Sense of taste

The sense of taste or gustatory sensation, is one of the twelve physical senses Rudolf Steiner spoke of in his theory of the senses. However, what is commonly referred to as the sensation of taste is a complex interaction of the actual sense of taste and the sense of smell together with tactile and temperature information from the oral cavity.

The sense of taste is closely related to the intellectual or mind soul and to an interaction of feelings:

„The sense of taste works in its way because in it the etheric body is worked upon by the intellectual or mind soul. This soul pours out the astral currents through the organ of taste and sends them towards the substances on the tongue. - [...]

Just as in the sense of smell what pours out is of a volitional nature, so in the sense of taste what flows out to meet the food is of a feeling nature, and what flows in is also of a feeling nature. So here, in tasting, feeling interacts with feeling. Everything else about it is merely maya, merely an external sign. Here a feeling effect shows itself as sense, namely the tasting is felt as pleasant, unpleasant, adverse and so on. However, one is not dealing with the feeling itself, but only with corresponding interactions of feelings.“ (Lit.:GA 115, p. 42f)

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Anthroposophie – Psychosophie – Pneumatosophie, GA 115 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-1150-3 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Sprachgestaltung und Dramatische Kunst, GA 282 (1981), ISBN 3-7274-2820-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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