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 SKIN AND HAIR
“Light approaches human beings and fashions their hair. This was the case during the Sun period, when hair grew into human beings, not out of them. What grew into us as hair was actually crystallized sunbeams.” Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, 1917.
That wonderful human integument, the skin, reveals a physiognomic alphabet all its own., It is included in the Body Forms chapter due to its ‘seamless garment’ function. The skin is, above all, the organ (the largest of all twelve senses) of the Sense of Touch.
So any deliberations must take the legion tactile aspects of human nature into account: a couple of examples being that one person is more ‘touchy’ than another; another hypersensitive to being touched.
The sense of touch is related to Cancer, in whose ‘House’ the Moon abides: no surprise then that the entire human skin is replaced every 28 days, the nominal Moon number. The quality of a person’s skin in one life is dependent on their relation to the world I a former existence, as Rudolf Steiner describes (Dornach, May 1924):
“When a man thinks a great deal, then, in his next earthly life he will have a good skin … Again, when you see people whose skin has sports or freckles, for instance, then you can always infer that they did little thinking in their past life.”
Skin, no matter its surface color, or melanin content, is nominally incarnadine, the color of flesh (sometimes inaccurately translated as “peach blossom”); the hue of incarnation. This is comprised of a mixing of red, black, and white, the tri-color of Atlantis – which is also that expressed in hair; brown being a blending of all three.
That old Atlantean, Cu Chulain, was said to have had a mane of red, black, and white hair. It was in this great epoch that “the Word became flesh”, in the case of humanity, that is. They say that we turn red with anger, black with rage and white with fury (also shame, gloom, and fear?); although these are mere figures of speech, they indicate a deeper truth of extreme soul expression. However, the red face does denote aggression (worse if the lips are purple), the white complexion rather passivity at best, fear at worst (especially if the lips are colorless as well). And speaking of soul, Steiner says of incarnadine that it is the “living image of the soul”, and so it is thought of in physiognomic circles. In his Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo provided us with a self-portrait in the form of his own flayed skin – a picture of a tortured soul indeed!
Steiner described incarnadine as a color that is never at rest; one that refuses to be confined to boundaries. This is why our skin tone can change with varying psychic circumstances – from on minute to the next in some cases. We generally have the best skin form 7-to-14, the life period. Some general skin characteristics are:
A smooth skin suggests healthy life forces (see children above); rough the opposite. A sagging skin is lack of responsibility (a giving up on life, in fact), a tight equivalent being the mark of diligence, perhaps to an excessive degree. Wrinkles suggest a retreat from soul activity in the given area, a shiny skin the opposite. Though some wrinkles can be positive, like the horizontal brow lines of concern for the world (family, whatever), an unnaturally clear brow denoting rather indifference. Wrinkled hands indicate too much ‘head’ activity, a wrinkled face rather a case of too-active hands at the expense of a cerebral life. Lines dropping straight down from the sides of the mouth, more common in older folk, are those of disappointment – if deeply etched, bitterness even (then known as the lemon-sucking lines). A crinkled area between the eyebrows is perennial anxiety. Blotchiness is a disharmony between the black, red and white, or body, soul and spirit, in the same order – a clear-toned skin is indicative of a more congenial disposition.
Skin, like hair, is strongly related to the sexual life. Pimply is the mark, as we see in many adolescents, of sexual disorder or chaos; in the case of the young, this is not necessarily pathological. Dry skin is a paucity of sexual inclination; if extending to scaly, add sexual prudity to the mix. A very oily skin therefore suggests rather sexual prurience of one kind or another. Thin skin, often with a transparent sheen, is, as the vernacular suggests, owned by the person who takes offence easily, who is hypersensitive to the outer world. Thick skin is obviously the opposite, the mark of the hyposensitive soul.
Moist or even wet skin (to excess seen in sufferers of malaria) is a pointer to an overactive fantasy life, in extreme leading to hallucinations. Cold skin, particularly of the feet and hands, indicates a lack of capacity for empathy – overheated skin rather belonging to the more life-engaged soul. Like the hair, the skin, specially of children, should be exposed to adequate sunlight. This aids in the uptake of Vitamin D, preventing disease like rickets and psoriasis. Even more importantly, it allows the vital ego Sun forces to access the soul.
In general terms, “big hair”, as traditionally found in women (and expressed in the eponymous hippie musical, Hair) is Luciferic, a lack of it rather Ahrimanic. That’s why the military won’t tolerate long hair in its ranks. The Luciferic element is responsible for the hair being part of one’s sexual attraction armory, one’s “crowning glory” indeed – or otherwise. Nothing is more off-putting than lank, dirty hair; or poorly styled, perm-damaged, and crudely-dyed locks even – one’s clowning glory, perhaps! Lore and legend are pregnant with examples of this hirsute factor in matters amorous; such as Sampson and Delilah; and the fact that in less enlightened times, it was (and in some places still is) standard to cut off the hair of an adulteress.
The electric nature of hair relates it to the, also electrically-based, nervous system, which it so conveniently mantles. Hence the color and texture of one’s – natural! – hair influences the nature (not content) on one’s thoughts. A severe shock, to use an apt term, can make one’s hair stand on end – an electrical response. In extreme cases, it can even turn one’s hair white overnight, in effect driving out the living color. Rudolf Steiner tells us that plants express the thoughts of the earth, so also does man’s floral equivalent, his hair.
This is seen in racial hair differences; the tight, woolly hair of some indigenous people has a circular cross-section. The circle is the curve of the physical body – hence physical-type thought predominates. The so-straight hair, of, for example, Orientals, is rather elliptical in section, the curve of the etheric body. No surprise then that their thought life takes on a more formative quality; as does that of straight-haired Scandinavians. The wavy hair common in most Europeans, and other folk, like Polynesians, is parabolic in its geometry, the curve of the astral body – more imaginative thought.
When the hair is ‘crinkly’, a square-form (hyperbolic) influence, it indicates rather the dominance of the ego in the individual’s thought life. This kind of hair, the last common, leads, according to Steiner, to the capacity for original, innovative, or creative thinking.
Like most if not all physiognomic elements, the hair can and usually does change throughout life, so there is no character – or in this case thought – absolutes, the particular feature rather expressing the reality of the time. I witnessed this in my own daughter.
As a tot she had gorgeous blonde curls, which straightened out to a light wave of a ‘mousy’ hue in childhood. The big surprise, however, was as a teenager, her now long, darker hair densely curled to a state even of ‘crinkly’. Big hair indeed! Then after she became a mother, her hair, darkening still to a deep brown, became quite straight. As you can surmise, whatever the color or texture of her hair, she was always gorgeous to her adoring father!
“You may be sure that if the materialistic methods of our present-day education were healthier, far fewer man would be walking around with balk heads.”
Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, April 1923
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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