Medicine

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
  • effects of the soil and plant food stuffs (highly diluted quantities), eg with influence and paralysis (1923-10-31-GA351)
• healing: principles of treatment

different types of treatment

• homeopathy and the principle of potentization
• healing with plants, and healing with metals (see also Schema FMC00.589)
• 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)
• modern chemical pharmaceuticals:
  • 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)
• magical healing
  • historical - temple sleep: healing for internal ailments through 'disabling the human I' with the temple sleep in previous epochs and cultural ages, eg in the Egypto-Chaldean cultural age (1908-08-05-GA105, 1908-09-05-GA106, 1921-05-22-GA325 see Mystery School tradition#Temple sleep)
    • "The patient was given no medicine, but was allowed to sleep in the temple" .. temple sleep was not an ordinary but a kind of somnambulistic sleep controlled by the priest and so intensified that the patient became capable of having not chaotic dreams merely but of seeing orderly visions. During this sleep the patient perceived etheric forms in the spiritual world, and the priests understood the art of influencing these etheric pictures which passed before the sleeper; they could control and guide this dream-life and astral experiences in such a way that they had the power to pour health into the body through powerful forces liberated during the etheric visions, that restored to order and harmony the forces of the body which had fallen into disorder and discord. In this medical art so closely connected with the principle of initiation, Atlantean conditions were artificially recreated during healing, and since Man did not work against himself through his waking consciousness, those forces could be active that were necessary for healing.
    • link with madonna (1908-08-05-GA105, see Sistine Madonna)
    • dreams could provide information about problems with certain organs (1923-09-22-GA225)

various

• for digestion: Hoffman's stomach elixir or anodyne, also called Hoffmann's tincture (spirits of ether) (1924-03-01-GA353)

• 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

Inspirational quotes

Ron Young

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

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.589: shows an illustration of the formative forces in the human being.

On the left is shown how the stream of cosmic influences works from the I downwards and flows through the various bodily principles of the human structural make-up. If there are any unbalances causing illness, these can be compensated for through therapeutic substances from the plant or mineral kingdom that work on the etheric and mineral physical bodies, as represented by the small arrows. See more on healing with plants and healing with metals.

On the right is shown the working of oxalic acid that is transformed in the human body into formic acid. Both oxalic and formic acid are needed by the human etheric and astral bodies. They can be seen as representatives for the etheric and astral domains, and the plant and animal kingdom produce these substances by natural excretion. The light grey arrows show the process of the astral and etheric body transforming these organic living substances into lifeless mineral matter. What matters to the I-organization is the process of transition and the effect of the formative forces of these substances, not what they represent as mineral matter with the chemical formulas given.

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)

• 1920-GA312 - Spiritual science and medicine [20]
• 1920-GA314 - Physiology and Therapeutics [4]
• 1921-04-GA313 - Second Course for Doctors and Medical Students [9]
• 1922-10-GA314 - Anthroposophical Approach to Medicine [4]
• 1922-23-GA348: Health and illness I and II
  • 1922-GA348 Part I- Health and illness: Q&A with workmen of first Goetheanum [9]
• 1924-GA316 - Course for young doctors [14] incl 1920-12 bridge lectures [3]
• 1924-09-GA318 - Pastoral Medicine [11]

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

1908-09-13-GA106

As man grew more inward, something occurred in the world outside; what we know as the three other kingdoms of nature arose. The three kingdoms around us arose gradually. At first, only man was present. Then the animal kingdom was added; then the plant kingdom, and finally the mineral kingdom. If we were to look back on the primeval earth when the sun was still united with it, we would find a human being in and out of whom all the substances of the physical world moved. Man still lived in the womb of the gods: everything still agreed with him, so to say. Then he had to leave behind what was precipitated as the animal kingdom. Had he carried this with him, he would not have been able to develop further. He had to expel the animal kingdom, and later the plant kingdom. What exists outside in the animals and plants is nothing other than temperaments, passions, certain traits of men that they had to expel. And when man formed his bones he expelled the mineral world. After a certain length of time, man could look upon his environment and say, “Formerly I could endure you; formerly you went in and out of me as air now does. When I still lived in the water-earth I could endure you; I digested you. Now you are outside, and I can no longer endure you, no longer digest you.” As man became enclosed in his skin, as he became a self-contained separate being, he saw, in the same proportion, these kingdoms around him.

