Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE PHYSICAL BODY
A Spiritual Scientist has, in whatever field of study, to be especially earnest about the area that reflects the very word and spirit of ‘anthroposophy’, human nature. A natural place to start is of course with the physical body, that first-of-the-first aspects of man created so long ago on Ancient Saturn. So long ago, indeed, that it is today minimally ‘perfect’. The greatest failing of natural science is that it fails to recognize the spirit dwelling behind the manifest world, in particular that of human corporeality: as such, ironically, it doesn’t really know anything meaningful at all about physicality – or so Rudolf Steiner assures us.
Both Old Saturn and the physical body, whether in mineral, plant, animal or man, express mainly through three clearly recognizable elements, the sphere, redness and heat. Where-ever we see one of other of this triune manifest, we can be sure that there is a physical body factor in the feature, especially in physiognomy.
In a study of the physiognomy of the physical body, we might observe firstly the whole body, where roly-poly, ruddy, hot-blooded types (sphere, redness, heat!) tend to be physical body dominant.
We have the pejorative term ‘red-neck’ in our vernacular. Well, there’s a truth in this, as in many other enduring aphorisms about physiognomic features, like ‘thin-skinned’, ‘big ears’, and so on.
Those with thick, red necks are indeed often physical body assertive. This is the core quality of the redneck mentality; one common in footballers, where forceful combativeness is a virtue.
We all come into the world with the unique features that assure that we can manifest our destiny – even if it is as a footballer: indeed, almost every feature has a positive-virtue and negative-vice pols, depending on the karmic mission of the individual. In the same ‘assertion’ vein, we have the barrel-chested types, with their express physical confidence. Just try it – puff your chest out into a spherical form to feel at once more physically assured So different is this when the sphere moves down into the belly. If this rumpty-tum is not flaccid, but hard and muscular, it is an indication of will to work; or will to anything, really.
People with this portly paunch, common in middle-aged men with their ‘spare tires’, can churn out products and services twelve hours a day, seven days a week. In physiognomy at least, all men are – not – equal. Take humble schoolteachers: it is often observed that those with the generous mid-riffs can go 48 hours straight mounting exhibitions and such, while their wasp-waist colleagues have need to be tucked into bed by 10 o’clock at night!
The physical body shows also in the rounded arm, called in our circles, the ‘gunslinger stance’. Those who hold their arms out from the body in half circles (the two arms forming a full – physical body – circle) are in a state of continual physical alertness. This even extends down to the hands, which make their own small circles, or cups. As such, the hands often face behind, as a kind of instinctive sense organ; one employed to detect danger – or naughty children! – lurking behind one. Often as a Steiner teacher, when I had to turn from the class to write on the blackboard, I unconsciously (later consciously) held one hand behind my back, the cup of the palm facing towards the class, like an ancillary eye It had a salutary discipline effect. Generally, however, this arm held-out gesture is called the predatory stance, common in bodyguards and hunters, both of whom exploit the cupped palm as an extra-sensory organ.
When a person’s two legs form a circle, the bandy legs common in the elderly, this indicates (unless caused by an ancient or disease, like rickets) a return to infantilism. These legs, due to a slow giving up on life, become similar to those of a baby, a physical body being whose legs are supposed to form a circle; before they walk, that is.
We can only understand the spiritual by crossing the bridge of the physical, that’s why a study of physiognomy is so vital, especially for those who deal with children. So many of their problems can have light cast upon them by observing, through the child’s features, aspects of human nature they’ve both brought with them from before birth and as impacts of their environment. These qualities, or vice-versa, tend to increasingly emphasize throughout life, becoming more obvious in our features and gestures as we age. When young, equivalent facial elements can be quite subtle, if they are noticeable at all. We see this in, for example, the nose; the button noses of infants are barely individualized at all; however, as they grow into adolescence, the life-long personalized structure begins to emerge.
Of course, these days plastic surgery can confound even the most astute physiognomist; as can hair dying and curling (straightening!), eyebrow plucking, and the thousands of ways we can present an artificial – deceitful indeed – countenance to the world. Speaking of noses, it might surprise the recipient of a nose job to realize that after some months (years?) the soul manages to frustratingly re-fashion the ‘offending’ proboscis to its original shape. Amazingly, this is so even if bone has been removed; the sub-conscious genius of the individual compensating by using firm tissue to compensate!
