Season One: Awakening our Understanding of Illness: 100-years of Fundamentals of Therapy
This podcast is your invitation to engage with new perspectives on health and your own healing processes, while also learning about the fundamentals of anthroposophical medicine.  

In episode five, the final episode for season one, we discuss chapter 14 of Fundamentals of Therapy by Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman. Why did they devote an entire chapter to the concept of boundary? How do we find a healthy balance between having a hard boundary and being permeable? We discuss how silica and sulfur—two substances frequently used in anthroposophic medicine--help us on physical, physiologic and sensory levels.  

This conversation is far-reaching. At one point, we talk about substance abuse and wonder how the ego, the I, is affected when we partake in something as simple as caffeine or as strong as an opioid. We discuss sense organs and how the whole body receives sensory information, not just the eyes or ears. All of our organs are working together. Not like an assembly line processing one thing after another, but in communication and cooperation.  

To support this podcast (and future episodes) go to: https://medicalsection.goetheanum.ch/donate. Feel free to also email us your ideas and questions at [email protected]. We have some great ideas for season two, and we hope you will help us bring it to life. 

Season One: Awakening our Understanding of Illness: 100-years of Fundamentals of Therapy 

In this episode, we work through chapter seven of Fundamentals of Therapy, by Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman. One of the primary concepts introduced in this chapter is how a challenging experience can bring new strength and capacity. This is a part of many holistic healing traditions, but rarely spoken about in conventional medicine. Anthroposophic medicine understands how healing is not just about removing symptoms, but about developing new capacities. You'll hear about iron and its unique role in the body and how it can be used to bring strength and courage. Also about mistletoe therapy, where, by introducing a very foreign plant extract into the human body, the immune system is spurred to greater activity. This helps recognize and clear out cancer cells, while also helping us personally look at what isn't serving us on an emotional, social or spiritual level. We also discuss the archetypes of a “blood” process and “nerve” process and how we experience these on a daily basis.  

A central goal of anthroposophical medicine is to expand the number of therapeutic tools, especially beyond medicines that chemically make a change in our system, but which we will likely have to take for the rest of our life. Adam calls this a replacement paradigm. Anthroposophical medicine takes a more nuanced approach, aiming to reduce an illness process by increase our healing capacity. 

To support this Podcast go to: https://medicalsection.goetheanum.ch/donate. Email us your ideas and questions at [email protected]. 

Season One: Awakening our Understanding of Illness: 100-years of Fundamentals of Therapy

In Episode 3, we discuss Chapter 5 of Fundamentals of Therapy: Plant, Animal, Man

Medical education expects young doctors to memorize tremendous amounts of factual information, but offers much less guidance for making the information their own. Modern medicine similarly focuses mostly on quantitative measures—what are you blood tests?—but can forget to see the person behind the lab results. Neither way of working allows for much life. Anthroposophic medicines sees more, much more. It recognizes four levels of being. 

We can compare it to four possible steps for becoming a poet: first, you find a good poem in a book and see that it exists (step 1); you work further with it, it comes alive, and you start to remember it (step 2). Then a really good poem actually stirs and inspires your soul life (step 3); and in time, if you love enough poems, you start to write your own poetry (step 4). 

Our body makes the same steps with substance. Chapter five shows us this beautiful, fourfold physiology of body, soul and spirit.

To support this podcast go to: https://medicalsection.goetheanum.ch/donate. Email us your ideas and questions at [email protected]. 

Season one: Awakening our Understanding of Illness: 100-years of Fundamentals of Therapy
In Episode 2, we discuss Chapter 3 of Fundamentals of Therapy: The Manifestations Of Life. This chapter asks us to expand our perspective on medicine and healing, particularly into the realm of vitality. We reflect on the static pictures that are often offered to us through medical tests and chemical analysis, in contrast to the dynamic functions within the body’s healing processes. Adam discusses the capacity to self-heal as a mystery unique to living organisms, and what this means to our understanding of health and illness. To support this podcast go to https://medicalsection.goetheanum.ch/donate. Email us your ideas and questions at [email protected]. 

Season one: Awakening our Understanding of Illness: 100-years of Fundamentals of Therapy
The book Fundamentals of Therapy by Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman is our guide throughout the next five episodes as we discuss Chapters 1, 3, 5, 7 and 14. We hope you will read along with us! In this episode, Adam and Laura explore Chapter 1: True Knowledge of the Human Being as a Foundation for the Art of Medicine, discussing the challenges of standardized, protocol-based medicine in contrast to the gifts that arise through the relationship between the doctor, the patient, and the illness. We delve into the significance of the etheric life force for healing, as well as the anthroposophical concepts of imagination, inspiration, and intuition. To support this podcast go to https://medicalsection.goetheanum.ch/donate. Email us your ideas and questions at [email protected].