If these beings had not worked on man, something else would not have happened. As long as man is healthy, he will stand in a normal relationship to the outer world. When he has disturbed forces within him, these must be driven back by the powers that man has. If his powers are too weak for this, if he cannot provide the normal resistance, then something must be infused into him from outside. Something must be implanted into him to furnish the resistance that he still had at the time the forces from outside breathed in and out of him. It may be necessary, when a person is ill, that the forces of a metal, for example, should be injected into him. It is because man was in connection with metals earlier, in connection with plant juices and similar things, that we are justified in applying them as medicaments.

When the Egyptian initiates could look back over the whole course of world evolution, they knew precisely how the individual organs of the human body corresponded with the substances of the external world. They knew which plants and which metals had to be administered to the patient.

A great treasure of occult wisdom in the domain of medicine will be raised to light one day, wisdom that mankind formerly possessed. Not only are many things bungled in medicine today, but often special healing powers are ascribed to this or that in a one-sided way. The true occultist will never be one-sided. How often must we reject efforts that would make a compromise with the science of the spirit! The latter cannot support a one-sided method: on the contrary, it seeks to establish diversified research. It is one-sided to say, “Away with all poisons!” People who say this do not know the true healing forces. Naturally many stupid things are done today, for the professionals in most cases cannot grasp all the relationships, and a certain tyranny in medical science excludes what can proceed from occultism. If there were no campaigns against the oldest methods of medicine, against the injection of metals, there could be a reform. With modern experimentation nothing is discovered that can hold its own against the traditional remedies, which only a lay ignorance can oppose as strongly as is often done. The ancient Egyptian initiates excelled in these secrets. They had an insight into the real relationships of evolution, and if today certain physicians speak in a condescending way of Egyptian medicine, you can soon tell from their tone that they know nothing about it. Here we touch upon something in the Egyptian initiation that should be known.

It was such things as these that went over into the folk-consciousness. Now we must reflect that the same souls that are in our bodies today were also incarnated in that ancient time. Let us remember that these souls saw all the images that the initiates made of what they knew through vision in the spiritual world. We know that what a soul takes into itself from incarnation to incarnation, ever and again bears fruits in one or another way. Even though man cannot remember it, it is still true that what lives in the soul today lives in it because it was deposited there earlier. The soul is formed both within and beyond the physical life. When it was between birth and death, when it was between death and a new birth, Egyptian ideas were influential and modern ideas have proceeded from these. Today certain definite ideas are developing out of the Egyptian ideas. What is called Darwinism today did not arise because of external reasons. We are the same souls who, in Egypt, received the pictures of the animal forms of man's forebears. The old views have awakened again, but man has descended more deeply into the material world. He remembers that it was said to him, “Our ancestors were animal forms.” But he does not remember that these forms were gods. This is the psychological basis for the emergence of Darwinism. The figures of the gods appear in materialistic form. Thus there is an intimate spiritual connection between the old and the new, between the third and the fifth cultural periods.

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

1923-09-22-GA225

see link under Aspects above with temple sleep and healing in earlier cultural ages

Yet the dream maintains a close connection with what the sleeper is inwardly experiencing – the experience going right into his physical body.

The men of old knew quite well about such things, and a certain kind of dream was said by the old Jews to be God's punishment of a man "in his reins". Thus there was known to be a connection between the functioning of the kidneys and certain dreams. On the other hand, you have only to read a book like "The Seer of Prevorst" to find there how out of dreams people described what was wrong with their organs. Such men have a special gift for perceiving, symbolically in mighty pictures, any defective organs, so that beside it the cure can be seen. In those days this was made use of to encourage the sick person himself, out of the explanation of his dream, to prescribe his own remedy.

On this point we should also study what was the authorised practice in the Temple-sleep.

1923-10-31-GA351

for context, what preceeded, see explanation on Plant kingdom#1923-10-31-GA351

Now you can see of what importance it is when quite tiny amounts of any substance are mixed in the earth. Naturally, there is a churchyard somewhere outside, but the Earth is everywhere permeated with wood sap, and the tiny quantities penetrate everywhere into the ground. And having investigated how these tiny quantities work, of which I have told you, we say: That which disappeared into the Earth, we eat it again in our food. It is so strong that it lives in the plant form.

