FILL THOSE COW HORNS:

Steiner’s “Biodynamics”

Many of Rudolf Steiner's doctrines are destructive: his racism, his medical quackery, and his advocacy of the warped forms of “thought” promoted at Waldorf schools. Some of his other doctrines, by contrast, do not rise to this level of perniciousness. They are merely silly. Consider "biodynamic agriculture," for example.

I should start by saying that my wife and I grow and buy organic foods. We figure the fewer pesticides we ingest, the better. Biodynamic agriculture is Steiner's version of organic farming, and as such it may well be preferable to factory farming with its profligate use of dangerous chemicals.

Still, Steiner's agricultural precepts are fully as mystical and unscientific as any of his other teachings. To practice biodynamic agriculture, one needs to resort to magic and astrology. (I almost feel that I could end this essay right here. Q.E.D. But I won't be that precipitous. I'll back up my assertions with examples and analyses.)

Having grown up in rural areas, [1] Steiner knew what virtually all rural people know: the quality of crops depends on the health of the soil, and this health is largely dependent on fertilization. Today, artificial fertilizers are often used. In the old days, fertilization resulted from use of compost or, to be less euphemistic, dung and other organic refuse. Organic farms today (biodynamic or otherwise) follow the old pattern.

Steiner taught that a "healthy farm" is one that receives sufficient manure, in the correct proportions, from the animals living on that farm. [2] Thus, it would be unnecessary — indeed, "unhealthy" — to introduce fertilizers from outside sources. On the other hand, Steiner taught that farmers should take special steps in utilizing their homegrown fertilizing materials. Take one example. He specified that manure should be stuffed into cow horns, buried in the ground to a specified depth during the autumn, and disinterred during the following year. The decayed contents of the horns should then be diluted with water and spread on farm fields. [3] The dilution process, which is intended to release the latent energies within the decayed matter, seems more suitable to a sorcerer's laboratory than to a present-day farm. The following description is from a biodynamic Web site in England:

“Horn Manure is cow manure that has been fermented in the soil over winter inside a cow horn...Before being applied very small amounts...are dissolved in water and stirred rigorously for one whole hour. This is done by stirring (preferably by hand) in one direction in such a way that a deep crater is formed in the stirring vessel (bucket, barrel). Then the direction is changed, the water seethes and slowly a new crater is formed. Each time a well-formed crater is achieved the direction is changed until the full hour is completed. In this way the dynamic effects concentrated in the prepared manure...are released into the rhythmically moved water and become effective for soil and plant.” [4]

Why must the manure decay inside cow horns? The same Web site offers this explanation:

“Soil [is] created through an active interweaving of mineral, plant and animal processes...It is then perhaps not quite so surprising that several [biodynamic] preparations require something from the animal world, in order to make them fully effective.” [5]

Steiner was the author of much of the pseudo science that is used to justify biodynamics. But to really understand his thinking, we need to go deeper — or, if you will, higher. Steiner's agricultural doctrines — like his doctrines on all other subjects — are essentially spiritualistic. The physical universe, in his system, is entirely immersed in, and influenced by, spiritual realities. To grasp any of Steiner's statements, we need to constantly remember that he traces all physical effects back to spiritual causes. Here is a statement Steiner made about a simple vegetable, the beetroot:

“There, for example, is the beetroot growing in the earth. To take it just for what it is within its narrow limits, is nonsense if in reality its growth depends on countless conditions, not even only of the Earth as a whole, but of the cosmic environment.” [6]

If in referring to factors that do not originate on Earth, Steiner meant sunlight, then it would be true that beetroots depend on both earthly and cosmic influences. But that's not what he meant. Notice that he referred to "countess conditions...of the cosmic environment" [emphasis added]. He was alluding to the influences of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars (which, remember, are themselves manifestations of spiritual powers), and also to the influences of purely spiritual beings.

We would not be far off the mark if we referred to Steiner's agricultural doctrines as irremediably astrological. The best times for preparing fields, sowing crops, etc., depend — according to Steiner — on the timing of eclipses and the passages of the Moon between the Earth and various planets, etc. The biodynamic Web site biodynamics.com lists presumably important cosmic events. Here's a brief sample:

“The times indicated are those the author deems to be the first choice periods for working the soil, applying biodynamic preparations, sowing seed, or working with plants in general.

• January 22 – Moon occults Uranus @ 0:29 pm
• February 2 – Moon occults Saturn @ 6:34 pm
• March 1 – Moon occults Saturn @ 9:12 pm
• March 3 – Lunar Eclipse @ 6:17 pm
• March 16 – Moon occults Mercury @ 11:56 pm
• March 18 – Solar Eclipse @ 10:43 pm” [7]

Steiner was quite specific (although, as always, pseudoscientific) in his description of the influence planets have on plants:

“Everything that lives in the silicious [sic] nature contains forces which comes [sic] not from the Earth but from the so-called distant planets, the planets beyond the Sun — Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. That which proceeds from these distant planets influences the life of plants via [silicon and related substances]. On the other hand, from all that is represented in the planets near the Earth — Moon, Mercury and Venus — forces work through limestone and kindred substances.” [8]

Few astronomers (if any) would classify the Moon as a planet. And most would wonder at the absence of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, from Steiner’s discussion of the solar system. But let that go.

According to Steiner, cosmic forces also affect a farm's animal population:

“The animal organism lives in the whole complex of Nature’s household. In form and colour and configuration, and in the structure and consistency of its substance from the front to the hinder parts, it is related to these influences. From the snout towards the heart, the Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars influences are at work; in the heart itself the Sun, and towards the tail, the Venus, Mercury, and Moon influences.” [9]

The upshot of Steiner’s dogmas is that biodynamic growers spend a lot of time studying planetary movements. This study is complicated, somewhat, by Steiner's insistence that the planets don't actually orbit the sun. Instead, they are lined up with it — some ahead, some behind — and travel along with the sun as it weaves its way through the cosmos. [10]

Steiner taught that cosmic (in effect, astrological) considerations affect every part of a farm, not only the soil, plant life, and animal life, but also the water supply. Steiner states his case in these words:

“Water, in effect, is eminently suited to prepare the ways within the earthly domain for those forces which come, for instance, from the Moon. Water brings about the distribution of the lunar forces in the earthly realm...Let us therefore suppose that there have just been rainy days and that these are followed by a full Moon. In deed [sic] and in truth, with the forces that come from the Moon on days of the full Moon, something colossal is taking place on the Earth. These forces spring up and shoot into all the growth of plants, but they are unable to do so unless rainy days have gone before...Is it not of some significance, whether we sow the seed in a certain relation to the rainfall and the subsequent light of the full Moon, or whether we sow it thoughtlessly at any time? Something, no doubt, will come up even then...[I]n certain plants, what the full Moon has to do will thrive intensely after rainy days and will take place but feebly and sparingly after days of sunshine.” [11]

If we leave out the unsupported assertions, the equivocations, and the lunar nonsense, what does this statement amount to? Seeds sprout better in moist soil than in dry.

Numerous organic growers employ biodynamic methods, and it seems possible that they may achieve results comparable to those reached by conventional organic growers. Until we find sensible ways to define and measure such misty concepts as "the influences of Venus, Mercury and Moon," there can be no way to make a rational, scientific evaluation. A farmer who decides to plant peas when the Moon occults Venus, or to create magical field preparations by stuffing manure into cow horns, is not hurting anyone. But s/he is probably wasting a lot of time. This is, after all, the twenty-first century. Haven't we learned anything?