Extending the Art of Healing Through Anthroposophy

Chapter-7---Awakening-our-Understanding-of-Illness--100-years-of-Fundamentals-of-Therapy.mp3

Welcome to extending the Art of healing Through Anthroposophy with Doctor Adam Planning and Laura Scarpetta. 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. In this episode, we work through chapter seven of Fundamentals of Therapy by Edith Ekman and Rudolf Steiner. And wow, it's quite an enlightening chapter. One of the primary concepts introduced in this chapter is that challenging experiences bring strength, and that in this holistic healing, anthroposophical medicine is centered on introducing a challenge, including challenging the body through certain substances and treatments can trigger healing. You'll hear about iron and its purpose in the body, and how it can be used to bring strength and courage. And mistletoe, a parasitic plan and how, when it is introduced to the human body, it invites the immune system to respond physically by fighting off cancer, while also helping us personally look at what isn't serving us on an emotional level. We discuss the blood processes and the nerve processes and how we experience these on a daily basis. For example, the world and everything we've done all day pushes in on us and asks our nervous system to respond all day long. And that's natural, but it can feel overwhelming and wear us down. But the good news is we can, as we say, take hold of ourselves and balance these through the ego forces in our blood. One goal of anthroposophical medicine is to have a lot of tools and expand beyond the picture of a one shot remedy, like a pill that you may need to take forever. Adam calls this a replacement paradigm. Anthroposophical medicine offers an an gesture that can both reduce the illness process while increasing our healing capacity. Do you have questions or ideas for our podcast? Well, now you can email us at extending the Art of healing at gmail.com. We can't wait to hear from you! Thanks for listening. Please follow and share the podcast with anyone who wants a fresh perspective on healing. Adam. Here we are.

Hey, Laura. Glad to be talking together again.

Me too. So glad for that. And we are talking about chapter seven in the book of Fundamentals of Therapy by Rudolf Steiner and Ina Wegman. Everybody's hopefully following along with us at this point and reading some copy of the book in this chapter is called The Nature of Healing Functions, or the nature of the Influences of Healing. And wow, it was so super interesting to me to read through this and think about these processes in the body, and how they're interacting with each other towards healing or towards like correcting, like a pathogenic. Is that a word, a pathogenic process or an illness? Yeah. Um, so why don't why don't you start out a little bit on this chapter? Because it's one of my favorite ones that we've, we've read so far.

I agree, I think it's a really it's a good chapter. I think it's kind of a surprising chapter, actually, in terms of how how to think about healing, because I'll jump back to medical school. Most of the time when you do a treatment, you try to do something to make things easier for somebody, or to take over something for them. Like, if your blood pressure isn't well regulated, then you do something that regulates your blood pressure. Um, or if somebody's anxious, you try and take away the feelings of anxiety. And this one. Well, it reminds me there was there was a meeting I went to a few years ago with a whole bunch of people who have been pretty accomplished in their work, like they've worked hard for a long time. And there was a sharing where the question was, can you think back to a time in your life when there was something really difficult, which seemed really a hardship and put a pretty big challenge in front of you, which in retrospect was actually really, really important for making some kind of core shift or core insight. Um, and that meeting was really interesting because everybody there had one of those stories. Um, and I think that kind of shows that healing change development is, is also a learning process. And sometimes we really have to kind of go through an eye of a needle or meet something very, very consciously in order to take a next step. So this, this chapter about iron, I think it has some of those elements. I'm sure you've got times in your life when you could think of something that was challenging or with colleagues. Um, yeah, I certainly have in my own biography.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, how about to sit in a room with people like that and then hear them share those stories of how it how those challenges, they face them? And then the strength came out of it. And I feel like. Exactly like you're saying. Like the modern medical paradigm is to ease, not to challenge, just to correct. Um, you know, just, like, swap in this thing that you might be missing or that you're low in, or that instead of giving it. Right. Um, and then it's all just in like this one little pill format or this one treatment like it's and and so but we know from life and from our soul life I would say that that actually the challenge is where the growth comes. So to read that, to read in this chapter that that can be true on the physical level. I mean, I guess some people think about it like, uh, like weightlifters will be like, okay, well, you got to shred it down first to build it back up, right? Like there's like this tearing apart process of the muscle fibers, I don't know. One of my kiddos was talking about this, you know. Um, so maybe maybe we have a concept of that towards a goal. Uh, but but not in just like, sort of our general understanding of of healing. I don't think it would really occur to many people at all. So yeah.

