Medicine

From Anthroposophy

Healing is the broad term for practice of managing and restoring health, and curing illnesses or diseases.

In the contemporary worldview of mineral science, the term medicine is more often used for healing, as wikipedia describes:

Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient and managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment or palliation of their injury or disease. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others.

In few areas does the spiritual scientific worldview provide such a dramatically different and impactful way to look at the human being with a direct impact on human lives and physical health. Whereas 'mineral science' considers man as a purely mineral or material, physical being, the reality is that Man is a much more complex being, consisting of four bodily principles and three functional subsystems.

Illnesses arise due to irregularities in any of these bodily principles, and/or misalignment and unbalance between these bodily principles and subsystems. Any 'issue' at a higher level (such as the human 'I') ripples through the lower bodies and find expression in the astral body, etheric or physical body.

Due to the origin of illnesses related with the Fall and the related concept of 'original sin' (see Model for hereditary physical body), the deepest causes of illness lie in the astral body and in its bad effects on the etheric body, and by way of the etheric body on the physical body. (1908-12-08-GA107)

Therefore, not just physical material processes need to be considered but also alchemical processes in which the full spectrum of elements and higher ethers is at work, see eg the principles of potentization for treating the human etheric body, or the processes of transmutation in the metabolic subsystem. Furthermore the curing of irregularities in or unbalanced between the human astral body and the Human 'I' are in the area of the soul.

Contemporary medical science strength lies in the mineral side of medicine, all that has to do with the material physical body of Man (eg correcting bone fractures etc). For most other areas the limited materialistic frame of thought with which Man is studied does not allow true diagnosis to root cause, nor healing. In many ways therefore the contemporary medical practice focusing on the mineral only can not come to an understanding and focuses treatments on symptoms and not root causes. In case there is no real understanding, reference is often made to genetic reasons, problems with the auto-immune system, etc.

Aspects

  • what is Illness and different types of illnesses
  • healing: principles of treatment
  • different types of treatment such as:
    • homeopathy and the principle of potentization
    • healing with plants, and healing with metals
    • pastoral medicine for the soul (see eg 1924-09-GA318)
    • curative education (see eg 1924-GA317)
    • Eurythmy therapy (previously also called curative or therapeutic eurythmy) (see eg 1921-04-GA315)
    • the effect of mineral substances as used in contemporary materialistic medicine and focusing in the mineral physical body only: the mineral substance becomes diffused and acquired the human form, a phantom or double consisting of the substance taken in. This prevents the physical body to obey the influences of the astral and etheric bodies, artificially disconnecting it, whereby the physial body becomes an hardened independent being subject to its own laws. (1908-12-08-GA107)
    • vaccination (eg smallpox) - see oa 1910-05-25-GA120 below; also see 1908-02-16-GA244 - QA 155.1, 1917-05-20-GA174A, 1917-10-07-GA177, 1917-10-27-GA177 on Contemporary worldview war)
  • geographic medicine, ao given the dependency of the influence of the higher ethers on geography (re GA178: 1917-11-15-GA178 and 1917-11-16-GA178, see also: The double)
  • historical development of anthroposophical medicine
    • Weleda, founded in 1921
    • in the 1990s the Witten/Herdecke University in Germany established a chair in anthroposophical medicine
  • magical healing

Inspirational quotes

Ron Young

Healing .. and .. the phenomena .. are a by-product of the love .. of the service you give.

Illustrations


Lecture coverage and references

Main courses

The following contains a base course of 82 lectures. It is supplemented with additional lectures and 'Extending practical medicine' (see references below)

as well as: 20 extra lectures on other aspects:

  • 1921-04-GA315 - Curative Eurythmy [8]
  • 1924-GA317 - Curative education [12] focusing on treatment of children “in need of special care”. This includes retarded and handicapped and cases such as: epilepsy, hydrocephalus, infantilism, adenoids, kleptomania, the autistic child, etc.

