Extending the Art of Healing Through Anthroposophy

Season-1--Awakening-our-Understanding-of-Illness--100-years-of-Fundamentals-of-Therapy-.mp3

Welcome to extending the Art of healing Through Anthroposophy with Doctor Adam Blanning and Laura Scappaticci. This podcast is your invitation to engage with a new perspective on health and your own healing processes, while learning more about the fundamentals of anthroposophical medicine. Season one is called awakening our Understanding of Illness 100 Years of Fundamentals of Therapy. The book Fundamentals of Therapy by Rudolf Steiner and Ida Wegman is our guide throughout the next five episodes. In this episode, Adam and I explore chapter one, discussing the challenges of standardized, protocol based medicine, and contrasted 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. We hope you enjoy the show and we look forward to hearing from you. Hi, Adam.

Hi, Laura.

Here we are together. And it's really exciting. We have a new project starting right now.

I'm really excited about this conversation. Um, curious also to see what's going to unfold.

Yes. Me too, me too. And just so everyone knows, um, we're. The title we're working with right now is called extending the Art of healing Through Anthroposophy, which I think, um, is inviting everyone in to explore that with us. So, um, thank you for initiating this, Adam through the medical section of the Goetheanum. And for bringing your American, uh, wisdom and understanding and experience to it. And I'm just really appreciate that. So let's get started.

That sounds great.

I want to tell everyone about yourself a little bit.

Sure, sure. Um, so I'm Adam Blanning, I'm a medical doctor in Denver, Colorado in the US and have am really passionate, truly about anthroposophic medicine because I think it is such a positive approach to illness and healing. And I have this special opportunity that now for about a year and a half, I'm part of the leadership team for the medical section at the Goetheanum in Switzerland, which really means trying to to feel and support what are the needs of the world today in terms of health and illness and anthroposophic medicine is really something that's happening on many different continents. So that's also really interesting because it's experienced and cultivated different ways, which I love. There's there's a diversity of of how you experience it and how it's helpful for you in the world. So that that exchange is very, very nourishing. Laura, how about you? How would you introduce yourself a little bit?

Yeah. So I am the creator of the podcast That good may become. And I've worked with anthroposophy for about 15 years or so trying to make it more accessible, um, to people just, you know, get get it out there and, uh, translate a little bit of it to 2025, which we're in right now. Um, because I do feel there's so much potential for healing through this spiritual path. So, um, overall, you know, healing is the theme, I think, with anthroposophy. Uh, and I think Rudolf Steiner, the founder, came out of that. He came out of that stream of healing. He was always trying to heal, you know, education, heal, um, religion, heal the planet through his farming methods. So it's really there is a healing impulse in everything that he brought. And so we are lucky to be living now and get to carry that on and explore it and extend it together.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Sometimes when people ask, what is anthroposophy? I think one approach is to say, oh, it's it's a set of knowledge. But really I think it's it's a way of encounter and, um, practicing medicine for about 25 years. I have to say that there are certain points where something opens for you, and then it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle where you say, huh? Why did I never think about that before? Or why did nobody ever teach me it that way? That's so helpful. That's so alive. Um. Or. That's so challenging, but. But it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle sometimes, so.

Yeah, I agree. It's like once I love that word encounter because we don't forget our encounters, right. Very easily. And they do, um, we carry them with us and then they become part of a different sort of worldview, and they aren't easy to suppress or forget they're there. They become integrated in how we experience things. So and I can imagine that's very true through medicine. It's certainly been true through for me with some of the meditative practices that come through anthroposophy. Like it's just sort of changed my understanding of myself and others and and the planet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Encounter in context and. I think that's why this little book we want to be talking about, um, Fundamentals of Therapy is, is particularly timely. Um, I mean, 2025 celebrates 100 years since its publication. So maybe there's some feeling of Celebration or. Acknowledgment that we want to look at it after 100 years, but I. I experience it differently than almost any other medical book I've encountered. Because you can look at it, um, well, you can read the whole book and it doesn't take very long. And yet you can take one little piece of it and spend sort of a lifetime working on it, and it gets deeper and more interesting. And I think that particularly happens when we're exploring it and studying it and discussing it with other people. Um, there's kind of a richness there that opens up. So it's 100 years old and, um, it's also incredibly timely And needed in the world right now because I, I think it really challenges us, but actually invites us and also guides us to start thinking in a different way. Yeah.

