universe is completely right and which is completely wrong.”¹ — Rudolf Steiner
As I opened the first jar, the aroma of sweet rice wine drifted toward me and the liquid glowed a soft pink as tiny champagne bubbles escaped to the atmosphere. The second jar exuded a dark green and an ugly odor. The third jar emitted a black cloud of mold that sent me into a coughing fit. The only difference between the three jars? Intention.
Many of you may already be familiar with Masaru Emoto’s “rice water” experiments.² My brother and I followed Emoto’s basic directions, which were simply to place a cup of rice each in three separate mason jars and add the same amount of water to each. We then sealed the lid of each jar, and treated each with a distinct vocalized greeting every single day for a month.
Each morning, I said something positive to the first jar, something negative to the second, but then intentionally ignored the third. I might greet the first jar with a blessing and the second jar with something a bit more hostile — even a curse — but I always conscientiously guided my gaze away from the “ignored” jar. At the end of the month, I removed the lids of each. The important part here is the inflamed enthusiasm that I included, and not just a dispassionate, mumbled greeting.
The results of my “rice water” experiment were immediately apparent. The “positive” jar smelled like sweet rice wine or rice pudding and bubbled generously. The “negative” jar developed that unattractive green mold and smelled terrible. The “ignored” jar gave me a cough that I didn’t shake for weeks. That was quite enough proof for me of the power of intention.
The importance of trying an experiment about intention cannot be underestimated. If you have not tried for yourself but only have vague ideas about the effects of intention, your enthusiasm will often be compromised. But by experiencing for yourself the concrete and practical manifestations of human intention, you are liberated to broadcast your influence over even large areas without self-sabotaging doubts.
If our mere intention can affect rice water so significantly, there appears to be no logical reason that stirring biodynamic preparations in water would not also be influenced by the same forces. No significant amount of physical substance passes through the glass of the jars in the “rice water” experiment, but something does. Whatever we want to call it; “forces” seems as good a term as anything else. This is where it’s helpful to recollect how Steiner explicitly urges us to think of forces more than physical substances with the preparations: “The living forces are far more important for the plant than the mere substance-forces or substances.”³
Taking the idea of intentionality in stirring water just a step further, if someone stirred water with the wrong preparation but still maintained a clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish, their intention would still be carried by the water. Rudolf Steiner says that who does the stirring is significant and even goes so far as to say that something of our feeling life enters the water. I have built parallel compost piles and compared the results with other people using the same ratios and building the piles at the exact same time. Mine had developed towards compost, but the second pile — built begrudgingly — soured quickly. I have also repeatedly witnessed people handle plants, no matter how gently, and the plants wither under their touch.
Rudolf Steiner himself speaks directly to this:
“Question: Does it matter who does the work? Can anyone you choose do the work, or should it be an anthroposophist?
Answer: That is the question. If you raise such a question at all nowadays, you will be laughed at, no doubt, by many people. Yet I need only remind you that there are people whose flowers, grown in the window-box, thrive wonderfully, while with others they do not thrive at all but fade and wither. These are simple facts.”⁴
Our concepts define the limits of what we believe is possible. What we believe to be possible defines the scope of our intention. If I were to distill the lesson I have learned from working with the preparations into a single sentiment, it might be this: The conceptualizations we have of the biodynamic preparations determine how we think we can use them. Our concepts determine our expectations and therefore color the intentions absorbed by the water we stir.
You could ask the question, when does intention override the parent substances and their forces? For example, if I have the wrong concept of a preparation but dilute it over time, when does the concept take over? I’m still left with an effective homeopathic preparation, but one that is imprinted with generations of dilutions governed by my concept. An experienced practitioner can use pure rain water and get comparable results, but this is where clear concepts and enthusiasm would matter all the more.
Someone who stirred water adding no physical preparations but radiating a clear intention for a full hour and sprayed that on their plants would almost certainly see results. Steiner recommends to “Get the sons and daughters of the house to do [the stirring] and it will no doubt be wonderfully done.”⁵ Though he doesn’t quite articulate it, I believe he made this recommendation because of the natural enthusiasm that children bring. But if the adults moan and complain about how arduous the stirring is and how much time it takes, what will happen to that childlike enthusiasm? If you’re bored, you probably shouldn’t be stirring preparations — or pawning the activity off on anyone else, for that matter!