Methods of healing


See more: Healing with plants, Healing with metals, Homeopathy, Curative Eurythmy

1908-12-08-GA107

'lets the cat out of the bag' regarding the effects of chemically produced drugs by the pharma industry, as a result of the contemporary materialistic mineral worldview

I will now speak of ordinary mineral medicaments. A medicament from the mineral kingdom works in the first place on man's physical body. Now what is the significance of man giving his physical body a mineral medicament? Please note that we are not going to speak of any plant medicaments but purely mineral ones, what is prescribed in the way of metals and salts and so on.

Suppose someone takes one or another mineral medicament. Something very remarkable is then seen by clairvoyant consciousness. This clairvoyant consciousness can carry out the following feat — it always has the ability to divert its attention away from something. It is possible to divert the attention from the whole physical body. Then you still see the etheric body, the astral body and the ego aura. You have suggested away the physical body through strongly negative attention. Now if someone has taken a mineral medicament, you can remove everything from your attention and just direct your clairvoyant vision to the mineral or metal that he now has within him. That is, you suggest away everything in him of the nature of bone, muscle, blood and so on, and turn your attention solely to the particular mineral substance that has permeated him. Something very remarkable presents itself to clairvoyant consciousness.

This mineral substance has become very thinly diffused and has itself acquired the human form. You have before you a human form, a human phantom consisting of the substance taken in by the man. Supposing the person has taken antimony, you have before you a human form of very finely diffused antimony, and it is the same with every mineral medicament a man takes. You create a new man within you consisting of this mineral substance; you incorporate it.

Now let us ask ourselves what the purpose and significance of this is?

The significance is that if you were to leave a man as he is and withhold from him the medicine he really needs, then because of certain bad forces in his astral body, the astral body would work on the etheric body, and the latter on the physical body and gradually destroy it. You have put a double into the physical body. This works to prevent the physical body obeying the influences of the astral body. Imagine you have a bean plant. If you give it a prop it winds up it and is no longer blown by the wind. This double made out of the incorporated substance is a prop like this for the man. It attaches the physical body to itself and removes it from the influences of the astral and etheric body. In this way you make the human being's physical body independent as it were of his astral and etheric body. This is the effect of a mineral medicament.

But you will immediately see the bad side of it, for it has a very serious drawback. Since you withdraw the physical body artificially from its connection with the other bodies you have weakened the influence of the astral and etheric body on the physical body and have made the physical body independent. And the oftener you take such medicines the more the influence of the astral and the etheric body disappears, making the physical body a hardened, independent being, subject to its own laws.

Imagine what people are doing who take mineral medicaments of this sort all their lives. A man who has in course of time taken a lot of these mineral medicaments has within him a phantom of all these minerals, a round dozen of them. It is as though the physical body were surrounded by solid walls. And what kind of influence can the astral and etheric body still have on it? Such a person is actually dragging his body around with him and has very little power over it. If a man who has been dosing himself in this way for a long time applies for treatment to someone who wants to treat him psychologically and work especially on his finer bodies, he will discover that he has become more or less unreceptive to psychological influences. For by making his physical body independent in the first place, he has deprived it of the possibility of being affected by anything that might take place in his finer bodies. And this has happened mainly because the human being has so many phantoms in him that are not in harmony, that they pull him hither and thither. If the human being has deprived himself of the possibility of working from out of his soul and spirit, he need not be surprised if spiritual treatment is not very successful either. In cases of psychological treatment, therefore, you should always give consideration to the kind of person the patient is. If he has made his astral or etheric body powerless by making his physical body independent, then it will be very difficult to help such a person by means of spiritual treatment.

So now we understand how mineral substances affect a man. They create doubles in him that preserve his physical body and remove it from the possible harmful effects of his astral or etheric body. Because materialistic medicine is ignorant of man's higher members, almost all our present-day medicine works in the direction of treating the physical body in some way or another only.

We have begun today by looking at the effects of mineral substances. Some time we shall have to speak of the effects of plant forces and animal substances on the human organism, and then we shall go on to those influences or remedies that work from one being to another in a psychic or spiritual way. But you will see that it is essential for our studies for us to acquire once again such concepts as the concept of original sin and understand it correctly. With certain things nowadays people just do not see what lies in front of them and show no understanding for them at all.