Yeah, I think well, the, the, this chapter, there are kind of three paragraphs in the middle of it, and there are a lot of different elements in here about breakdown processes and building up processes. But what I found really surprising, especially when I was first encountering this idea, is, is the idea that iron is something that is intimately connected to our healing. And it says in here it's part of the blood, but it's healing because iron is something that we never quite fully integrate into our own selves. It always stays a little bit foreign. It always stays a little bit outside world. And so to have something inside of you that you're always kind of grasping, massaging and casing and countering, um, in a conscious way to say, okay, how do I hold this? Is this really part of me? Is this not part of me? I think that's a fascinating image. And if people have really low iron, you can have the experience. Gosh, I feel weak. Um, I get fatigued easily. Sometimes I feel a little bit spacey, or I faint more easily that you really notice. Oh, I'm not quite as connected to myself as I have been at other times. And so I take more iron. And Usually we think, yes, you need iron to make hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in your blood. And all of those things are true. But this kind of spiritual picture that actually the iron is there also to make us take hold of ourselves continuously. I found that fascinating.

And yeah, to take. Did you say that take. To take hold of ourselves continuously? Yeah.

I mean, I don't know, consciously. Maybe we take hold of ourselves once in a while, um, where we say, okay, I really want to change a pattern or, um, I really want to initiate this new project or this new hobby or this new trip, or I'm going to take something on. And that's in our conscious soul life. But this is this is happening continuously in our physiology that we're always taking hold of ourselves. And that means we are always renewing and refining ourselves in this kind of blood healing process.

That is quite a concept to grapple with. It just shows how many things are connected in the world. Like, you know, when we've been talking about nature and things like that before in these processes, bark and things like that. And then here, here it is again, as related to our emotional life or our progression in our own ego sense of self and, and that that's really amazing to me that then that is connected to a substance in the body and the blood. Like, I don't know, it's just a remarkable picture. So should we read should we read that paragraph? I can.

Absolutely.

Okay. So there are three. And I think we should read all three of them during this episode that you picked out. But okay. It says hopefully with the little context now everybody will follow. Upon examination of the blood, iron reveals itself as the only metal which within the human human organism has the tendency towards crystallization. Thus, it maintains forces which are in fact external physical mineral forces of nature. Within the human organism, they form a system of forces oriented in terms of outer physical nature. This, however, is continually being overcome by the ego organization.

Yeah, and I think we're meeting the world also continuously with substance, with impressions, with challenges, so that the world kind of threatens to overcome us pretty regularly. I mean, feeling overwhelmed that that's a basic human experience, I think, right now. And sometimes you need the space to just get away. Sometimes you just need protection. Sometimes you just need less of it. And other times you just need to really say, let me meet this.

Right.

I get to talk with a lot of families who have children who are about nine years old, where they really have this step of self-awareness, of really feeling that they are a unique individual in the world. And iron works as a really nice support at that time, is usually the kids are feeling anxious about being overcome by the world, about getting sick, about being injured, about, um, all kinds of strange things. And iron kind of gives you more courage.

Mhm. Mhm.

So sometimes that's nice. Um, to express to people. And then I think this, this process of taking hold really does bring a deep healing activity. Well, it's it's a little bit like the last episode where we talked about mineral substance, living substance, sensing substance, and really self-conscious substance, that that this step of grasping with iron is, is really challenging us to do that fourth step of completely consciously grasping and taking hold of. And maybe we wouldn't do that if we weren't challenged in this way.

Yeah, it's funny, I keep thinking of that phrase like, get Ahold of yourself. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, I mean, it's funny because there's like now in in trauma work and, um, emotional regulation. One, one of the movements that you would actually do is like to put your hands on your opposite shoulder, like, cross your arms and then just run them down. So you're actually, like getting a hold of yourself. And so to have that be this thing that helps to regulate but also brings you into that, this stronger sense of yourself, this fuller sense of yourself and that grounding. And then to have this complementary like, I don't know, is it a supplement? Is it. Is it meteoric iron? Is it just iron from the shelf at the the health food store? Like, what is this iron that when you're talking about it, what actually is the iron? Because I'm assuming they're different. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Um, so the the types of iron that you use in anthropomorphic medicine are potent sized. So they've been highly diluted. And for something like children who are turning nine. Um, it could be meteoric iron, which is iron with it sometimes has nickel, it sometimes has other metals with it, but it's really iron that has come from, um, the space outside of the Earth. This, this kind of cosmic picture of, of coming into the earthly world.

Um.

And so for the nine year old, where a, a part of their consciousness is really taking that step of being self-aware, I'm really a person in the world, then this, this meteoric iron is very strengthening, I would say, on kind of a spiritual level.

