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The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner Series 314 Read Description

Physiology and Healing

Treatment, Therapy, and Hygiene (CW 314)

Paperback
December 2013
9781855843806
More details
  • Publisher
    Rudolf Steiner Press
  • Published
    20th December 2013
  • ISBN 9781855843806
  • Language English
  • Pages 344 pp.
  • Size 6" x 9"
$39.00

Lectures & discussions, Dornach, Stuttgart, 1920–1924 (CW 314)

Following his first major lecture course for medical practitioners, Steiner elaborated and deepened his “extension” of conventional healing through a spiritual-scientific perspective. In this collection of addresses, discussions, question-and-answer sessions, and lectures—which paralleled his major medical courses—Steiner comments on contemporary medical emphasis on experimental, materially based research and its lack of attention to therapy. Steiner’s intention is not to detract from developments in medical science but to build on them with spiritual science. The medical practitioner has an important task—diseases must be cured, and it is wrong not to intervene and simply to allow “karma to take its course.”

Speaking both to the general public and to small groups of medical professionals, Steiner offers new insights into our understanding of human organs, as well as the efficacy of healing substances such as arsenic, sulfur, arnica, and essential plant oils. He studies a broad range of specific medical conditions, offering advice on cancer, hysteria, rheumatism, gout, skin eruptions, typhoid, diabetes, hemophilia, syphilis, gonorrhea, asthma, glaucoma, leukemia, smallpox, insomnia, and childhood diseases such as measles. His commentaries on subjects such as psychiatry, sexual maturity, memory, poisoning, and detoxification present challenging perspectives for both patients and medical practitioners. Steiner’s surprisingly non-dogmatic advice on vaccination, for example, gives a refreshingly balanced and, perhaps unexpected, point of view.

This volume is a translation from German of Physiologisch- Therapeutisches auf Grundlage der Geisteswissenschaft (GA 314). Portions of this lecture course were previously published as Four Lectures to Doctors (4 lectures) and Health Care as a Social Issue (1 lecture).

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner (b. Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner, 1861–1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Croatia), where he grew up. As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe’s scientific writings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his early philosophical principles into an approach to systematic research into psychological and spiritual phenomena. Formally beginning his spiritual teaching career under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, Steiner came to use the term Anthroposophy (and spiritual science) for his philosophy, spiritual research, and findings. The influence of Steiner’s multifaceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, various therapies, philosophy, religious renewal, Waldorf education, education for special needs, threefold economics, biodynamic agriculture, Goethean science, architecture, and the arts of drama, speech, and eurythmy. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world. He died in Dornach, Switzerland.