Yeah. I was so delighted, like when you, you said, hey, let's, let's work with this book. Um, and then I read the first page and, and it was like, I don't know, 12, 16 pages and, and, but it took me, uh, like you said, there were certain sentences in there that I just read again and again and again. I could get through the chapter quickly, but the depth of just certain certain topics, I could just just stay there on chapter one. Luckily, you've read this book many times, and so we won't get stuck on chapter one.

Well, we could we could spend a long time on chapter one. And, um. Yeah, I have a special relationship with this book, um, because it's unfolded in different ways. One of them was a very profound experience, and encounter is, as part of my own anthroposophic training that when I needed to certify to be an Anthroposophic doctor, there was a discussion of of some foundational work that was given by Rudolf Steiner and, uh, not quite a test, but a conversation about what was in there. Um, and the first time I did that conversation, I had been sort of reading the book and preparing on a very different path than what what ended up unfolding during the conversation. Um, that it's a, a book in some way that is really about movements and relationships. Um, and I hadn't looked at some of the specific details, so I was then given the task to read the book more, and then we would have a conversation again. And so over three months, every night before I went to sleep, I read either a paragraph or a page. And over that three months, I think I read the whole book seven times.

Wow.

Um, I can't claim I've done that with any other book, but it's it's really interesting that I think there's the content of the book, and then there's the aspect of what do we need to do to work with the book. And then a little bit, what happens to our thinking in working with the book? Um, and what kind of new capacity or possibilities open up through that? Yeah. Yeah. Um, since that time, they're training programs around the world. Um, ipmt programs, international postgrad graduate medical trainings where one of these chapters is taken in red for a week. You spend an hour or an hour and a half every morning just reading one of these chapters over and over. And that's a really beautiful experience, too.

I could see that being a really beautiful experience. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so here we are with this book. I hope everyone listening will, um, find a way to read it along with us and engage with it. And we're going to take we're going to go through and pull out some of the key concepts. We're going to focus on chapter one today. Um. Again, we could focus on chapter one for several episodes. Probably. We'll see what. We'll see what happens. But, um, thanks for sharing your journey with it. And I'm sure it feels like a friend. The book feels like a friend to you. I think we all have books that feel that way to us that, you know, we carry with us. Um, with this warmth. And so maybe. Yeah, right. I How to Know Higher Worlds by Rudolf Steiner is that book for me. And there was overlap here for sure. Uh, though I found the way that some of the concepts in this book were presented even a little more clearly. I thought so, yeah. So I thought I wanted to start with this idea of the art of healing or the art of medicine, um, which I, I feel like sometimes when we think about, at least for me, as someone that lives in the US, um, I think of mainstream medicine not as an art. I was having a like, you know, dissonance in my head around that word. And of course, this book I think is very has that infused. And I wondered if you wanted to talk about that a little bit because it's, it's right. Like within the first few words there, he's talking about the art of the art of medicine.

Yeah. Well, I think the, the German title of the book is a little bit longer than how it's usually translated in English, and it talks about providing information or guidance for extending the art of medicine. And when I think about the art of medicine, it's it's kind of the space where something new can happen. And I actually think right now in in today's world it's almost easiest to define by talking about the negative example or the opposite, which is a medicine which is so standardized. Um, and actually is, as we're approaching the role more and more of artificial intelligence in medicine. I think this is something we'll we'll be meeting and experiencing. But a kind of protocol driven medicine, or standardization in some ways excludes the individuality of the person, the patient who needs healing with kind of the not only the, um, the structure, but also the assumption that the best answer for what's going to be a healing process is already known. It's been studied. The research has been compiled. Recommendations have been created. Those have been distributed. And really, there is something based on the past and the assembled knowledge, which is very, very important. But I think there's this kind of ache or hole in medicine where you feel. I show up and it doesn't matter who I am, what my path has been, the answer is already known for me.

Um, last year I actually was talking to someone in my my medical practice who had been to a very renowned national center, um, for a serious health concern, and she said the only thing they were interested in were their protocols. Alls. They really weren't interested to see who I was and that was quite disappointing. I think medicine is also evolving in a way that as long as the medical provider knows those protocols and can carry them out, that it also doesn't really matter who the doctor or nurse therapist who it is. The answer is already known. So it's a medicine which is kind of removing the space for the individual role of the patient, and also removing the space for the individual encounter that happens between two people. And also discounting the fact that I would say is a healer in the world. We want to be gathering lots of information, but there's a kind of deeper perception and development that also is is very healing. Um, so I want to say the art of medicine is taking lots of information, having all of that in your back pocket and also still holding some openness and flexibility. To really see what meets the needs and the the wishes and the priorities of the moment.