1910-05-25-GA120

Now it will be clear why in our period the protection of vaccination appeared. We also understand why, among the best minds of our period, there exists a kind of aversion to vaccination. This aversion corresponds to something within, and is the external expression of an inner reality. So if on the one hand we destroy the physical expression of a previous fault, we should, on the other hand, undertake the duty of transforming the materialistic character of such a person by means of a corresponding spiritual education. This would constitute the indispensable counterpart without which we are performing only half our task. We are merely accomplishing something to which the person in question will himself have to produce a counterpart in a later incarnation. If we destroy the susceptibility to smallpox, we are concentrating only on the external side of karmic activity. If on the one side we go in for hygiene, it is necessary that on the other we should feel it our duty to contribute to the person whose organism has been so transformed, something also for the good of his soul. Vaccination will not be harmful if, subsequent to vaccination, the person receives a spiritual education. If we concentrate upon one side only and lay no emphasis upon the other, we weigh down the balance unevenly. This is really what is felt in those circles which maintain that where hygienic measures go too far, only weak natures will be propagated. This of course is not justifiable, but we see how essential it is that we should not undertake one task without the other.

1916-12-18-GA173

in the not too distant future a total reversal in the whole people think about sickness and health will become apparent. Medicine will become filled with what can be understood spiritually when one learns to see illness as the consequence of spiritual causes.

..

First the shackles must be removed! So long as the field is still totally occupied by materialistic medicine it is impossible to do anything, even in individual cases. In this field it is necessary to be truly Christian - that is Pauline ) and to know that sin comes from the law and not conversely, the law from sin.

1916-12-24-GA173

longer extract on topic page Nerthus

I have often suggested that if spiritual science comes to be taken up more fully by people then .. it will influence medicine, the art of healing.

Certain more physical methods of healing will be found for sicknesses of the soul, and more spiritual metnods for bodily illnesses.

I told you why this is not yet possible: It is simply because the sins have been created by the law and not the law by the sins.

So long as the laws work in such a way that materialistic medicine is considered to represent them —and that is the case today—so long will individuals, however thorough their insight, be unable to do anything and, indeed, they ought not to do anything.

But a time will come in the not too distant future when medicine, the art of healing, will incorporate the impulses which come from spiritual knowledge.

I merely want to point this out for the moment, since I am actually leading up to something else. Knowledge of the healing forces is inseparable from knowledge of the forces of sickness.

One cannot be taught without the other. No one in the world can gain knowledge of the healing forces, without at the same time learning about the forces of sickness.

So you can see how important it is for people to be morally good through and through as regards such serious matters.

For someone who can heal a person’s soul can also make a person’s soul sick in the same degree. Therefore such truths may not be imparted by the gods to man until a stage of morality has been reached at which the healing medicine cannot be transformed into poison.

1923-01-08-GA348

Health and Illness cycle, lecture on 'The Effects of Alcohol on Man'

Certainly, one can prohibit this or that, but people then hit on something else, which, as a rule, is not better but much worse. I therefore believe that enlightening explanations, like the one we presented today regarding the effects of alcohol, for example, can be much more effective and will gradually bring human beings to refrain from alcohol on their own.

This does not infringe on human freedom, but understanding causes a person to say to himself, “Why, this is shocking! I am harmed right into my bones!”

This becomes effective as feeling, whereas laws work only on the intellect. The real truths, the real insights, are those that work all the way into feeling.

It is therefore my conviction that we can arrive at an effective social reform — and in other spheres it is much the same — only if true enlightenment in the widest circles of people is made our concern.

