You Can't Take the Sky From Me

why biodynamics isn't a science (but can be demonstrated scientifically)

As the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer writes, “There are intuitive anticipations of knowledge, like the knowledge of the salvation of the homo religiosus, which often has something to say to the doctor, or the ‘knowledge’ of the poet, which is able to outdistance that of the psychologist, sociologist, historian and philosopher.”¹ It is from this space that biodynamics is born. Biodynamics may be the practical fruit of spiritual insight, but this does not mean that biodynamics itself is a science in the external popular sense. Biodynamics is fundamentally something other than the scientific method. Biodynamics is adapting something creatively that is a universal principle while tailoring it to the unique demands of each situation. It is never perfect — and that is where it belongs to the realm of artistic feeling. Leonardo da Vinci is quoted as saying, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” There’s some truth to this. We can never wait for the “ideal” day to do our work. There is always something to be said against our course of action — yet we must choose to do something. If we waited for the perfect moment, we would never do anything. Alternatively, if we tried to impose ideological perfection on external reality, we would quickly stray into totalitarianism.

Only the poetic heart can hold the unresolvable tension between the ideal and the real. Biodynamics lies closer to the rhythms of music, the compositions of art, and the flourishes of poetry than to laboratory science. Even though the concepts and hypotheses of biodynamics may be tested, their real-world application requires a dynamic adaptive sense of artistic feeling: the ability to move closer toward the ideal while accepting the imperfect realization of those ideals. As the artist Paul Klee said, “The purpose of art is to make the invisible visible.” What is biodynamics but the art of helping a plant make visible the invisible formative forces behind the veil of appearances? Why wouldn’t it be this way? The dynamics of life are poetry and poeisis.² It is not the scientist who will save us, but the poet. While many would like to slander biodynamics as a “pseudoscience,” biodynamics is, instead, an intuitive anticipation of knowledge. It would be as absurd to call “expressionism” in art a “pseudoscience” as it is to call biodynamics the same.

The hypothesis advanced by biodynamics may be evaluated using the scientific method, but reaching the rigor of a peer-reviewed double-blind study is enormously difficult for several reasons. First, most scientific studies are debunked within a few years of their publication due to flaws in the procedure. Second, living ecosystems are notoriously difficult to influence. Proving causality is difficult enough in controlled laboratory conditions, much less in the tangled mess of field trials where every soil type is different, every plant is genetically distinct, and the weather is unpredictable. Finally, it is extremely expensive to undertake a large enough study that can provide broadly applicable and statistically significant results. Who is going to pay for such a thing? The transnational corporations that might fund a biodynamic study that would meet the standards of scientific rigor have absolutely no financial incentive to do so. You can’t patent the moon.³ Moreover, the biodynamic preparations claim to significance, champions making farmers less dependent on agrichemicals and outside inputs. As such, there are good reasons to besmirch such an approach from the standpoint of a perverse financial incentive. If we were charitable and imagined there wasn’t any negative prejudice against an approach to agriculture that promises to make farmers less profitable customers to agrichemical companies, the accusation of “pseudoscience” is something that crosses a line. There are many things that were considered ridiculous, even by the scientific community, until someone succeeded in doing what was previously considered impossible.

Biodynamics, as an “intuitive anticipation of knowledge,” is not a science but a hypothesis that cannot be dismissed easily. Most scientific studies end with the disheartening conclusion: “inconclusive” or “merits further research.” However, the lack of sufficient peer-reviewed evidence in favor of biodynamics — from a statistically significant exoteric scientific standpoint — in no way disproves its efficacy. Even when a study cannot demonstrate statistical significance — namely, cannot demonstrate that action A caused effect B more likely than random chance — that doesn’t mean that A didn’t cause B just because we can’t prove it. As the saying goes, the lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack. And so the frontlines of biodynamics, with few exceptions, remain in the hands of actual practitioners out in the field: farmers and gardeners. You and me. As such, it’s important for us to record our success stories — and our failures — but always to be cautious about attributing causality. It is safer to say: I do X, and I do Y, and I do Z. And then, somewhat distinctly, I also see such-and-such as a phenomenon after the fact. I don’t know whether it’s X or Y or Z (or a combination of different things) that caused this, but I see such-and-such and the emergent result is remarkable. Caution attributing causality to black box scenarios like living ecosystems (such as soil) is generally healthier because causality (read: “karma”) is a veritable Gordian knot of subtleties.

Gordian knot

Living topsoil is often referred to as a sort of “black box” because you put something in and what happens can be completely unexpected. We don’t fully understand the inner workings of soil, nor what one action will elicit from the earth. Karma is even more complex, so demonstrating causality is an intimidating task. It is better for us to note that I did X, and I see certain results. Abstaining from claiming causality keeps our work humble. Yes, biodynamic preparations work well enough that we can articulate a positive hypothesis that scientific funding — if it ever so favored making farms more ecologically self-sufficient — may eventually be proven. Conceptually, biodynamics may “make sense” to us, but that is not enough for the rest of the world. It must be demonstrated empirically — and repeatedly — so many times that its efficacy becomes “beyond a shadow of a doubt” (to put it in terms of criminal justice) or “statistical significance” (to put it in terms of exoteric science). In this sense, Rudolf Steiner himself confirms this: the spiritual concepts, applied to practical life, will eventually prove themselves out statistically, but this is only if true impartiality and well-designed studies are implemented meticulously.