Right. Yeah. Thank you. I feel like you just named something that people have a hard time naming when they go into medical systems, medical systems with the best intention of, you know, sort of fixing the problem, like you said. But there's this component missing that you're really naming. So clearly here. And I think of like education where that's happened in education where you could almost take the teacher out as long as they use the curriculum that's been handed to them with the answer and prescribed, you know, lesson plan that I think this has happened in education, too. It's the standardization, you know, of education, the standardization of medicine. And it doesn't leave room for the encounter with the teacher and the student. Same here. The you know, and we just talked about with that that magic is in the encounter. And uh, yeah, it feels very like materialistic. Um, just uh.

It is like.

Hardened and. Yeah, not living. I'm always looking for life. There's not that's what worries me in those systems is where's where's the life? Where's the living encounter is how you're naming it.

Yeah. Well, I think it's great that you bring up education because I've, I've had some conversations about colleagues and friends who are teachers. And the idea that there's kind of a teacher proof curriculum, um, that if the curriculum is well developed enough, it really doesn't matter who's the person at the front of the classroom providing that information. And sometimes even a curriculum that's that's the same across a whole school district or across a whole country. Um. And yes, that that takes out a lot of life. There's actually, I think, a beautiful place where Steiner talks about the kind of painful process of putting things into writing, because as soon as you do that, it gets stuck a little bit. So, um, yeah, a very important part of these first paragraphs in chapter one is saying that we need to fully recognize that the principles and methods of conventional medicine, of standardized medicine, because there's a lot of wisdom there. And where do we open the space to really be perceiving what is alive and what is, uh, standing there is potential also for the future. Because when things become very fixed, there's really no space towards a new development. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Mm. And I would say, like, as a medical professional or as an educator, it takes the life out of the educator or the doctor too, because you go in with this like hope for healing or for, um, you know, having children's eyes light up when they see you and they want to learn and you want to heal as a doctor. And then that standardization takes that that line. We were talking about burnout before we actually got on here. And I think that that's that's part of it. That's part of the burnout. Right? Is the.

Absolutely.

Well, teachers and doctors, nurses healthcare. Yeah.

Um.

I think when there's so much requirement or expectation of what you have to fulfill around the encounter, I mean, there's statistics now that most doctors spend twice as much time in front of the computer, um, entering information into the electronic medical record as they do with patients. So I don't know that I could exactly imagine that happening in education. But if you had to do two hours of parent emails and faculty meetings and all the things around the teaching. That that takes out the life. Yes. And I was sharing that I had seen something which is a program trying to address burnout in medical providers. And some of the main recommendations were how to more efficiently work with the electronic medical record. Um, it's not quite the right. Key place. Um, I don't maybe that's going to bring a little bit more time, but I don't think it will bring more life.

No, no. And it's not the true remedy. You know, and since we're talking about medicine, that is not that is not necessarily the it doesn't get to the root of the issue, which is what I feel like anthroposophical medicine. And please correct me if I'm wrong. It's looking at the whole system and the root causes and things like that. And, um, I feel like modern medicine is so good at plumbing. It's like, okay, we can take this hip out and put this hip in, or we could fix this valve and put this other valve in, or we could remove this. And I feel like, yes, we've got the plumbing down, but like, if the whole system has an issue way harder to for modern medicine or, um, mainstream medicine to, to work with. So. Okay. Yeah. Let's get into, let's get into the book.

Yeah.

All right. So yeah. Where would you like to go first with this? There's there's so much here.

Well, I think. Maybe one of the important starting places is just the description of how we can increase our power of thought. And I think that that's a really important part of observation, of really seeing things in an enlivened way. Because that art of medicine probably can't really unfold if if we don't have some space, some time to really see what's what's alive and present in the present moment. And so Steiner speaks about how there are certain meditative exercises that can be done. And that when we hold certain thoughts in consciousness, we will, um, develop a new capacity. Which actually I think we already have. And actually many people in medicine. Um, experience. But it's maybe not in a fully conscious way. And kind of one example of that. In a very practical way, could be most of the measures that we use in modern medicine take. A process that's flowing in time, that's unfolding in life. And figure out how can I fix it? And how can I make a a quantitative measurement of it? Um, so that things can be described in. Numbers, um, which is very good for statistics, but it's kind of everything is being taken and brought to a rest. And then there's this process of opening our thinking and enlivening our thinking.