Though there is plenty of contention over the hows and whys of biodynamic preparations, most people who stick with biodynamics long enough seem to get tangible results. I’d like to propose a possible way of considering many of these diverse theories while at the same time validating the varied — and even apparently contradictory — results generated by different practitioners. If we suspend the debate regarding who is “most accurate” just for a moment and instead engage the results that individuals have experienced, there’s a broader explanation that bridges the chasms between each individual’s respective theory.
It may seem like a stretch, but the logic above indicates that someone with enough practice with the preparations should be able to employ a single-minded focus and fully embodied fervor in order to stir nothing but pure rainwater and generate the effect of virtually any preparation. To do this, though, a strong intention would be necessary, as well as consistent practical experience working with the preparations themselves. How can I say this? Because, to me, it’s the best explanation for such wildly differing views on biodynamics. If I trust everyone’s claims about their results — and why shouldn’t I? — then there must be another factor influencing the inconsistency of the results: our concepts determine our expectations, and our expectations directly influence what results manifest.
If I were to decide to make a homeopathic version of a biodynamic preparation, with each successive dilution the original preparation becomes a distant memory and the “loudest” constant factor ends up being me as I make the remedy, which is now loaded with my own intention, which is, in turn, circumscribed by the scope of my ideas. A quite serviceable homeopathic remedy is not necessarily connected (or disconnected!) from the actual original biodynamic preparation. This is where the importance of clear concepts is demonstrated. If our concept does not match the original impulse of the parent preparation, the more we dilute the preparation, the less it is like itself and the more it is like me.
The quality of a stir is contingent on the quality of intention at work in the person stirring. The biodynamic preparations themselves carry specific forces, no matter how many rival conceptualizations we have concerning them. I can see circumstances where someone lacking a grand intellectual grasp of the preparations but possessing unadulterated enthusiasm could very well be more effective than someone looking down from a grand tower of ratiocination.
Obviously, because each preparation does carry specific concrete forces, a conceptualization that best accommodates all the preparations at once will better amplify what is already being radiated into the water by the preparations themselves.
The fact that something can work, despite not being “objectively” accurate, opens up an individual path of personal biodynamics. What we know about the world is only one half of the question: science will never tell us what we should do. Science merely answers: “What exists?” But the question, “What shall be done?” is a matter of creative dynamism. This is where biodynamics can, should, and must be an intensely personal and creative process. It is simply not enough to recite any one system with sufficient precision, anymore than knowing the name of every pigment is enough to be able create a masterful painting.
This passage from Aldous Huxley concerning ritual significance and its direct influence on the objective world is of real significance for the biodynamic community:
“If sacramental rites are constantly repeated in a spirit of faith & devotion, a more or less enduring effect is produced in the psychic medium, in which individual minds bathe & from which they have, so to speak, been crystallised out into more or less perfect development of the bodies with which they are associated…. Within this psychic medium or non-personal substratum of individual minds, something which we may think of metaphorically as a vortex persists as an independent existence, possessing its own derived & secondary objectivity, so that, wherever the rites are performed, those whose faith & devotion are sufficiently intense actually discover something ‘out there,’ as distinct from the subjective something in their own imaginations. And so long as this projected psychic entity is nourished by the faith & love of its worshippers, it will possess, not merely objectivity, but power to get people’s prayers answered….”⁶
The power to influence the world is in the enthusiastic projection of intention, and is made all the more powerful with the participation of other individuals. This is the power of intersubjectivity: the mutual and overlapping fervor in coordinated rituals or locations.
The power of concepts as reinforced by real-world experience develops into what Aldous Huxley describes as “secondary objectivity.”⁷ But what is art if not “secondary” objectivity? We create something and it becomes a new reality. The idea of “secondary objectivity” unfolds something like this: There was once a beautiful natural spring that is reported to have healing properties, but perhaps this is only a rumor and no one has actually ever experienced miraculous healing there. Over time, though, enough sincere people visit the (supposed) holy site that one day some fortunate soul actually does experience a miracle, a miracle born out of the collective enthusiasm and intention of countless pilgrims. Almost like static discharge, the prayers reach a certain critical mass and arc like lightning to restore balance. But now the sacred site has earned a real healing quality, born out of human prayers. The belief in the site bestows a “secondary” objectivity and the site actually acquires the power to heal! And once the news spreads, even more power is drawn to that site.