The same applies to many, if not most, such procedures.
So, physiognomy is best learnt (though not necessarily applied) by observing adults; the picture here being so much clearer. And the best place to start is with the physical body features – as usual!
The head is the physical body ‘fold’ in the four-fold man, thorax, abdomen, and limbs being expressions rather of the etheric, astral and ego respectively. For details of general head physiognomy see earlier chapter, ‘Physiognomy of the Head’. As described, the physical body area of the head, as seen from the front, is the central vertical band from the top of the brow to the rip of the chin, In skull profile we have the occipital love at the far rear. The sides of the occipital, if expressed as a small sphere of bone behind each ear (not easy to see this one), are known as the ears of leadership. Mastery of people on a physical level, as found in generals, police and political leaders, is this feature’s specialty.
The center brow is often a region of grooves or ridges, each one indicating a specific character trait: the former tends to be negatives, the latter positives. A ridge sweeping up from the eyebrows to the temples (more often to the left temple, as I’ve noticed) is a fairly rare, but important, feature known as the Nazarene cleft. It is an indication of the physical body ascending to meet the higher ego forces – intelligence in the spiritual as we describe it.
Nazarene? Well, this sublime feature can be clearly seen in Rudolf Steiner’s great wooden statue of the Representative of Man – The Christ; a marvelous, precise resource for physiognomists! The Sun God was tragically, for three years at least, bonded to matter, and had to rise again to elevate his Ego to his spiritual home.
Eurythmists, those exponents of that most numinous of arts, that of Life Spirit, often have this enigmatic feature.
Another ‘physical body’ feature is the vertical (or slightly angled) lines between the eyebrows. A single deep groove, as Winston Churchill had, is indicative of a single point of view. The British Empire was the only manifest reality he could comprehend.
How unlike Mahatma Gandhi, whose many-fissured brow was like a street map of Calcutta! His tolerance – indeed unbridled acceptance – of world views other than his own was legendary. Two clear grooves in this region obviously mean, as well as being able to maintain one’s own viewpoint, one can appreciate another’s. A clear, resistance to ascribing to any particular persuasion.
Twisted, disfigured knots between the eyebrows indicate an inner conflict with the physical world. Many people get large moles and the like in this region. Eyebrows meeting in the center is a sure sign of intemperance, of the tendency to bouts of unrestrained anger.
Some folks, especially teenagers, following a fit of rage develop an unsightly pimple right here: the pus therein being a manifestation of frustrated soul externalizing through matter. In general, the clearer and smoother the region between the brows, the mansion of the sacred pituitary gland just beneath, the more soul-physically unburdened the individual. And while on ‘sacred’, the ‘physical body’ eyebrow is that of the first quarter, towards the nose. If this tilts up, common in pictures of saints, it shows a yearning of the earth-bound man for the spirit, of trust. If down, then the person is subject to – again earth-bound – poison jealousy.
The bridge of the nose is also a physical body region. A high-top arch, the Roman, aristocratic, aquiline or ‘eagle beak’, expresses understanding – of the physical world at least. Understanding is the ‘quality’ ascribed by Steiner to Scorpio (with its ‘sense of smell’); or to be more accurate, Aquila the Eagle. If the arch is lower down, towards the middle of the nose, the person is strongly loyal – the highest of virtues in ancient Rome. the ‘snub nose’ is rather that of rebellion, seen often in the Irish – a naturally cross-grained folk!
As the ‘Spirits of Freedom’ in the hierarchical tableau, as humanity is aspiring to become, we have choices in all these areas. In spite of our natural predilections, we can choose to be loyal, or rebellious, according to circumstances. In fact, all these features are not good or bad in themselves, rather morally neutral.