Which can be things like saying in this present moment that we're in. What stood behind it? What what's the history going to this point? And also what can go forward out of this moment? And I would also say really trying to see where is the potential. Where is where is vitality. And a lot of ancient healing systems talk about this realm of life forces of enlivened thinking. Um, in anthroposophic medicine, it's it's the etheric body, etheric forces where if gravity is always taking things and pulling them to a stop, to a conclusion, to a rest. There are these forces which are also taking substance and working in our bodies to continually enliven and help us grow and repair and come into something new. Um, and so I think trying to develop a whole culture of being able to look and see where is the life, where is the potential? Um, in some ways it's as simple a question as saying in this situation, if we're going to plant seeds for something new to happen, are we trying to plant them in enriched soil that has a lot of compost, or are we trying to plant them in sand?

Um.

And I think if you have a protocol, there's no space for that kind of assessment. And if you don't look at that, that level, that realm, it's very hard for someone to participate in their own healing process if they just have no vitality to bring to it. Because because I think change really needs life. It needs energy. It needs, um, the possibility for something new. So sometimes the word salutogenesis or what can we do to be actively creating health, creating vitality, creating wellness? Um, that doesn't happen so often. We're mostly reactive in the way that we treat things in the medical system today. But the space for new potential. It's it's really essential. And the traditional Chinese medicine, um, it's described as chi in Japan, it's ki. Um, the Greeks spoke about the archeus pretty much any healing system, probably outside of our modern one, which does take a very materialistic approach, had some perception and appreciation for this space of of vitality and life and what are we building on? So I think that's a core aspect of this first chapter, is kind of the contrast of gravity forces and how they are met and lifted and loosened through these etheric forces.

Yeah, thanks. I was surprised to see so much about thinking and the thinking exercise right away. And of course, you know in How to Know Higher worlds. You know, like you get a pencil or a something like that, and you look at it and you concentrate and you use your mind to figure out, well, where did it come from? Um, who helped make it? You observe it so strongly and this does something to your thinking. And of course, this makes sense to have this capacity as a healer. Of course, you want to be able to, um, remove assumptions, um, be able to really focus, be able to see what's right in front of you, be able to hold that focus and, um. See all of it, um, see all of the person. Yeah. So I was surprised. I was surprised that was in there. And then it and then it made a lot of sense. And then the, the other thing, like as you're talking, one of the things we started to do in the school I'm working for, um, is we started to do these student success meetings where the student is a participant in it, and the first thing we do is look at all their strengths and we gather them all, and we put them on the on the whiteboard in front of us. And everyone in the room, the faculty, me as the counselor, the the parents guardians see the strengths. And then the student receives that and takes that in. And then we begin to look at the challenge. So it's very different than just looking straight to the issue or having the protocol. Right. Like, oh, this here's this student has this, we do XYZ. You know, it's like, okay, let's look at the whole system. Let's use all our thinking and observation and then try to get to a place of healing any challenge that's there. So yeah, that's so powerful, such a different kind of process that activates this thinking and this sort of strength based whole system perspective for healing.

Absolutely. I think it requires a certain trust that those growth forces, those healing forces exist, which actually is very empowering also because I think if if I'm experiencing illness. But how I can heal and grow and change is a conscious part of the process. That's beautiful. Wow. Then I feel empowered. Um, and also I think is a as a provider, um, if I can be looking at that world and recognizing that it's there And all of the responsibility doesn't. All of the responsibility doesn't rest on the medical providers shoulders. But but it's really a cooperation of seeing these etheric forces are there. They're actually doing so much more than we recognize. Um, I mean, you go to medical school and you learn a lot about different kinds of illnesses, but actually the body is so much wiser than any doctor. I really can say that. Um. An example. You can do a really complex surgery to remove something, to repair something and stitch everything back up. And then the body heals it. The muscle and the blood vessels and the skin. It's all going to heal back together into a functional state. So the surgery is very complicated. But the recovery, the healing activity that happens afterwards is phenomenal. Um, so this realm of the etheric forces again brings optimism. And it's such an important study. Um. And as said in anthroposophy, it's described in a certain way. But really, when you start looking at gestures, um, fairy tales, um, fables, mythic images, this Is aspect of life and growth and lifting and loosening. It's just there all the time. So I think we can incorporate into medicine, and it's not going backwards to an old fashioned kind of thing. It's actually working much like writing the strengths on the whiteboard to say, let's, let's see what we're working with. And the goodness that's happening and how to embrace that.

