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 The
Healing Process
Spirit, Nature & Our Bodies
Foundations of Anthroposophical Medicine
11 lectures by
Rudolf Steiner
Introduction by Richard Leviton
The Healing
Process - Spirit, Nature and Our Bodies comprises a
series of lectures which Rudolf Steiner gave on the nature of
health and illness, and the anthroposophical approach to
understanding a disease and the treatment of it. These medical
lectures, as a collection, are unique in that they are largely
addressed to public audiences who were not familiar with
anthroposophical concepts including medical students who had
been trained in conventional medicine. Steiner is therefore
careful to give a summarised introduction to the spiritual
elements of the human being - etheric body, astral body and
ego - and to bring these as concepts into an understanding of
how illness comes about, and then follows this with the route
to effective therapy.
Probably more than in any other lectures on anthroposophical
medicine, Steiner provides the foundation principles on which
this approach to healing is based. He describes the tri-fold
aspect of the human organism: the sensory-head system, the
rhythmic-circulatory system, and the metabolic-limb system
with sufficient background so that over-simplistic
misunderstandings don't arise. With this he shows how activity
in one sphere can extend itself into another sphere bringing
about particular illnesses. He also describes the important
nature of the relationship between the ego, astral body, ether
body and physical body to particular organs and where excess
or deficiency of one or more for a particular organ leads to
illness.
He describes how for each illness in the human being there is
a process in nature, usually found in a plant or mineral,
which is the same process as the illness. Through heightened
faculties of spiritual perception, the practitioner is led to
the form in which the process is embodied in nature and this
provides the basis for the remedy. Understanding what is
essential in this process and how best to administer it for a
particular illness, determines the formulation of the remedy.
During this period, Steiner along with Dr Ita Wegman had been
developing anthroposophical remedies for particular illnesses
along these lines in responses to patients' needs and these
were showing positive results in a wide variety of illnesses.
A treatment clinic had been established at Arlesheim in
Switzerland under Dr
Wegman and a pharmaceutical laboratory had been set up to prepare the
remedies.
Although the lectures could only summarise the
anthroposophical approach to healing, Steiner gives many
specifics regarding processes in nature which mimic illnesses
or are found in the healthy human organism. He uses the
concept "process" to emphasise that permeating and surrounding
every material substance is an active dynamic process and that
the material phosphorus or silica, for example, are only
"arrested process" and it is this process which needs to be
brought into the remedy and ultimately into the patient.
Similarly, he cites the basis of many diseases, their
corresponding processes in nature, the resulting remedy and
appropriate form of administration. So along with general
guidelines, we are offered many specific applications of these
principles.
This set of lectures is recommended for those who would like
to acquire a broad and comprehensive foundation for an
understanding of anthroposophical medicine.
Trans: C. E. Creeger (11
lectures, various cities, 1923/24, GA319); 288pp
Anthroposophic Press
ISBN:
0 88010 474 0; paperback
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The Healing Process - Rudolf Steiner
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