And what happens then? Imagine I had thus a plant form from a lead-containing soil.

Today it is said that lead does not arise in soil. But lead does arise in soil, if one puts decaying living matter in it. It simply does arise in soil. A plant grows out of it: one may say, a lead-plant. Well, this lead plant when we eat it, has a quite different effect from a lead-less plant. Actually, when we eat a lead plant, our cerebellum, which lies at the back of the head, becomes drier than usual. It becomes drier.

Now you have the connection between the Earth and the cerebellum. There are plants which simply through the constitution of the Earth, through what men put into the Earth and what then spreads everywhere, can dry up the cerebellum. As soon as our cerebellum is not in full working order, we become clumsy. When something happens to the cerebellum we become awkward and cannot properly control our feet and arms; and when the effect is much stronger, we become paralysed.

Thus, you see, is the connection between the soil and paralysis. A man eats a plant. If it has something dying at the edge of the leaves, as I have described to you, his cerebellum will be dried up somewhat. In ordinary life this is not noticed, but the man cannot any longer rightly direct his movements. If the effect is much stronger, paralysis sets in.

When this drying up of the cerebellum happens in the head, so that man cannot control his muscles, at first this affects all those muscles which are dependent on a little gland in the head, the so-called pineal gland. If that happens, a man gets influenza.

If the evil goes further, influenza changes to a complete paralysis. So that in every paralysis there is something that is inwardly connected with the soil. And so you see knowledge must be brought together from many sides if one is to do anything useful for men. It is useless to make a lot of statements—one must do so and so! For if one does not know how a man has taken into his organism something dying, one may have ever such good apparatus and the man will not recover. For everything that works in the plant and passes over from the plant to the man, is of great importance.

Wood sap develops in man as the ordinary colourless mucus. Wood sap in plants is, in man, mucus. The life sap of the plant which circulates from the leaves, corresponds to the human blood. And the cambium of the plant corresponds to the milk and the chyle in the human being. When a woman begins to nurse, certain glands in the breast cause a greater flow of milk. Here you have again something in human beings which is most strongly influenced by the stars, namely, milk. Milk is absolutely necessary for the development of the brain—the brain, one might almost say, is solidified milk. Decaying leaves create no proper cambium because they no longer have the power to work back into the proper warmth. They let the warmth escape outwards from the dying edges instead of sending it inwards. We eat these plants with an improperly developed cambium: they do not develop a proper milk; the women do not produce proper milk; the children get milk on which the stars cannot work strongly, and therefore they cannot develop properly.

...

.. in medicine nothing can be achieved if one does not take into account all branches of knowledge, even the knowledge of the Earth.

For in the tree trunk lives something which is carried up from the Earth (which is the subject of geology) to the sap. There it dies.

One must also know meteorology, the science of air, because from the surrounding air something is brought to the leaves which calls forth life in them again.

And one must also know astrology, the science of the stars, if one wishes to understand the formation of cambium. And one must also know what enters with the cambium in the food. ... So that when one eats unsound cambium as a child, one gets an unsound brain. In this way diseases are caused by what is in the earth. This is what can be said about the causes of such apparently inexplicable diseases: the causes are in the soil.

1924-03-01-GA353

[India]

...

And when an Indian of earliest times asked after the soul—and he knew that we inhale, inhale air—then to him the air that is inhaled was the spirit. And he would know: The air is out there; that is the spirit that is all around the earth. And when this spirit, which is around the whole earth, began to flow, to waft, he would call the spirit that moved everywhere on earth Varuna. But the spirit in him was also Varuna. When there were gales outside, it was Varuna; and inside—also Varuna.

People often say today that those Indians had nature worship, venerating wind and weather, and so on. But it would be equally right to say they worshipped the spirit, for they saw the spirit in everything. The Indians had no notion of a physical body, and this being the case, every part of the human being was also a spirit: the liver was spirit, the kidney was spirit, everything was spirit. They did not distinguish between body and spirit. The secret of ancient Indian wisdom is that no distinction was made between body and spirit. Liver was liver spirit, stomach was stomach spirit.

You see, if we consider the stomach today we find that there has to be something in the stomach if it is to digest things properly. We call this substance pepsin. If it is lacking, digestion does not take its proper course; we have to put in some hydrochloric acid in that case.