Mhm. Yeah.

Yeah. Thanks I appreciate it because it isn't going backwards. And like you said right in the beginning of this chapter um it's like oh yes we, we accept and we appreciate what's happening now in medicine. And also now we're going to and here's this word, we're going to extend it again. So we're going to extend that to further pictures that aren't just connected to the five senses. Um, and the physical world. We're going to extend that picture a bit more. I mean, you can't really define a strength in terms of in terms of the five senses, I would say. Like when I'm sitting with a student, I'm not like, oh, well, they're very a very strong, strong sense of smell. Like that's that wouldn't be a strength. I might be able to talk about their courage.

Yeah.

Or their, um, vitality. Like their their energy, their enthusiasm. Those those are things that are more connected to this etheric realm that aren't, you know, five, five senses connected and that the first chapter is like, yes, and let's keep going. Let's keep going with what we're seeing.

So yeah, I think another really interesting sentence. And I recognize we're kind of jumping around, but um. Is this describing that The etheric forces. The life forces are very, very active at the beginning of life. And, um, in the time of the embryo and the sheaths around the embryo embryo. And, um, this very fluid environment that we're growing in, life forces are very much connected to water, to the fluid element. And actually, I just yesterday I saw a two month old for a follow up, uh, visit who had just about doubled his birth weight from. Well, he, he had just about doubled his weight from birth. And that's exceptional. We don't do that very often to have such vitality and growth that you can be twice as much as you were two months ago.

Right.

Um, that these forces are really active in our physiology and our body. And then there's a certain point where forces of form and growth that were in the body come up into our thinking. And. We could also spend a lot of time talking about that and the liberation of etheric forces around the change of teeth for, for six and seven year old children, um, where they suddenly start thinking abstractly and understanding jokes and able to do mental math instead of counting everything on their fingers that their thinking becomes freed. And I think this is also a really important insight. And maybe it goes back to why the meditations are described, is that if we have these forces of growth that are active in our body and forces of growth that also come into our thinking and allow for this enlivened perception and creativity. That it can give us a pathway into really observing this realm, because it's it's kind of variations of the same activity. Um, I don't think that's too abstract. If you consider something like how hard it is to be creative if you're tired.

Um, that's a great example. Yes.

That it's hard to bubble for new thoughts to bubble up if we don't have this vitality of our whole self, we've been overworked or over challenged. But that we really can develop something in our thinking that opens these new perspectives.

Thanks for connecting those two, um, concepts of of the etheric and then the and then the thinking and how. Yeah, how they work together and they evolve over time. So so it's not the body that's growing anymore then it's the thinking that has this capacity. And again, it's very it becomes limited if it's just given to us through AI or something like that, that we're not using our own, um, or a protocol that we're not using our own capacity there in the encounter with the person. And you're saying that's that's where the importance that it it lies there.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's keep going with the book. So we I don't think we're jumping around too much. I think we're doing great. And again, you know, 16 pages we can or however many it is in whatever copy you're reading. It's not too much. So. So he ties this to imagination, the etheric right. And I thought that was helpful in terms of understanding the thinking realm. I don't know if you can say any more about that and then maybe move into the next concept.

Sure.

Well, the word imagination really comes in this description of enlivened thinking and perception. So and I think the way we use imagination more broadly, um, taps into that kind of process that we are. We're creating images. We're creating story alongside something. Which is, again, a little bit different than just having everything finished being given to us. If I hear a story being read to me, and I imagine the pictures, the events, I'm actively creating something in my own consciousness and thinking. So that's this realm of enlivening, of life forces. And then you're right, there's there's two more steps that are described, and the next one is not an activity of imagination, but what's described as inspiration. And this is really interesting as well. I think this is Challenging when we read it as a concept, but we can also relate to it through experience, which is that when you have really beheld something, when you've really devoted energy and attention, creating these imaginations, creating something new. Then there's a step where you let go of all of these pictures and and see what comes in. And that's described here as inspiration. And that there can be a kind of.