Um.

But there are other types of iron which are more helpful for the digestion. Like if somebody really can't overcome food. So, well, then there's an a form of, um, potent sized iron carbonate firm carbonic. Um. That's interesting. That's helpful Sometimes it's using iron in the form of stinging nettle, where we could say, now it's a mineral which has already been enlivened in a plant process. So it's a little bit easier to take into your system, kind of in that step, from mineral to enlivened to sensing to self-conscious. So it could take a lot of different forms. And what's kind of fascinating is I've definitely seen situations where, let's say somebody's blood count is low, they're anaemic, and maybe they don't tolerate very well the kind of iron that you buy at the grocery store over the counter. And they can take some of these specially prepared formulations of iron that don't have so many milligrams in them, but actually have a better response.

Hmm.

Because it's it's not so much about flooding your system with iron as really Consciously meeting something and working with it. So, um, yeah, it's not just the milligrams, it's it's really what you do with what you take in.

Yeah.

Gosh, we really need this medicine in the world. We need this so much. Because I do feel like even even in, like the best health food store, I just go in and I'm like, okay, well, this is the iron that is, like, more easy to absorb. So that's the one. But like you're talking about all of these layers of of work that can happen and different kinds of iron and, and I think people just don't know and I don't know, it makes me I'm so glad we're doing the podcast, because I just want more people to know that this sort of individualized, um, medicine is available. And, you know, I'm thinking of all the the high school students I work with and, you know, they're graduating or they're, they're encountering I mean, anxiety is and we talked about this last time in epidemic. And so this is why it's so great that sometimes Waldorf schools have have a doctor that's connected to them. Our school doesn't necessarily have that right now, but I'm just thinking of how much it's needed, like to to meet each student individually and see what they need. And and now you've added this layer where what they need isn't just one thing. It's like maybe it's the enlivened form of it that came from a plant, or maybe it's the mineral, but I mean, that's just extraordinary to me. It's just a much fuller picture of healing and the human and the, the substances that are available to us that are just here with us or cosmically here with us. So.

Though.

It's blowing my mind, Adam.

It's. It's fun stuff. I mean, I have to say, you start swimming around in these waters, and it's pretty hard. Well, there's a threshold where you're really interested in it, and you learn some, and then you start feeling the process of it. And then, at least for me, I reached a point where I couldn't just prescribe the over-the-counter ion because it, it felt, um, I don't know, it wasn't complete.

Mhm.

And you can still do the over-the-counter iron. And if you're meeting iron your body knows what to do with it. But these supports can just be really, really specific. And sometimes they're actually very gentle but very very effective.

Mhm.

Right. And that's the beauty is when we don't have to use a bulldozer, we can just prompt or stimulate the body to do something that is already working on, because our body's doing this process with the iron all the time, and we just help wake it up a little bit more.

Mm. Yeah.

That's so that is so gentle.

Yeah. That this week I was talking with a bunch of different families, but one family, we were speaking about a child who's in six, seven years old and having some, some different steps of development. And we were talking about how much can a child really take on in terms of their own awareness.

Mhm.

And it was fascinating that one of the parents in a conversation said, you know, I had the experience as a child that I really wasn't relaxed ever. And then when I was nine I decided that I didn't want to be that way all of the time. So I started practicing how to be relaxed. And this is something that happened decades ago. There were no medicines involved. But this process, I thought it was such a beautiful description to say, I'm one way and I feel I could be more complete if I can also be another way. So I'm going to do that. I'm. I'm consciously taking hold of myself. Um, that was a beautiful nine year old story. Yeah.

That's so great.

Mm.

And they saw, you know, healing for the parent to reflect back to and then see it in their child what their child's going through. I don't know so much is handed down and and to create the space for like the system. I feel like this medicine is always creating spaces for the system as a whole, whether that's the family system or the whole system of the body, or the system of interaction In between the earth and the human and the cosmos. You know, it's very system oriented.

It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of things fitting together.

Right? Mhm.

Okay. Well should we go to the next paragraph.

Let's do it. Let's let's see how we can understand this stuff.

Okay. Great. Do you want to read it. You want me to read it.

Um I'll read this one and you can read the third.

We'll take it. Sounds great.

One is dealing with two systems of forces. One has its origin and Nerv processes the other in blood formation. The pathogenic processes that develop in the nerves do so only to the degree that they can be healed continuously by blood processes which counteract them. Nerve processes are such that they are caused by the astral body and the nerve substance, and thus in the organism as a whole. Blood processes are such that in them the ego organization confronts outer physical nature within the human organism. This outer physical nature, which continues on within it, is, however, subjected to the form giving process of the ego organization. So again, what's in there?

