 Course
for Young Doctors
Christmas Course - Eight Lectures; Easter Course - Five
lectures; 'The Bridge' - Three lectures; plus questions and answers
at an evening gathering.
Rudolf Steiner
Course for Young Doctors consists
of eight lectures given at Christmas 1923, and five lectures given
at Easter in 1924. For Rudolf Steiner it
was to be a course on the humanizing of medicine. As such it is
completely different in content and spirit from all other lectures
he gave on the medical
arts.
The course was
brought about as a result of requests by medical students in late
1923 to Dr Steiner to have a series of
lectures which didn't just emphasis anatomy, physiology and
therapeutic details. These students wanted
something that addressed the inner nature of the physician as a
healer, something that spoke to the moral feeling that inspires a
physician to his or her calling and relates the healing vocation to
the needs of humanity.
The lectures are wide-ranging and comprehensive,
and include meditative contemplations and instructions for deepening the art of healing
to aid students and young physicians in their vocational development.
Also included are
"The Bridge Lectures," three lectures
given Dec. 17-19, 1920, which were recommended by Rudolf Steiner as
preparation for this course.
Mercury Press
13 lectures plus questions and answers, Dornach 1920 & 1924, GA316
266pp; paperback
ISBN:0-929979-37-0
To purchase this title, please
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Course for Young Doctors - Rudolf Steiner
Contents
Introduction
Christmas Course
Lecture I,
Dornach, 2 January 1924
Illusion of solidly contained image of the human being: The
physically contoured man. The fluid man into which the etheric body
works; the air man in which the astral body works. The warmth man
which permeates the human organization. The "I" works upon the
latter, while the warmth man works upon the remaining organization,
then the "I" indirectly. This enables a true insight into the
relation of the soul and body since the soul happenings work upon
the warmth ether and through it into the organs. The possibility for
illness lies within the human organization. The possibility for
healing lies in nature processes which can take over processes in
the human being: etheric body, astral body, ego, calling upon the
higher members of being to bring about healing. Natural science must
examine the living cosmic aspects of nature, e.g., formic acid,
ripening of figs and honey production. Necessity to develop a sense
for nature, also in microscopy. Consideration must be taken of the
non-relativity of magnifications. A view to the true nature of the
beehive.
Lecture II,
Dornach, 3 January 1924
Characteristics of members of being. Ego and earth form. Ego and
death form. Physical organism and nutrition. Relation of etheric
body and astral body to illness predisposition. Precondition for a
conscious soul life. The nature of feeling. The development of
illness. Inflammation and neoplasia. Illness and soul life. Liver as
sense organ for the substances of the outer world. Heart, a sense
organ for the inner world. The organs as an essential wholeness.
Evaluation of foodstuffs out of the world connections with the human
organism.
Lecture III,
Dornach, 4 January 1924
Earth substance forces and peripheral substance forces are balanced
out in the different organ systems. Contemplation of the head from
this point of view; its weightlessness and
static rest. Cosmos and earthly forces in the head and the remaining
skeleton. The significance of calcium carbonate and calcium
phosphate. Substances as cosmic formative processes and the relation
of the cosmic beingness to substances. Consideration of the forces
which overcome the lead process. The significance of the magnesium
process. Rhythmic periods in which the process has a different
significance. Antimony and the metamorphosis of the carbon process
examined according to cosmic and etheric formative processes in the
course of time.
Lecture IV,
Dornach, 5 January 1924
Exoteric knowledge and its acquisition as basis for the esoteric
part of the course. Formation of the human being: etheric body and
its relation to the germ which develops out of inheritance, its
relation to the astral body during the time immediately after birth;
predisposition for knowledge. The significance of the inner path and
deepening for the physician who wants to heal. The cultivation of
soul forces through rhythmic repetition of knowledge. Such knowledge
is shown in the example of experiencing the plant; esoteric and
exoteric knowledge are brought into their true connection.
Lecture V,
Dornach, 6 January 1924
About the change which needs to arise within the Anthroposophical
movement: "The esoteric path is either a difficult one, or it is
none." Further description of cosmic forces on the basis of the
relation of the plant being to the human organism, especially the
head. The necessity of experiencing this knowledge. The connection
of this knowledge to inner moral impulses. Description of meditative
processes. The will to deepen medical studies esoterically as has
hitherto only happened in two areas: general Anthroposophy and
Eurythmy and the art of recitation. Description of the institution
of the Medical Section.
Lecture VI,
Dornach, 7 January 1924
Knowledge through thought: bony system through imagination: fluid
man - muscle system. Knowledge through inspiration: inner organs.
Knowledge through intuition: warmth man, the activity of the organs.
The two kinds of warmth. Air and light states. Metamorphosis of
light. The watery united with Chemism. Earth and life. Medical
thought knowledge and therapeutic element.
Lecture VII,
Dornach, 8 January 1924
Answering a question about healing magnetism. Question concerning
the relation of the heart to the uterus. Question concerning the
influence of precious stones on different organs. Question
concerning the significance of the decay of the corpse for the
deceased. Question concerning the significance of autopsy in
relation to the time of death. Question concerning the significance
of the community for the healing force of the physician. Question
concerning iris diagnosis, graphology, etc. Concerning healing and
knowledge of remedies. Concerning the book Philosophy of
Spiritual Activity and its significance for the human being.
Imagination and the life of the muscle; inspiration and the life of
the inner organs; sketch of the necessary course of study for a
spiritually appropriate medicine. The nature of illness for the
physician filled with the will-to-heal.
