used as cardiotonics. Many such herbs can be recognized at a glance. Today, the doctrine of signatures is regarded as utter superstition. The similarity between the temporal rhythm (of the heartbeat) and the spatial rhythm (the leaves on the stem) is an analogy that does not involve any causal connection. There is no reason to associate them. However, man unburdened by science saw that they are related. His chest is the only part of the body where everything constantly pulsates in a temporal rhythm of heartbeat and breath. At the same time, it is the part of the body that is spatially organized into a rhythm of ribs and vertebrae. Here before his very eyes was a palpable transition of the temporal to a spatial rhythm. It was enough simply to look at one’s own self! The herbal stem evolved along the same geological timeline as the spine; the rib cage along with the branching out of the stem into leaves; the heart and the cardiovascular system evolved at the same time as vascular plants with their circulatory system. This parallel evolution took place in the older Paleozoic era. Are they really not interrelated? Not only their form and function is analogical, but they also came about at the same time. According to science, they cannot be interrelated: after all, a stem is not a spine and they have no common genes inherited from any ancestor. There is an abyss in terms of evolution between man and plant so that they cannot be homological in structure. And yet they are similar. The rhythmical green of the leaves with the stem constitute a respiratory and circulatory system much like the human chest with the heart – and they also contain many similar compounds (porphyrins, glycosides). The flower is the reproductive organ of the plant and contains many compounds associated with sex in humans (phytoestrogens, essential oils and pigments). Thus, herbs with a rich flowerage can serve in this way. Finally, many compounds similar to those in the human head can be found in the root. These include alkaloids that serve as neurotransmitters in humans, and that is why they affect the nervous system. What are they doing in the plant’s root? Only in the last decade have scientists gathered evidence that the vegetal root is an organ comparable to the brain of lower animals. Root cells are very active sensorially and electrically; information about the environment is processed, computations and decisions about the plant’s further behavior take place there. A new subbranch has come into existence: plant neurobiology. Thus, the science of the 21st century arrived at something anew that has been known intuitively to others for centuries. Of course, the old intuitive wisdom did not provide us with the amount of detailed and precise information that modern science does. But would not cooperation with intuition (instead of its suppression) make science more advanced? Anthroposophic pharmacy has built upon the threefold analogy of man and plant for a century already – why can it not be debated at universities? Let us reflect upon this statement: “The butterfly is a flower that took wings” (Skácel 2005, 78). Or this one: “Behold the plant: it is a butterfly fettered by the earth. Behold the butterfly: it is a plant freed by the cosmos” (Steiner 1993, 60 (24) Emil Páleš
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