Um, echo or a kind of resonance or a kind of archetype that steps in. And when I try to understand that, I could think of it a couple of ways. One might be something like if you were listening to a concert, especially if there's music which lets you just open and you're just being carried along with the music. That can be a point where the music stops and everything is quiet. So there's actually nothing happening, but you can have a really strong emotional response to it. And it's like there's a there's some preciousness about that little moment before somebody talks or claps or coughs or, um, they've been really journeying with something and then it stops and it opens. And I think that's some quality of this inspiration. And it's a place where archetypes of spiritual truths can really step in. And that I think sometimes also, when we're really in encounter with one another, we're listening. We're building pictures. We're building understanding. And then sometimes as part of the art of medicine, there can be a pause where you actually need to not say anything. Which in today's culture is a little strange.

Because.

It because it could feel like you're being ignored for a minute. But I can say in anthroposophic medical practice, it's very, very rich to try to build these pictures, to see what's there, and then try to let everything go and see what comes as as an impulse, as an inspiration. There's that word again, as a new step, as a kind of overall gesture for what's happening. And that's also something that there's very, very little space for in a protocol driven medicine. And I'm not sure that we can jump to it right away. It really needs this beholding and encounter space first. Um, but it's this place where healing archetypes enter in so that you might say, oh, I think this is a situation where we need to soften and loosen everything, because someone's just really been having to hold things so tightly that there's little breath or. This is a situation where actually we need to bring a lot of form and structure and organization. And then in anthroposophic medicine, that helps lead you towards a therapy which ideally is is going to meet the very specific individual needs. But this, this little space, um, a great friend of mine, Albert Schmidly, he, he would tell a story about a colleague he knew who in his medical office had a little closet where all of the medicines were stored. And he would go, um, and pause in that little closet. And it was to get a medicine for someone. But it was also, I think, to create this inspiration space to let everything go and just see what enters in. Yeah, that's kind of the the second step.

Yeah. That's great. I mean, I think about that in terms of like, um, as a counselor That quiet space that you allow for the person sitting with you. Like maybe there's been a rush of discussion, and then just allowing that quiet space allows their own healing capacity to come into, or their own recognition of what what ails the, you know, is able to kind of come in or a new idea can come in, but it is uncomfortable. I love that he went to the closet just to walk over. It's okay to, you know, step away. And we don't really have a very strong practice of that in, in our culture of that. Um, let us sit here and wait.

Yeah.

And see what comes. Yeah.

I also think these are, these are habits or experiences that don't come overnight. So as you're learning anthroposophic medicine, sometimes you're just trying to perceive. You're just trying to create some enlivened picture. And then you may have to say, I think I need to consider this a little bit. I need to think about this overnight. And it's very interesting. I still need to do that sometimes. Um, what people's reactions are. Some people are really puzzled, but most of the time people people are kind of amazed that there's that space for the contemplation to still continue and unfold beyond that immediate moment in the in the medical office.

Yeah. Yeah. And that you're going to you're going to carry carry them with you.

Yes.

Is is healing itself. You know. Okay. There's someone's thinking of me.

Absolutely.

And pondering what what is happening there? Well, that's such a gift right there in itself.

Yes.

Okay. So yes, there is a third. So we've got imagination inspiration.

And then and then we come to intuition and where imagination was working with etheric forces and inspiration with astral forces. Intuition is really working with the forces of the I. And. I think this is a space where sometimes we can look at health and illness from a very big step, like, how does this experience land? Um, in the landscape of, of someone's overall biography. And is it just an accident that we're talking about this together? Or is there something important about the patient and the person trying to help? Of really two individualities, two spiritual beings who are meeting each other. And also when things are very difficult, trying to also see what is the potential learning or experiencing that's coming still. Um, I'm glad this isn't it's not the protocol step. This is really, um, a few steps along the way. But several times recently, people have expressed to me how, with a really life threatening illness, they wouldn't wish it on anybody else. Um, but they can start to see how it has prompted or opened possibilities for change that they really didn't know about, they didn't think existed before. And boy, that's that's such a delicate, refined space because it could feel very judgmental. It could feel callous. It could feel, you know, sort of like, well, yeah, just get over what's happening. This is really a growth possibility for you. Um, so I don't think that this is a space that actually opens all of the time or that you can control it, um, or schedule it, but it's kind of when you build through these steps of, of careful listening, of opening to see what emerges, and then sometimes just open discussion or sharing or reflecting.