1923-02-17-GA349

discusses the success rate of various types treatments and difficulties that follow from slogans or only a single type of treatment method

.. it is not possible to cure all illnesses homeopathically, some have to be treated alloapthically .. the allopath addresses himself above all to the stomach, intestines, kidneys; there he gets his results, the homeopath gives effective treatment if the sicknesses have their point of origin in the head, as in the case of influenza. Many sicknesses have their origin in the head

1923-02-21-GA349

talks about sickness and health in relation to colour

Discussion

Note 1 - Healers in history

Below are some names of healers in history. Note that with some or most of them, healing was an unconscious capability (hence references to a voice or some other entity (eg Fricker, Arigo)).

This is quite different from conscious healing by highly advanced adepts such as by Daskalos or Franz Bardon.

More on healing also on the websites of some Students of Daskalos

  • George Fox (1624-1691)
    • founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. He rebelled against the religious and political authorities by proposing an unusual, uncompromising approach to the Christian faith. He travelled throughout Britain as a dissenting preacher and performed hundreds of healings, records of which were collected in a notable but now lost book entitled 'Book of Miracles'.
  • Harry James Edwards (1893-1976)
  • Hilda Charlton (1906-1988)
  • Bruno Gröning (1906-1959)
    • not without controversy, from wikipedia:

      Gröning's concept of himself was that he was an 'appointed person', given the task and capacity to help people by God .. a 'mediator' in terms of his role and ability to help people connect with the healing stream

  • Edward George 'Ted' Fricker (1910-1986), re the books: 'God is My Witness and 'I hear a voice'
  • Yolanda Betegh (1911-1986), see eg the 1981 documentary on youtube
  • Zé Arigó (José Pedro de Freitas) (1921-1971)

Related pages

References and further reading

  • Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman: 'Extending practical medicine' (1925)
  • Witten/Herdecke University: Chair of Medical Theory, Integrative and Anthroposophic Medicine - info

Some pioneers of anthroposophical medicine

Certainly not exhaustive, but as a start ..

  • Friedrich Husemann (1887-1959)
    • The Anthroposophical Approach to Medicine (1982, edited by Dr. Otto Wolff)
    • Das Bild des Menschen als Grundlage der Heilkunst. Entwurf einer geisteswissenschaftlich orientierten Medizin (3 volumes, republished by Dr. Otto Wolff)
  • Heinz-Hartmut Vogel (1914-1995)
    • Finding Remedies - Spiritual Knowledge of Man and Nature, Vol. 1&2 (2000)
      • original in DE: 'Wege der Heilmittelfindung, Beiträge zu einer medizinischen Menschenkunde (am Beispiel der WALA Heilmittel-Kompositionen)'
    • Organe der Ich-Organisation : ihre Wirksamkeit in Haut, Blut und Lymphe, Pankreas und Wirbelsäule ; das Problem der Allergie
    • Die vier Hauptorgane Herz - Niere - Leber - Lunge - Anthroposophisch-menschenkundliche Gesichtspunkte zur Entwicklungsgeschichte
    • Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte, Physiologie und Pathologie der Wirbelsäule
    • Zur Krankheitsdisposition - Krankheit und Heilung, Neurasthenie und Hysterie, Das Alter, Die Immunität und der rheumatische Formenkreis
    • Die Allergie
    • Blut und Lymphe : entwicklungsgeschichtliche und morphologisch-pathologische Phänomene zum Verständnis der Kreislauferkrankungen und ihrer Therapie
  • Herbert Sieweke (1917-1993)
    • Anthroposophische Medizin (1959)
    • Gesundheit und Krankheit als Verwirklichungsformen menschlichen Daseins (1969)
    • Vom Heilen - seinem Wesen und seinen Bedingungen
  • Otto Wolff (1921-2003)
    • 'Anthroposophisch orientierte Medizin und ihre Heilmittel' (1996)
    • Heilmittel für typische Krankheiten: Rudolf Steiners methodisch neu konzipierte Heilmittel (2013)
  • Others