After all, one can be ‘loyal’ to a black evil like the Gestapo, or ‘reel’ against the enlightened teachings of Christ. The end of the nose is an especially physical body feature. If the bulb is large, it is a sign of inherent sympathy, or warmth (the nominal element of the physical body being fire). The pointy – or witch’s nose – is rather one of cold indifference or antipathy. If the bulb is uptilted, we have candor, on a physical level at least. The tip dipping down is rather known as the conspiratorial nose. Dante, a scheming politician (as well as a great poet!) of the first order, was famous for his dipping nose point. When, in profile, the angle between the nose and the region directly below is above the horizonal, we have optimism; when the angle points down at less than 90 degrees, it is perennial pessimism. A fine, think nose bridge is one possessed by a cultivated, in physical body terms, individual, a thick bridge less so.
A long ‘grasshopper’ nose is a sign of aloofness, a short nose rather pugnacity. This is named after pugilists, not just because they often have this as part of their nature, but whose noses, even if they didn’t start thus, usually end up this way! A large, forward-pointing nose is one of dominance, a small nose the opposite. Hence, on the whole, men’s noses are larger than women’s; though in children, boys’ and girls’ noses are about the same size, which tells its own tale. An unbroken nose bridge from the forehead, such as many idealized Greek statues have, indicates a sense of form, an expression of the Rational Soul, ‘semi-transformed etheric or boy of formative forces’, as it is. Therefore, a deep beak between the forehead and the nose is a sign of form deficiency, A thin nose septum, that which divides the nostrils, is a sign of discrimination, of a physical nature.
The word in Sanskrit is hansa meaning ‘swan’. And a highly physically discriminating creature the lordly swan is as it picks its careful way through the waterweeds of life. Ah, the power of metaphor! A long space between the nose and the top lip is a sign of self-reliance; again, mostly referring to the physical world.
The longer it is the more self-reliant the owner, the shorter, rather a sign of continuous need for approval! If there are deep creases from the septum to the top lip, it is physical sensitivity, especially in relation to the outer world., A smooth equivalent area is of course the opposite, one expression being oblivion to the wonders of – or in some cases, dangers of – nature.
The nose plays a clear and surprisingly vital role in individual recognition. When usually pert-nosed Nicole Kidman had on her prosthetic proboscis in the film, The Hours, she was literally unrecognizable; the movie being renowned for this fact more than any other. I had a similar experience: in my drama days, a fellow actor, of striking looks, also had a plasticene nose job, one that transformed his own rather snub nose to the ‘sense of form’ Greek model (he was playing Christ). This was intimate theatre, with the audience just a few yards ways. After the show, a man came backstage and asked our ‘Christ’, who by this time had removed his nose, to direst him to the actor who played Our Lord in order to congratulate him. Even though the actor was still in costume, the fan totally filed to recognize him, in spite of having just been staring at him on stage for the last two hours! An impossibility we all thought!
Now to the ‘physical body’ region of the eyes: a raise in the first quarter, near the nose, indicated kindliness, while eyes that angle down in this area belong to the paranoid. When close set and turned down, they become positively pathological! Draw them and see!
The Spirits of Form, the Exusiai, and the Spirits of Harmony, the Kyriotetes, co-operate in features with a clear top and bottom horizontal plane, like the eyes and the mouth. To create balance, instead of the ‘physical body’ being in the first quarter, as it is in both the top eyelid and lip, the order is reversed on the bottom, the equivalent area being the fourth quarter, on the outside.
The psycho-physical balance is a gift especially of the aptly-named Sprits of Harmony.
In ruminating on the limitations of these examples, I have to confess that the best this book can hope to achieve is to provide a kind of roadmap to this infinitely complex study. One where there are features within features within features – with much of the observation by experienced physiognomists actually being done on large photographs with a magnifying glass!
So, the first quarter, or the center, of the top lip is that of the physical body. If full, this indicates sensuality(not sexuality, see bottom lip later). Though this can extend right across the whole lip.
A ‘turtle beak’ downward top lip point is criticism; while a tented top lip is rather tenderness, of a physical kind. Full lips, more common in the young, are an expression of burning desire; if excessive, a grim foreshadowing of after-death trials to come.
This is in that first, equivalent physical body, realm of the soul, Kamaloca (Catholic Purgatory, a cleansing or purging – Steiner Realm of Burning Desire). As such, those with an over-full top lip have a strong desire nature, in extreme, a tendency to addiction.