Whether or not a site or practice “in itself” has magical power, given enough time, intention, and enthusiasm, human practices accumulate power like static electricity. We can help certain processes (“entities”) develop new life and feed them with our inflamed enthusiasm. Whatever accuracy we believe our favorite system to have, it is always incomplete. As Rudolf Steiner says:
“Everywhere, on the smallest scale and the largest, nature is not simple but tremendously complex. And we can really only get anywhere near nature if we know from the start that even the seemingly most perfect views relate to reality the way photos of a tree do that are taken from one side. I can photograph the tree from any different angles. The photos may differ completely from one another. The more photos I have the sooner will I come close to the reality of the tree in my idea of it.
With regard to theories and views the present-day opinion is that one particular theory is true. Any other theory one may have is then wrong. But that is exactly like the situation when someone photographs a tree from one side. He then has the photo. Someone else photographs the tree from a completely different angle. The first person shows him his photo and he says: That’s wrong, completely wrong, only this one is right. Meaning that his view is the right one…. If we are not in a position to tell the aspects apart, well then we get human views that are more or less like having all kinds of different photos taken on one and the same [photographic] plate. Many of these things put forward today do look as if photos from all kinds of different angles had been taken on the same plate.”⁸
There are many “snapshots” of biodynamics, but the concession of basic human ignorance is needed to admit that, at best, each of us is holding a mere Polaroid. I’m not claiming to have a perfect hologram of the entire tree — though I happen to like my vantage point! — the only insight I am offering is that we are each only looking at one aspect of the same tree. The very basis of communication and learning is founded on the admission of ignorance; otherwise it tends to deteriorate into a shouting match.
If what Rudolf Steiner has to say is accurate, argumentation between “factions” has very little value. Constructive communication and conversation, though, are of utmost importance. If we can expand our understanding of each preparation and develop a living relationship with each herb, then we can use the preparations in an ever more holistic manner. I urge biodynamic practitioners to move beyond small battles over rectitude, and instead toward dynamic conversation about the plants themselves. No one ever has the complete truth, but we should always be adapting our concepts dynamically to include all possible new information. If we refuse to adapt our concepts when confronted with new percepts, then we block learning and we oppose development.
If we fail to nurture our thoughtforms over time, the elegant conceptual palaces and towers we construct become hardened prisons and mausoleums. This means that we must look back and see how what we used to think is no longer applicable. If we find ourselves thinking the exact same thing ten years later, that should disturb us. The new contains the old, but there must be continual development, or there is a sinister tendency toward calcification and dogmatism.
Whether one of us is correct or not has nothing to do with whether we outmaneuver each other. But, we will be known by our fruits. As our friend Goethe says, “What is fruitful alone is true.”⁹
Stewart Lundy owns Perennial Roots Farm in Accomac, Virginia where, for the past nine years, he and his partner have raised ducks, geese, rabbits, turkeys, chickens, sheep, and hogs. On fifty acres, they also have a small market garden, young orchard, and more. Stewart is on the board of Future Harvest CASA (Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture) and is the founding president of the Delmarva Farmers Union, where he has launched the peer-reviewed Certified Delmarva Grown program. He spends his free time giving workshops and researching esoterica.
Footnotes
- Rudolf Steiner, From Beetroot to Buddhism, Answers to Questions (Forest Row: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), 198.
- Masaru Emoto, Hidden Messages in Water (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005).
- Rudolf Steiner, The Agriculture Course, trans. George Adams (Stroud: Biodynamic Agriculture Association, 1977), 90.
- Ibid., 83.
- Steiner, Agriculture, 75.
- Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Perennial Classics, 1945), 265–266.
- Ibid.
- Rudolf Steiner, Physiology and Healing, trans. Anna R. Meuss (Forest Row: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2013), 60–61.
- A translation of the line from the poem “Vermachtnis,” The line is, “Was fruchtbar ist, allein ist wahr.” Accessed August 30, http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/gedichte-9503/500.
