BD Brain Teasers

[Roger Pye]

1. Did Steiner really intend BD502-507 to be used solely in compost manufacture?

2. Did he identify equisetum as BD508 or was it someone else?

3. Is there a 'missing' BD509? If so, what might it and its purpose be?

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Someone told me once, or I have read it and forgotten where, that the preps are not numbered sequentially but that 502-508 actually fall between 500 and 501. That is, the 'sequence' could be 500, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 501.

The plant growth cycle is divisible into nine stages - mature seed, cotyledons, buds, leaves, calyx, petals, pistils, fruit, immature seed.

There are at least twelve major building blocks of life - eg calcium, magnesium, potassium, sulphur, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, silicon, sodium, chlorine, manganese.

There are also trace elements and other minerals that life needs - eg copper, mercury, iron, silver, tin, zinc, lead, aluminium.

Now if we look at the preps we find that some of these are represented and the plant stages fit conveniently as well.

500 - horn manure - calcium - (balances soil, encourages microbial life)
502 - yarrow - sulphur - copper - (seed)
503 - chamomile - oxygen - mercury - (cotyledons)
504 - nettle - nitrogen - iron - (bud) 505 - oak bark - carbon - silver - (leaves)
506 - dandelion - hydrogen - tin - (calyx) 507 - valerian - phosphorus - lead - (petals)
508 - equisetum - silica - (pistils, stamen)
(509) - ?? - ?? - (fruit)
501 - horn silica - light energy - (seed)

Given the exactitude of scientists it seems unlikely that Steiner numbered his preparations in the order they 'came off the shelf' but that he had a reason for assigning the numbers as he did. One attribute all the preps have in common is energy. Could it be that in some way he assessed the amount of energy held within each prep, aligned it with the appropriate stage of plant growth, and numbered it accordingly?

Back in 1924 the soils of Europe held a natural fertility that isn't there any more. Germany and Austria had been saddled with a reparations bill for world war I which was virtually impossible to pay (no prizes for guessing which country was behind that). Farmers were under pressure to produce more with less, added to which commodity prices were falling and would not recover for at least ten years. Hence the use of artificial fertilisers which were adversely affecting soil fertility.

Steiner produced his preparations to counter those effects and take the soil back to its original fertility. How did he do that? Indeed, how did he know what that 'fertility' state was?

Let us now enter the realm of fantasy. Let us suppose Steiner had a device which enabled him to measure the amount of 'standing' energy held in things and that at some time pre-superphosphate era he had measured the soil and come up with an amount I shall call X enertrons. In 1924 he remeasured the soil and it had a reading of X minus 100 enertrons. In developing the preps, he conceived that:
horn manure would restore the level to X,
seed germination required an additional 200en,
cotyledrons another 300en
buds another 400
leaves another 500
calyx another 600
petals another 700
pistils another 800
fruit another 900
mature seed another 1000

His insights and experience led him to the development of matching preps and initially he numbered them to suit: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000.

However he already had 499 homeopathic remedies. So he kept the capital figures, prefixed them with '50' and knocked off the remaining zeros, giving him 501, 502 . . . 509, 501. As he could not have two 501s, and did not have a 500 either, he took a further step and changed the first 501 to 500.

As I said before, this is a fantasy. However, I do have a device which measures energy and this tells me that BD500 = 100, BD501 = 1000, and chamomile, nettle and dandelion = 200, 300 and 600 respectively. I can't measure the others because I don't have any but 5 out of 10 seems pretty good to me!

So - what is BD509 and what does it do?

roger