Applied Biodynamics — Issue 016 (Summer 1996)

Issue 016 explains why BD #506 results differ in practice: the issue documents exactly which animal membrane is used, how it is oriented to the blossoms, and what finished-material indicators signal success or failure.

Issue 016 (Summer 1996) is structured around a single practical ambiguity with large downstream consequences: Rudolf Steiner’s conflicting references to “mesentery” and “peritoneum” in relation to making the dandelion preparation (BD #506). Hugh Courtney treats this not as a semantic debate but as an applied production problem, reporting how different tissue choices and handling decisions produce distinct, observable end-states in the finished preparation. A second major component is a long-form interview on water quality and vortex work, presented as a research and practice frontier relevant to stirring and applying biodynamic preparations. The issue closes with two book notices positioned as conceptual supports for understanding processes discussed in Steiner’s Agriculture Course.

“Dandelion Preparation: Mesentery or Peritoneum?” by Hugh J. Courtney publishes an exchange of letters with Dr. Ulrike Remer (Germany), framed explicitly for practitioners making preparations. The article’s technical contribution is twofold:

First, it defines the competing anatomical pathways currently used in practice:

• Using the “mesentery” associated with the small intestine and lymph structures

• Using the “peritoneum,” described as a two-layered membrane lining the abdominal cavity and covering abdominal organs

Second, it ties each pathway to finished-material diagnostics that can be audited at dig-up. Courtney reports that using the peritoneum—when the blossoms are placed on the correct internal side of the membrane—tends to produce a more humus-like preparation. If the blossoms are placed against the wrong side (the outside surface adjacent to the blossoms), the result is described as a slimy, silage-like, foul-smelling mass with blossom structure and colors still visible, treated as a failure mode. In contrast, use of intestinal mesentery layers (including techniques where membranes are split and fat removed) is associated with “unfinished” outcomes where blossom structure remains conspicuous and the material does not reach the same humus-like condition. This section is method-forward: the issue makes the quality criteria visible (odor, texture, degree of humification, persistence of blossom structure) and links those criteria to controllable decisions (tissue selection, membrane orientation, and whether the membrane layers are split).

The article also proposes a concrete handling improvement intended to reduce fat-related complications: hanging stuffed “pillows” of membrane in the summer sun in a protected mesh (fiberglass window screening) so that excess fat melts and extrudes, allowing scraping from the screening. This is presented as a practical efficiency improvement over hand-scraping fat, and as a way to increase consistency before burial. The article’s underlying editorial posture is corrective and empirical: disagreements are resolved not by assertion but by specifying what was done and what the dug-up material actually looked and smelled like.

“A New Way of Looking at Water: An Interview with Jennifer Greene” (interview by Kathryn Dagostino) frames water as more than a carrier medium, then translates that claim into observable and researchable phenomena. Greene, directing the Water Research Institute of Blue Hill (Maine) and working with flowform installations, describes a “new way of looking” that supplements pollution/mechanical paradigms with attention to movement, rhythm, and form in water. Methodologically, the interview emphasizes tools and protocols intended to make differences visible:

• The Drop-picture Method (attributed to Theodor Schwenk’s work) is described as a diagnostic approach producing a sequential “biography” of patterns as drops are introduced into a sample. Water quality is associated with a form-filled but balanced progression between vortex and linear forms and steady development from drop to drop.

• The interview describes simple observation exercises (pouring water, watching eddies when cream or sugar enters tea, observing wave types) as training for qualitative discrimination rather than belief.

• Flowforms are described as creating a figure-of-eight (lemniscate) movement that rhythmically reverses vortex direction and supports oxygenation and mixing without moving parts beyond a pump. Practical applications are named: stirring preparations, water treatment, and mixing substances.

The interview also links biodynamic stirring by hand to a repeatable phenomenology: early effort and fatigue give way mid-process to a noticeable cohesion where water “stirs itself” more easily and droplet character changes, framed as an observable transition during sustained vortex formation. Importantly for anti-pseudoscience by demonstration, the interview repeatedly points to experiments that make motion visible (dye, floating particles) and outlines an active research landscape: multiple stirring devices, vessel forms, water types, and temperature are presented as variables for investigation by research institutes.

Two short notices add institutional and editorial context. A personal note from Hugh Courtney explains reduced operational capacity due to a serious family accident and reports reliance on specific helpers to maintain work continuity. A building progress report links construction timelines to starting production of the Pfeiffer BD Compost Starter later in the year and invites labor and financial contributions, reinforcing that biodynamic preparation work is inseparable from real infrastructure and staffing constraints.

The issue concludes with book notices for two titles newly added to the publications list. Ernst Marti’s The Four Ethers is presented as an anthroposophic nature study distinguishing fourfold etheric activity and relating formative forces to substance and form. Benesch and Wilde’s Silica, Calcium, and Clay: Processes in Mineral, Plant, Animal, and Man is framed as a condensed primer in Goethean science with relevance for teachers, physicians, and farmers seeking process-level understanding of mineral and living transformations. Both notices explicitly position these texts as aids for deepening comprehension of concepts in Steiner’s Agriculture Course.

Articles

• Dandelion Preparation: Mesentery or Peritoneum? (H. Courtney) 
• A New Way of Looking at Water: An Interview with Jennifer  Greene (K. Dagostino)  
• Book Reviews: The Four Ethers by E. Marti and Silica, Calcium,  and Clay by F. Benesch and K. Wilde  

Key Topics Covered

• BD #506 tissue selection mesentery versus peritoneum as a controllable variable in preparation making
• Membrane orientation as a failure mode producing humus-like versus slimy silage-like outcomes
• Finished-preparation evaluation indicators including odor texture and persistence of blossom structure
• Summer-sun hanging method using screening to melt and remove excess fat from BD #506 pillows
• Water quality evaluated through form movement rhythm and qualitative diagnostics
• Drop-picture method described as a patterned biography of water movement under repeated drops
• Flowforms as figure-of-eight water movement for oxygenation mixing and preparation stirring
• Observable vortex experiments using dye and floating particles to reveal hidden rhythms
• Research variables for stirring including devices vessel shape water type temperature and administration methods
• Book notice on fourfold ether concept as a framework for formative forces in nature
• Book notice on silica calcium and clay as process studies across mineral plant animal and human domains

Citation

Source: Applied Biodynamics, Issue 016, Josephine Porter Institute, 1996.