That this kind of little, very, very precious moments, kind of golden moments come that open a whole, a whole new way of being or a whole new perspective. Uh, it's in the chapter. It, it talks about at this level of inspiration, you are starting to behold the activity of spiritual beings or spiritual archetypes. And with intuition, you're kind of in that place between them. And I would say sometimes in medicine it can be this level of feeling. Yes, we are all spiritual beings and we are learning and we are growing and struggling. Um, but there can be a kind of mutuality that opens on this level. So. I like I said, I don't think it happens very often. I sure don't feel like it could be scheduled or predicted. You're not going to put it in a protocol, but sometimes it happens and it's incredibly meaningful. And you say, oh, if that doesn't happen again for the next two years, I'm okay. I can keep doing what I'm doing, because that was really good, and I'm glad I was able to be part of it, to experience it. So. If we can find little ways for those moments to start entering into our more mainstream considerations of health and illness. Um. What potential. What an amazing impact.

Yeah.

I just keep thinking of, you know, that's next level.

That's. It. Yeah.

It's literally, you know, people say that, oh, that's next level. It is. It's next level. And it's like we know it's right there. And some people do and are able to to be there and experience it. And then what a what a wondrous thing that is to witness it and.

To help.

Carry that with them. Yeah.

Right at the beginning it says only someone who not only demands that one affirm his knowledge, but also, in addition, insists that no insight be proposed. Going beyond the limits of his insight can reject our efforts a priori. I think that's such a great if you're saying there's nothing possible beyond what we're doing right now, then none of this will be helpful. But if.

You can.

Open to the next level, and I think. We need it. We really need it in the world.

We definitely do. And I think we do get. We get glimpses of it. And we're so lucky because we're in this time, which, I mean, some people will not say it's lucky, but we can really see each other and witness each other more than we could, um, with the technology we have. So we do have this opportunity to be like, wow, did you hear about what happened in this spot and this person? Um, and you can hear them tell their story and, um, yeah, we can see it unfolding sometimes is really incredible.

Yeah, yeah.

I think we're really in a time of encounter.

Yes. What a great word. That is the time we're in, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. So anything else you know, we want to focus on for for this episode with the, with this chapter. I'm sure we'll keep referring back to it as we go too. But is there something else you'd like to bring?

Well, I think we're just trying to give some context for it. It's maybe a big ask, but I would say if you heard this and you're curious about these first, second, third steps, read this chapter seven times in the next month. We're going to try to do one of these podcasts about every month for a series. Um, and we'll see how far we get. But that if you could just try to not grab the details immediately and say, ah, this is so frustrating, it doesn't make perfect sense, or I can't immediately relate this to my existing experience. But just just try to move a little bit And say, oh, moving is part of what's needed. I have to be flexible in my thinking to read this book. And if you do that, then I think you're going to find there are some times where you pause and you just kind of open up and maybe. You find a new perspective. I'm not sure, but I have confidence that this book is, is really kind of an open secret that you could find this on the internet. It's there. Um, the text is not password protected. Um, but it takes this time of engagement and encounter and really has some treasures for us.

Thank you so much. I love how you're saying it's not password protected. It's not. It's, um. It's our own. Whatever our password is, we put it in.

Our own.

Spiritual personal password to access it. And sometimes that's just a minute to take a breath and say, oh, yeah, let me just look at this one page. I don't have to rip through that. I can just be with this and see. So yes, what a great invitation you've just given everyone.

Yeah. Good.

I'll do it myself. I'll read it seven times.

Okay. Me too. I'll read it seven times as well. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Adam. I am excited to see, um, the questions that come towards us and the ponderings and, um, what people notice about, you know, themselves as they read this and their feelings. And, um, it's so great to have an expert here with us. Someone that's working in the field and having these encounters and have and has worked on themselves to be able to do this. So thank you for initiating this process with this, this beautiful book.

Thank you Laura. It's it's great to do this together. And of course, even as you talk about it, you uncover new things yourself. So, um, I really want to see where we get to. Yeah. Thanks so much.

Thanks.