A small, round chin is a sign of the – physical – connoisseur. This is the person who can tell the difference between a precious manuscript and fish-and-chip-paper – as my physiognomy teacher once described it! The center of the chin is the area of center of attention – of a physical nature, of course. The emphasis is heightened by a deep ‘Kirk Douglas’ dimple. The chin as such is the region of self will, a jutting jaw being ore so, a receding one, like the so-called ‘chinless wonders’ of British royalty, rather the opposite – I rest my case!
Now to ‘roundness’ in general, a sure sign of physical body features. Round ears, like bears, tend to hear physical sounds, while round lower cheeks perpetually seek physical comfort. Round, rosy – especially shiny – cheeks, as seen so often charmingly embellishing children in English storybooks, denotes physical health; cavernous, sallow cheeks the opposite.
Michelangelo’s Crepuscolo in the Medici tombs in Florence, representing the physical boy as he does, is a weathered ole man; this element of four-fold man being the oldest, created ay back in ancient Saturn, as it was. Crepuscolo means ‘evening’, the physical boy time of the 4-part day. Yet Durer, in his wonderful painting The Four Apostles, has St. Matthew, the physical body gospeller, as a handsome young man. This is actually an expression of the Ganymede mystery. The zodiacal equivalent of Matthew is Aquarius, the Greek version being Ganymede, a beautiful young man. This beauty is a depiction of not the age of the physical body, but its perfection. As it has taken longest to evolve, it is more honed, more ‘perfect’, than the three higher ‘bodies’ – etheric, astral and ego. Steiner’s example of this perfection is the sublime – perfect indeed – architecture of the femur, the physical body leg bone.
Brown eyes (really a deep red) are a physical body trait, in both children and adults, where they flag a phlegmatic and melancholic temperament respectively. Both are a manifestation of a dominant physical body; or so says Steiner. Red is the physical body color.
Round eyes are of course physical innocence, if wide open as well, perennial incredulity. A round head, again like an infant, is evidence of simplistic thought. A clear, unblemished region under the fourth quarter of the bottom lip is physical kindness, especially if the lip slopes upward in a nice curve. Blemishes in the same area indicate the opposite, cruelty, the mark of the potential sadist!
Teeth are interesting; although as a general canon being of almost exclusive mineral constituency, they are of the ego. However, they have some physical body characteristics. Large teeth show a more primitivedisposition, or physical-incarnation situation. A round palate is willfulness (not will), as seen in many indigenous peoples. Round teeth show an ego bonded in the physical – lack of independence: yet again we see this naturally in infants. The typical Anglo-Saxon mouth is the opposite of these, with smaller, more angular teeth is a narrow palate. This is why dentistry thrives in ‘developed’ counties!
Teeth are ego-physical and physical-ego top and bottom respectively. Hence, top teeth indicate ego features more, while the lower teeth express the physical. We see the latter in the jutting lower teeth of physical intimidation – or in the boar-like tusks of blind will, in some scary, less advanced souls!
As the mouth is the nominal organ of the facial aspect of the physical body (nose etheric, nose astral, ears ego), the following are a few general features of the ‘cake hole, to quote the argot of the schoolyard. But to counter this with a higher tone, first a ‘mouth’ quote by Rudolf Steiner (Dornach, 1924):
“There are men who are – how shall I speak of them? – ready eaters. Others are not so found of eating. I do not want to say the gluttonous people and non-gluttonous people, for this would hardly be in place in a serious study! Anyway, this is connected with what the human being experiences in his passage between death and a new birth. There are people who ascend very high into the spiritual, and there are others who do not rise so high. The former will eat in order to live, the latter will live in order to eat! Those who help themselves with enthusiasm at table are those who clung more to the trivialities of life in the previous incarnation.”
A common physiognomic feature of the gourmand at best, and the ‘glutton’ (Steiner’s words, not mine!) in extreme – in either case people who love food – are the round ‘squirrel pouches’ on the lower outside cheeks (pigs are also heavy-jowled!).
And to more general mouth features: the tough-taking mouth, or the “Cagney mouth” as we call it, has the lips drawn together in the middle, the outer section rather forming gaps, like a flattened horizontal hourglass. Who can forget Jimmy’s film noir “You dirty rat!” between clenched teeth, his thin lips curled back in a tight snarl: the reverse, with the gap in the middle, is rather genteel speech.
