THREE COLLECTIONS OF STEINER’S EXTRACTS
ON INFECTIOUS DISEASES, EPIDEMICS
AND VACCINATION
In the collected works of Rudolf Steiner there can be found many explanations of the origins of infectious diseases and epidemics and of other related aspects. These are not only in the medical lectures, but can also be found in many other places. If you want to spare some time in searching in the large number of Steiner’s lectures and other works the following three compilations of Steiner’s extracts can be quite helpful.
These three collections – with few exceptions – contain quite short passages which can be helpful for those who are using the method of looking at the same thing from various perspectives. But if one wants to attain a better understanding of the controversies regarding these topics, then it is not enough just to read these extracts, for one first needs to become familiar with the fundamental principles of Steiner’s anthroposophical approach to medicine.
To my knowledge, besides very short definitions the official representatives of anthroposophical medicine have not yet formulated the fundamental principles of anthroposophic medicine in a manner as I have done in the case of an anthroposophic approach to nutrition with my website New Food Culture. Therefore, it is no big surprise when one encounters opinions and views of members of the anthroposophical movement – and even members of the medical section – who exhibit an obvious lack of understanding of these fundamentals of anthroposophic medicine.
Steiner has often stressed that “spiritual science must first present a broad view of the facts and realities of life and then elaborate the details.” As you can see on my website, I have even made pictures that present a visual summary of each fundamental principle. These pictures came into existence as an inner necessity when I was first asked to deliver an introduction to an anthroposophic approach to nutrition. I could not deliver any lecture without first clarifying very complex relationships to myself in the form of an image.
Without such broad views of the fundamental relationships between various members of the human being and various kingdoms of nature and various manifestations of spiritual realities one can get lost in details (as is the case with modern science), or can arrive at one-sided views.
For that reason I recommend to become familiar with my very short introduction to HOLISTIC APPROACH TO HEALING and to read my articles about medical aspects of corona pandemic where I exposed some common misunderstandings about the origins of infectious diseases and the practice of artificial immunization.
On Epidemics, Spiritual Perspectives
Rudolf Steiner Press, East Sussex, UK, 2011
Viral Illness and Epidemics in the Work of Rudolf Steiner
Aelzina Books, USA, 2020
See book review by Richard House
To the above review of the book I need to add one important clarification. The translator and editor of the book, Daniel Hindes, has given the book a title that suggest that Steiner himself has used the term ’viral illness’ when talking about epidemics. However, this is not the case. For if it were, I am sure that editor would include it in his book. But there is not one single case of the term ’viral illness’ in the whole book.
Besides this, the editor has omitted the extract where Steiner explains the origin of viruses from his perspective: that is as a product of death-like breaking-down processes in the organism which can be poisonous if we do not deal with them as we should. The details of this Steiner’s explanation are given in the chapter Viruses Are Mineral Poisons Which Serve as Nourishment for the Supersensible Bodies.
Such inaccuracies contribute to the ongoing propaganda of viruses as dangerous contagious agents that can spread from one person to another, while the reality is that we continuously produce this viral debris by ourselves, and consequently we cannot blame anybody else for it. Besides, we need to produce this viral debris all the time in the proper quantities, for without it we would not be capable to properly engage our higher bodies: the etheric body, astral body and the ego-organization.
Vaccination in the Work of Rudolf Steiner
Aelzina Books, USA, 2021
I appreciate the effort of Daniel Hindes to translate directly from German “all of Rudolf Steiner’s statements on vaccination, inoculation, and immunity,” with very interesting details on the difficulties of translation of specific German words into English. As I cannot read German I especially welcome the passages that have never before appeared in English.
However, I cannot agree with all his conclusions and views presented in Introduction and Concluding Thoughts. Although he concludes that “almost all of the debate today pro and contra vaccines is fundamentally based on materialistic assumptions”, he himself is a victim of materialistic assumptions (as we all are to a certain degree who passed through the modern education system) – especially in regard to the numerous false claims of modern virology which I exposed in my articles.
For example, on page 76 (where he gives a short comment on Steiner’s description of the destructive impact of Belladonna poison on the human being), he first misinterprets Steiner’s description, then compares it with the description of modern science (that is inherently deceptive) and arrives at conclusions that Steiner appears to be incorrect in the description of the exact mechanism of the destructive effect of Belladonna.
This is all an expression of a struggle of a modern materialistically educated mind to grasp Steiner’s statement that “any process that takes place outside in nature changes when it occurs in the human being; in the human being it is permeated with soul; it is spiritual.” This means that nothing that materialistic science says about the happenings inside a human organism can be taken literally; it can only serve as indirect evidence of invisible etheric, astral and spiritual processes.
The editor and translator also arrives at some conclusions which are just partially true. For example, he sums up that “in Steiner’s view of healing, there is not much difference between a remedy created to cure a condition, and one to be used prophylactically.” And then gives an example with hay fever, without being able to grasp that a person who takes the remedy prophylactically already possesses inside him the unhealthy condition that makes him ill when encounters pollen. Here we have two stages of a disease: one hidden and one with obvious symptoms. But this cannot be transferred to a situation when masses of people are medicated in advance with the aim to prevent an infectious disease in spite of the fact that many of them do not possess the necessary inner imbalances for occurrence of infection.
Elsewhere he concludes that “Steiner generally considered vaccination unnecessary, but if unavoidable, considered it no big deal either.” The bone of contention in the above statement is the word ‘vaccination’. If the editor is trying to imply that taking gene therapy in the disguise of ‘vaccine’ is no big deal, then I doubt that Steiner would agree with him. I certainly do not!
For a better understanding of this issue see my article The Grand Delusion of the Materialistic Approach to Artificial Immunization. In the same article are also given outlines of the essence of human immunity which does not encompass only the immunity against foreign entities or poisons entering the human organism, but also the immunity against soul-spiritual influences that are the same or even greater sources of danger for our individuality if we do not develop capacities to deal with them properly. And as editor of this book took more narrow view of the human immunity, he has missed some very important indications of Steiner about this disputed topic of human immunity in the present time.