Lecture VIII,
Dornach, 9 January 1924
Orientation of the physician according to karma; the will for karma
and the will-to-heal. Introduction to a contemplation of the human
organism leading to healing as a result of cosmic forces, using as
an example Saturn and Moon forces. Indication for meditative
deepening.
Easter Course
Lecture I,
Dornach, 21 April 1924
Participants are asked for questions concerning the difficulties
which have resulted in orienting the physician towards an esoteric
path of schooling. Emancipation of the Western esoteric path from
the outer cosmos. Instruction for meditation; the nature of
meditation. The incarnation process, development of a human body
suitable for the earth. Origin of the stream of heredity. Nature of
scarlet fever and measles. Significance of child's nutrition and
mother's milk. Significance of direct perception for medical
knowledge; examples of the same. Acquisition of maturity. The
seven-year periods as new impulses. The working of cosmic formative
forces. Meditation of the plant being.
Lecture II, 22
April 1924
Concerning the right meditation and the profession of the physician.
Knowledge of illness as knowledge of healing. Knowledge of healing
and the will-to-heal. The recognition of the etheric out of the
sculptural. Recognition of the astral out of the musical. The
pioneering task for a new medical study of the physician newly
oriented out of Anthroposophy. Contemplation of the primary cause of
illness in the patient's course of life. Meditation.
Lecture III, 23
April 1924
Introduction to the meditation given in the second lecture:
formative structuring, human formation out of cosmic forces. Moon.
En-souling of the human being: cosmic Sun's working in the
periphery. Spiritualization of the human being through the breakdown
forces of Saturn. The cosmic force nature of the metals. The moral
as a force streaming in from the cosmos. Spiritual truths must be
experienced meditatively again and again. Concerning the karmic
relations of the spirit-seeking souls born at the turn of the
century.
Lecture IV, 24
April 1924
The development of medical points of view of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries considered regarding the karmic relations.
Christianity and Arabism. Instruction for a healer meditation: the
cosmic trinity―Saturn, Sun, Moon―working in the healthy and the ill
human being. Directions for noticing the karmic relations in the
ill: will of the healer, Christianization of medicine by becoming
conscious of the cosmic element in human beings in health and
illness. Letting the heart think along: the staff of Mercury. The
physician should work so that karma can work itself out in our
culture.
Lecture V 25
April 1924
Concerning the nature of the members of being and their mutual
relations. General causes of becoming ill. Comprehension for the
mode of working of certain remedies. Different relations in the
physical and the mental illnesses. Temperaments. Instructions for a
meditation to acquire imaginative consciousness. The same for
acquiring inspiration consciousness. Feeling in knowing, feeling in
knowledge. Concretizing the Youth Movement with the help of a
striving medicine. The slight healing of heredity forces in
education. Relation of physician to patient. Appeal for an inner
establishment of connection to the Goetheanum which has placed
itself as center a definite task.
Appendix
First circular
letter, 11 March 1924
Evening
Gathering, 24 April 1924
Relation of fluid to solid in the formation of the organic.
Structuring of images from expansion (cosmic working) and infolding
(earthly working). The therapeutically significant phantom of the
organs in the fluid man. The plastic principle for the comprehension
of the fluid, musical principle for the comprehension of the airy.
Listening to oneself in speaking: study of the ego organization.
The "Bridge" Lectures
Lecture I, 17
December 1920
Soul and Spirit in the Human Physical Constitution
The physical organism of the human being is considered today to
consist of more or less solid-fluid substances; but as well as the
solid, physical body, the human has as definite organisms, a fluid
body, an air body and a warmth body. The connections of these
organisms with the members of the whole being and with the different
Ethers. Thought and Tone; Ego and circulating Blood. The sleeping
state. Relation to the universal Spirituality. Imagination,
Inspiration, Intuition. The circumscribed view of the human organism
prevailing today is unable to build any bridge between the physical
body and the soul and spirit.
Lecture II, 18
December 1920
The Moral as the Source of World-Creative Power
Recapitulation of previous lecture. Connection of the moral
world-order with the physical world-order. The moral world-order has
no place in the natural-scientific thinking of today. The positive
effect of moral ideals and ideas and the negative effect of
theoretical ideas on the four organisms. The materialistic
conception of the imperishability of matter and energy. Matter and
energy die away to nullity but moral thinking imbues life into
substance and will. The natural world dies away in the human; in the
realm of the moral a new natural world comes into being; thus are
the moral order and the natural order connected. Absence of
spirituality in the modern picture of the world which is based on
the Copernican system. Kepler and Newton. We need a spiritual view
of the universe. The sun is not a globe of burning gas but the
reflection of a spiritual reality revealed in the physical. The
moral power developed by the human rays out and is reflected as the
spiritual Sun. Julian the Apostate. The connection of the spiritual
Sun with the physical sun is the Christ-Secret.
Lecture III, 19
December 1920
The Path to Freedom and Love and Their Significance in World
Happenings
The human as a being of Thinking, Action and Feeling. The connection
of the life of thought with the will. Pure thinking: irradiation of
the life of thought by will. This leads to Freedom. Irradiation of
the life of will by thoughts leads to Love. The meaning of the
ancient expressions: Semblance, Power, Wisdom. To speak of the
imperishability of matter and energy annuls Love. The significance
of Freedom and Love in world happenings.
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