A raise on one side of the mouth is cockiness, or self-assurance; a droop in the same area, habitual self-doubt; in extreme, low self-esteem. A wide chin in one of determination, a narrow one denotes a prevaricating soul. A small face generally is a mark of immaturity, the larger rather of worldliness. A perpetual closed-lip half-moon smile is a sign of abiding confidence, the same with the lunar form drooping being its opposite.
The region beneath the lower lip is an area where the rogues’ gallery of character defects makes their presence known. Again, in the 4-bodies division, we have – ego center, astral second quarter, etheric third quarter, and physical body fourth quarter. Unpleasant features, like whorls, creases, lumps, and so on, in these four zones can indicate, in the same order, a propensity to self-assertion, corruption, dishonesty(particularly lying), and worst of all, brutality.
‘Brutality?!’ I learnt this one the hard way. One day I showed a photo of a new pupil to my physiognomy teacher “Hmmm,” he frowned “this boy is capable of serious brutality.” – “But he’s got a lovely nature!” I protested “how can you tell?” – See those shadowy lumps under the fourth quarter of the bottom lip …”. Within six months the boy had to leave the school due to continuous incidents of assault (always out of sight!) on the other children! Physiognomy can be forensically predictable.
Often one can look at a person’s photo (child or adult) and see a clear division between the upper and the lower face, with the former, containing mainly the eyes and brow, often being very beautiful; indeed, ironically this can be in stark contrast to the lower – the unconscious will – half of the face. There is rarely a case where the lower is more beautiful than the higher face.
“The brow furrows are an indication of a person’s aspiration to take hold of the whole world with devoted love and draw it into the self.” Rudolf Steiner using another – typically German long-winded! – way of describing the brow furrow of ‘concern’.
Rudolf Steiner’s great wooden statue, The Representative of Man, the Christ. Displays many physiognomic verities; just a couple of Physical Body examples being the upper-half forward-thrust profile (left); so necessary, one would think, for a divine being compelled to descent into the abyss of matter. Then there is the unbroken ‘sense of form’ brow-nose line, fitting for a Spirit of Form! Evident also is a highly-developed ‘theosophical knoll’ in the top brow area. At right we have a perfect example of the ‘Nazarene cleft’ brow ridges. The thin nose bridge is that of a highly refined soul, complete with the delicate nostril structure of ‘discrimination’. The top lip clefts denote ‘sensitivity to the outer world’; with the tented top lip being one of ‘tenderness’ – the sacred ‘third eye’ space between the eyebrows being agreeably unblemished. The slightly receding, smallish chin is an indication of suppression of ‘self-will’, or as its owner so eloquently put it – ‘not my will, but Thine be done.”
FOUR PHYSICAL-BODY PHENOMENA
Top left: physical body movement reflects its circle origins. As you can see, this 3-year-old (my son Stephen), still in his physical body stage, runs with a wheeling motion … you can’t? Well, perhaps you had to be there! Top right: my own sun worshipping day began early; here the rounded, circle-based forms of the physical body are inescapable, as they are in all infants. Bottom left: architecture is the “art of the physical body” (Steiner); hence many architects, or masters of the structural forces have in their own bodies these timeless principles; as seen here in the strongly built Joern Utzon, creator of the Sydney Opera House. Bottom right: full-blood Australian aborigines are physical body folk, an example being Truganini, tragically the last full-blood Tasmanian. These people actually have a higher blood warmth than most of humanity; fire is of course the physical body element.
FROM: Sacred Faces: A Study of the Human Being in Light of Steiner’s Spiritual Science
Four Kingdoms Companion volume to: Sacred Places Minerals & Land; Sacred Fauna Botany; Sacred Fauna Zoology
Important Earthschooling Notes
Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss.
END NOTE
Alan has presented dialogue in his writings in an expressive form, where he tries to capture the accent of the person he was with to give his writing more authenticity and to allow the reader to “be with him” in his experience. In no place in his writings is he using expressive language to make fun of or demean the speaker. So, as a person with a linguistics and anthropology degree I find this enriching and informative to me as the reader. Thus, we have made the decision to leave all expressive writing in its original form.
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