The ancient Indian would say to himself—he did not yet have a name for it, but he knew that there was a spirit there—the stomach is like this: that is the stomach spirit. Today we still know the term 'stomachic spirits or elixir⁷ for some medicines. They are of course called by their inventors' names now, Hoffmann's tincture (spirits of ether) or the like; but you will still find words used that refer to the spirit.

The Indians thus saw the spirit everywhere. They therefore also took no offence at the caste spirit, seeing it as a spiritual principle, just as the different orders of animals were seen as a spiritual principle.

Notes

1/ from wikipedia: Compound spirit of ether, also called Hoffmann's anodyne, Hoffmann's drops, or aetheris spiritus compositus, is a solution of one part diethyl ether in three parts alcohol. It is used traditionally as an anodyne or as a hypnotic. Its use as a drug was introduced by Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742)

2/ Hoffman's stomach elixir or anodyne appears in 'Elixirs and flavoring extracts' (their history, formuale and methods of preparation) by J.U. Lloyd (1892). See PDF download here.

3/ on the person Friedrich Hoffman .. the wikipedia page states 'his family had been connected with medicine for 200 years before him.'

Others with the same family name:

• Felix Hoffmann (1868-1946) was a German chemist ... credited with synthesizing aspirin
• August Wilhelm (von) Hofmann (1818-1892) was a German chemist who made considerable contributions to organic chemistry

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'.
• Peter Dimkov Lechitelyat (The Healer) (1886–1981)
  • Disciple of Beinsa Douno. From 1936 onwards worked as a healer in Bulgaria and abroad: traditional medicine, iris diagnostics, and herbal healing. He believed that first one must take care of the human soul and then treat the physical body, and he believed there was no incurable illness. He was a fervent adherent to the ideas of vegetarianism and life according to the laws of nature and the cosmos. His main work "Bulgarian Folk Medicine" was published in the 1930s in three volumes and went through four editions. From 1944 to 1990 his books were banned by the political censure. From 1990 onwards his work regained great popularity – a national movement was started spontaneously which presents the ideas of the Healer to the younger generations.    
  • more info, see eg: article here
• Harry James Edwards (1893-1976)
  • visited Daskalos, see Schema FMC00.407A
• 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

• Homeopathy
• Healing with plants
• Healing with metals
• Worldview spiritual science

References and further reading

• Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman: 'Extending practical medicine' (1925)

• anthromedics website
• imedwiki on integrative medicine

• 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
  • Norbert Glas (1897-1986)

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)
• Joaquin G. Tan:
  • Healing Ourselves: A Guide to Creative, Responsive & Self-Reliant Medicine (1995)
  • Healing Ourselves from Medicine: How Anthroposophy Can Save Your Life (2011)
• Peter Heusser
  • 'Anthroposophy and Science - An Introduction' (2016)
  • in DE 2011: 'Anthroposophische Medizin und Wissenschaft. Beiträge zu einer integrativen medizinischen Anthropologie'
• M. Girke: '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)

.

• Alfred J. Ziegler: 'Archetypal Medicine (1983, 2021)
• 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

Anthroposophical psychology - psychiatry - psychotherapy

see also related: Human character - the I and threefold soul#References and further reading

• Rudolf Treichler (1909-1994)
  • Erweiterung der Psychiatrie durch Anthroposophie (1984)
  • Neuauflage: Was ist anthroposophische Psychiatrie (1996)
• D. Tresemer (editor), William Bento, Edmond Knighton: 'The counselor... As if soul and spirit matter' (2015)
• Markus Treichler, Johannes Reiner: 'Anthroposophie-basierte Psychotherapie: Grundlagen - Methoden - Indikationen - Praxis' (2019)

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

• anthromed.org
• anthromed.de
• medsektion-goetheanum.org/en/
• www.ivaa.info/anthroposophic-medicine

US: examples

• steinerhealth.org
• paam.wildapricot.org/ - Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic Medicine

Germany: examples

• Herdecke_University (wikipedia) and www.uni-wh.de
  • http://www.software-ag-stiftung.de/en/themes/science-and-research/featured-projects/projects/university-of-witten-herdecke/
• anthromed-oeschelbronn.de