Human warmth – earthly warmth

Warmth affects both nature and human beings: while the earth is growing warmer, the human body temperature has started to drop since the late nineteenth century. Warmth can be enhanced through lifestyle and therapy, loving care and the fire of ideals.

A study published in 2019 has analysed 677,423 body temperature measurements in three cohorts, encompassing 157 measuring years and 197 birth years. The body temperature of men born in the early nineteenth century was 0.59 degrees Celsius higher than today’s, that of women was found to have dropped by 0.32 degrees Celsius – both results signify a drop of around 0.029 degrees Celsius per birth decade.

We are aware of the natural temperature of the human body and its environment and of the warmth generated by the life processes. A seed needs warmth that envelops the emerging life with a differentiated and often rhythmical order; a kind of ‹Saturn warmth». The warmth of soul we experience inwardly is closely connected with the outer warmth and the warmth in the life processes. When we hold a glass of warm water in our hand, we are more sympathetic towards others than when we hold a glass of cold water. Spiritual warmth develops when we are enthusiastic, when we have ideals that burn in us like a flame.

A bridge between spirit and body

Warmth forms a bridge between our spiritual being and our body. Our body temperature reaches its maximum in the late afternoon (usually around 6 p.m.) as our spiritual being connects increasingly with our body. Spiritual presence is linked to body temperature. As the temperature goes down, our spirit being gradually detaches from the body making it easier for us to go to sleep: the warmth of the day, which is connected with the sun’s light, synchronizes our rhythmic system.

Rudolf Steiner explained how abstract thoughts have a cold quality, while ideals carry warmth and the power of enthusiasm; they are illumined by their spiritual goals and ignite forces of hope and life in us that help us realize these goals. The quality of «May It Become» lives in them which needs spiritual warmth for becoming reality. In Chapter 1 of GA 10 Rudolf Steiner writes under ‹Conditions›, «Every idea that does not become an ideal for you kills a power in your soul; every idea that becomes an ideal engenders life forces within you.» These life forces have a healing effect both on us and on earthly life. We cannot separate the climate crisis from our actions and from our moral development. The cooling down of the warmth organism results in an increase of hardening pathologies in present humanity: diabetes engenders sclerotic processes (arteriosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, dementia). Sclerotic illnesses and cancer are essentially cold-related and can be positively influenced by increasing warmth and movement.

Sources of life

As our body grows cooler, more enlivening warmth is needed. Rudolf Steiner specified certain warmth applications such as mistletoe therapy for treating cancer, a method that has by now been scientifically evaluated; or oil dispersion baths with etheric rosemary oil for the treatment of diabetes. But lifestyle changes, warmth of soul in our interactions with others and spiritual fire have a healing effect and strengthen the forces of health – in us and in the earth. «Where lie the sources of life? They lie in what kindles the moral ideals that inspire us. And so we can start to see that when we allow ourselves to be warmed through and illumined by moral ideals in this present life, these will bear life, tone and light out with us into the cosmos and become world-creative powers. We bear world-creative powers out into the cosmos and morality is the source of these creative powers.»¹