General

  • Werner-Christian Simonis: 'Erde Mensch und Krankheit' (1974)
  • Victor Bott: 'Spiritual science and the art of healing - Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical medicine' (1984, 1996)
  • Heinz Herbert Schöffler: 'Anthroposophische Medizin: Eine Erstinformation : mit einem Verzeichnis aller Kliniken und Sanatorien der anthroposophisch-medizinischen Bewegung' (1991)
  • H-H. Vogel: 'Finding Remedies: Spiritual Knowledge of Man and Nature', vol 1, vol 2 (2000)
  • Peter Selg: 'Anfänge Anthroposophischer Heilkunst: Ita Wegman, Friedrich Husemann, Eugen Kolisko, FW Zeylmans van Emmichoven, Karl König, Gerhard Kienle' (2000)
  • M. Huber: 'Foundations of Anthroposophical Medicine: A training Manual Paperback' (2003)
  • Kienle G, Helmut L, Hans-Ullrich A. Anthroposophic Medicine: Effectiveness, Utility, Costs, Safety (2006)
  • Friedwart Husemann: 'Anthroposophische Medizin: Ein Weg zu den heilenden Kräften' (2008)
  • Evans M, Rodgers I. Complete Healing: Regaining Your Health Through Anthroposophical Medicine (2010)
  • Peter Heusser: 'Anthroposophy and Science - An Introduction' (2016)
  • M. Girke M. Internal Medicine: Foundations and Therapeutic Concepts of Anthroposophic Medicine (2016)
  • Michaela Glöckler: 'Was ist anthroposophische Medizin?' (2017)
  • Franziska Roemer: 'Therapiekonzepte der Anthroposophischen Medizin: Stufenpläne mit Differenzialdiagnostik (2018)
  • Armin J. Husemann: 'Form, Life, and Consciousness: An Introduction to Anthroposophic Medicine and Study of the Human Being' (2019)

.

  • Matthias Girke, Michaela Glöckler, Georg Soldner: 'Anthroposophische Medizin: Arzneitherapie für 350 Krankheitsbilder'
  • Birgit Emde, Juliane Riedel: 'Anthroposophische Arzneimittel: Beratungsempfehlungen für die Selbstmedikation'
  • Heinz Hartmut Vogel: 'Wege der Heilmittelfindung: Menschenkunde und Heilmittelerkenntnis' (2 Volumes)
  • various authors ( Otto Wolff, Gerhard Kienle, Martin Kriele, Martin Stübler, Walther Bühler, Herman Schütz)
    • Lebenshilfen (12 volumes)
      • Vol 3: 'Arzneimittel - Was ist Heilung'
      • Vol. 10: 'Zeitkrankheiten. Entstehung - Vorbeugung - Ganzheitsbehandlung. Allergien, Krebs, Rheuma, Aids'

Articles

  • Keinle G, Glockmann A, Grugel R, et al. Clinical research on anthroposophic medicine: Update of a health technology assessment report and status quo. Forsch Komplementdrmed. 2011;18(5):269-282. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • Hamre HJ, Kiene H, Ziegler R, et al. Overview of the publications from the anthroposophic medicine outcomes study (AMOS): A whole systems evaluation study. Glob Adv Health Med. 2014;3(1):54-70

Magical healing

  • Karl Brandler-Pracht: 'Der Heilmagnetismus vom okkulten Standpunkt' (1914 and 1922 and 2006)
  • Josephine McCarthy: 'Magical healing: A health survival guide ...' (2018)

Various other healing methods

Light and colour

  • Gladys Mayer
    • The mystery-wisdom of colour : its creative and healing powers (1961)
    • Colour and healing (1964)
  • Norbert Glas: 'Zur Farben-Licht-Behandlung' (1978)
  • Theo Gimbel:
    • 'Healing through colour' (1980)
    • The book of colour healing (1994, in NL: Het boek der kleurentherapie)

Sound and music

  • Lionel Stebbing:
    • 'Music : its occult basis and healing value' (1958)
    • 'Music and healing (1963)
  • Alfred Baur:
    • 'Lautlehre und Logoswirken. Grundlagen der Chirophonetik' (1996)
    • 'Die Heilweise der Chirophonetik' (2000)

Anthroposophical medicine

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