The biggest error many of us make is post hoc ergo propter hoc, namely, the erroneous conclusion that because A happened shortly before B, therefore, A must have caused B. Of course, life is much more complex than this. Many things have been bearing down on us for weeks — or years — and finally precipitating. But if I’ve been overspending money and then one day buy one too many lattes and get an overdraft charge on my bank account, it would be incorrect to blame lattes exclusively for my overdraft fee. Yes, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, perhaps, but it was not the entire problem, even though buying it happened immediately before the negative consequence. Merely abstaining from lattes in the future won’t help if the underlying behavioral pattern of squandering resources remains in place.

If we take a step further back, there is hereditary intergenerational trauma (“to the third and fourth generation”), and if we consider karma across many lives, then consequences not just from my childhood or from my bio family but entire forgotten lives return to me. The esotericist learns to feel everything that happens to them as their own character returning to them. You can see why the Buddha called this a “bitter pill.” The idea of karma is an extremely bitter pill to swallow, but it isn’t necessary that we agree with the idea of karma to recognize how inconceivably complex causality is.

In the “lean” method implemented by Toyota, the approach to diagnosing problems is to ask “Why?” a minimum of six times. While the sixth answer may not be the root cause, you’re much closer to a root cause than if you blame the last thing that happened. If I contract a diet-related disease, I cannot blame the blood test I get at the doctor’s office for “causing” the disease, even though the test directly preceded the bad news.

Event A happens immediately before event B. However, claiming that “therefore A caused B” is a fallacious conclusion. Soil dynamics are infinitely more complex, and the dynamics of karma even more so.

Causality is complex, especially in a living system such as soil or something even more fluid, such as interpersonal karma. The hypotheses we make should be relatively modest and ones we can test. Ideally, they are ones that others can test for themselves as well. If each time I use the biodynamic preparations, I see sustained fertility, that is something I can test. With biodynamics, you should start with a small area. Why? Because if you don’t, you won’t be able to dissuade that obnoxious empiricist at the back of your mind. By treating only one small area and leaving the rest of your garden untreated, you will have a contrast. If you continue only treating one section for a few years, you will soon begin to experience for yourself the difference. Moreover, once you have gained confidence not merely in terms of understanding concepts but seeing it performing its work in the garden, you won’t have to doubt it ever again.

If you treat your entire property all at once in the beginning, several things may happen: you have a wonderful year, but what if it was just because you got the perfect amount of rain? If you get a drought the next year, you may jump to the conclusion that biodynamics doesn’t work! Additionally, if the opposite happens: you spray out your preparations and something unusual happens, that doesn’t mean that the preparations caused it. As Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer says, what emerges as problems in our orchard and garden is usually due to what we did last year — or even earlier years.⁴ If you treat the entire garden without first establishing a trial plot, you may always wonder if you just got lucky one year or if biodynamics worked the magic.

For example, around our house, we first started treating four acres out of our forty with biodynamic sprays. We continued to do so over and over for years before then expanding it to the entire property. To this day, the area around our house outperforms the rest of the farm, reminding us that this stuff can work while also remaining a motivation to keep treating the rest because those parts, too, will eventually arrive at that level of fertility. Your first pioneer plot will always remain slightly “ahead” of the rest, which is how our ideals should be: a perpetual aspiration. Having that solitary trial plot can give you a living picture of what the rest of the garden may one day become. Such a plot will be almost like the Picture of Dorian Gray… in reverse! Rather than this reference picture getting worse and worse, your small pioneer plot will remain a picture of a progressively healthier and more fertile garden every year.

Because the moon can’t be patented, we may not get the kind of rigorously exoteric scientific research we might like the world to have, but we should be cautious about claiming that biodynamics is a “science” in the popular sense while equally resisting claims that it is a “pseudoscience.” Biodynamics is not mere vague sentiment nor cold statistics but something in between heaven and earth: it is Life itself. It is not the task of farmers to become scientists, though they may approach things with a scientific temperament. It is the task of biodynamic farmers and gardeners to do the work and provide such puzzling results that the scientific community simply cannot ignore biodynamics and, eventually, seek to demonstrate the efficacy of our approach with full scientific rigor. Art follows inspiration, and science follows intuition.

1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Enigma of Health, pg. 29.

2. In continental philosophy and semiotics, poiesis is the process of emergence of something that did not previously exist.

3. In the Soviet Union, where resources were relatively scarce, even planting by the moon and subtle energies were explored — as paradoxical as that might sound for a dialectical materialist regime, but necessity is the mother of invention. See: Secrets of the Soil by Peter Tompkin and Christopher Bird.

4. The same can be said for democracies.