Like, how is it just a paragraph like isn't that that it then we get like like you were saying, you know, sometimes you when you come together with other medical professionals, you'll take one chapter and work on it for six days. Right. Like that's that's it. And it's like you could just take this one paragraph and work on it for a week and understand it.

That's what we did.

Um, and.

One of the anthropomorphic doctor's trainings, we, we worked with the chapter about silica, which will be our fifth episode, and we spent six days, an hour and 15 minutes a day just reading through these ideas and seeing the thought progression. It's pretty fascinating. Um, but not casual light reading.

No, no.

Okay, so two processes here. Nerve process and blood process.

Yeah. And looking at these two, I think you can kind of experience those aspects almost on a daily basis where at the end of the day, if you are really spent because you've made a lot of decisions, because you've had a lot of conversations, just a lot.

Of information.

To.

Because.

You're.

A mom.

Sorry.

Absolutely.

Lots of lots of holding and helping and deciding and all the needs of the outside world kind of come into you and and all of those demands, demands? They break us down. So that I think when you're really tired, you can just feel. Ooh, my vitality is not so good. And that could be that. It's hard to pay attention to things anymore, or it's hard to concentrate. But you can feel I've, I've spent and so this kind of outward process that we're always taking in when we're consciously attending to that we're letting things come into our system. And that does have a kind of influence on us that I would say it's it's in it's pushing in on our kind of own self-regulation because we're making room for all of the things that are happening around us. If I decided to just be totally self enclosed, then those things wouldn't influence our physiology so much. But but we're really not self enclosed beings. And then I think we can experience the other side of that, the, the continuous healing that was mentioned, where we've had sleep, where we've had a little bit of respite. A time to step back and we can kind of take hold of all of the things that have happened and try to process them and reorient and see how does this belong inside of me or not? Kind of an integration process. Yeah. So this, this iron in the blood and the blood being something where we're continuously taking hold and making it our own. I think that has pretty broad therapeutic principles as well. One of the the main anthropomorphic treatments in a situation like a cancer is mistletoe.

Yeah.

Let's talk about mistletoe.

It's fascinating because people come in and they say, I hear about this mistletoe stuff. Um, isn't that what you hang up at Christmas time or the holidays? That's true. It's it's the same thing. But mistletoe is is a really interesting kind of support for the immune system because it's a plant that is a parasite. It's a plant that grows berries and fruits in both the winter and the summer. It's a plant that grows on other trees, never on the ground. It's a plant that if you clip it off of the tree, it kind of grows out in a big circle. But it's it's not so easy to see up and down. And when you put mistletoe into our system, it stimulates a reaction to say, this doesn't really belong inside of me. So I'm going to meet it, I'm going to break it down and I'm going to clear it out. And when we're able to do that process, it has a kind of wash over effect. Because if I'm doing that on a cellular level with my immune system, there's a kind of resonance that happens where maybe I also say maybe some of the interactions I have. I don't need those either. Or maybe old, um, worries. Old injuries. Maybe I can work with those in a different way as well. So sometimes people will say something like, when I have mistletoe as a treatment, I feel better, I feel warmer. But I also notice that sometimes I'm more decisive about what's really part of me or not. So mistletoe isn't exactly an iron remedy in terms of I don't know if we broke it down, that it's got a high iron content, but it has this process of it's a real challenge. It really creates inflammation where the goal is that it stimulates our body to create inflammation, to break something down. And when we can do that rhythmically, then our body also is better able to recognize things like cancer cells.

Hmm.

When do those belong in my system? What's part of my healthy tissue? What's not? So that's a very fascinating treatment as well. Really working on this principle of of something challenging us in order to stimulate us to better meet and recognize what we what we need to encounter in order to be in a better state of health and self-regulation. And, Laura, I think in anthroposophy, we can also talk about being in the time of the consciousness soul.

Mhm.

And I know in your work thinking about how we're meeting the world and materialism and both our individual development and striving as, as well as sort of community striving.

Yeah.

Do you have a way that you think about the consciousness soul or. What we're supposed to be doing in this time in the world?

Yeah.

I mean, it is it is interesting to relate all these things to each other because of course, I'm again, as a high school counselor, thinking of the students there too, and how, you know, there's this thing now called school avoidance. Have you heard about this?

Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Of course you have. And so, you know, what exactly is that all about? When when students are for school refusal. Some types of refusing or work refusal. Uh, but it's like this, this avoidance of engaging with with something. And that's sort of what's coming to mind a little bit with the mistletoe and the challenge and that and okay, I'm just going to go with a thought for a minute, because my understanding of resilience has changed over the last while. And people will say, well, you know, people have to have grit, right? And that could be facing a challenge, but it doesn't mean facing it alone. So like there's this aspect of I mean some things like you do, you have to take hold of yourself and you do you do have to do it yourself. Um, but with mistletoe, you're, you're putting it into a system that's already there and capable and, like, meant to confront things. Right? So with consciousness soul, we're I'm just going to keep trying to follow this thread with consciousness. So there's the individual and the development of the, the individual. But we're all in the, the system. So we're all also evolving and changing together like as as humanity. Right. And there will be things that challenge us within our ourselves, but also within our culture and within the world that we're going to have to meet in face.

And if we have a system that is functioning, we can we can do that in a much stronger way. So if there's community like my understanding of resilience now is more connected to community or system, um, rather than just individual, um, you know, just an individual strength. And maybe that's something with like modern medicine too, or the medicine that we deal with. Again, it's just like so targeted to one thing and then one thing, the body is reacting to it, but it's not the whole system encountering it in a way that can be supportive. I don't know, I just went down a little side road there trying to talk about consciousness soul, but we have to be able to collectively and individually face the challenges that we're in right now and not step out of them and to find the supports that are going to help us manage. So I can sit in my house and spin about the world. But if I can step into a place where and that's my development, in a way it's the individual. But if I can meet with other individuals and work towards it and be in a system that's that's healing and meeting a challenge to, that's going to be more productive.

That's fantastic. Yes. I mean, Laura, what you mentioned there in terms of, let's say, with mistletoe that's working to stimulate a system, a whole way of working that already exists and needs strengthening. I'll say that again.

Yeah.

So what you said with mistletoe, in terms of that's working to stimulate something which already exists inside of us as a system. Yeah. I think that's that's really, really important. So we can call on that. And I think now with the consciousness. So we're also being asked to develop something which hasn't existed so far, but it's different than groupthink.

Yes.

We really do have to kind of wrestle with these things individually and feel, is this my truth? What's important to me? It's not in Fundamentals of Therapy, but last year I was reading a series of lectures by Steiner about social health.

Hmm.

And I think there were probably 4 or 5 times in this series of lectures that Steiner said, you should never question current day events. And I thought, wow, that's that's like a, that's an iron fortitude to say everything that's happening can be learned from.

Mhm.

Not necessarily convenient or easy or reassuring, assuring, but everything can be learned from. And so how do we really take hold of things? And then what you're describing is community. How do we really build community consciousness. That's not not grounded in fear.

Right.

But conscious encounter.

Yeah, right. And not groupthink. That's right. Exactly. Conscious encounter is a great way to to say that.

Yeah. So I mean, when I think about consciousness soul in terms of health and illness, it's also kind of saying we can get out of balance in different ways. And sometimes the ways that we get out of balance are the the ways that we don't know quite yet how to do that thing.

Right.

So we practice them and, and illness has this, this aspect of, yes, we're working with maybe physical symptoms with things which need to be addressed and need support, but on a spiritual developmental level. Were also trying to say, how do I really make this process so known that it's really mine? Yeah. So I kind of see consciousness or consciousness soul also on that level of individual experience, to say this is really something that I can learn from. Not not not just be overwhelmed by.

Right?

Yes. That I can take hold of and understand for myself. I feel like as a humanity right now, and I maybe I'm talking about the United States, I don't know, but I feel like we have been trying to. You know, and we do this within ourselves. It's like, oh, I'm going to do better at this thing. And then I take a step forward and then my pattern just comes back and I'm not able to continue. It does take so much fortitude to overcome, you know, systemic racism and oppression and sexism and all these things that are really were just trying so hard right now to find a new way. And we have to do that within ourselves to be able to do it in the, in the whole system as well, so that we can we can make these changes on different levels. But if if we need to embody it individually and then we need to embody it systemically and line in all that up, sometimes it's pretty tricky. Um, and having that sort of collective awakening around things is also not so easy. I, I do think we have more tools, and maybe this is again, like with a medicine that activates an entire system. It's different than saying, let me give you more serotonin. You know, that's so specific. So so Right. So a remedy that's going to invite an entire system to do something is going to have more of a lasting effect. And I think we can see that in the world too.

Whenever we can be working to strengthen something that is really already part of our humanity, and we can really participate in that. I think that brings longer, um, longer lasting, longer standing change.

Right.

Because because it's going to fall out of balance again. But if I've really if I've worked with it and I've decided or I've recognized, know this, this is really important for me and I can have that inclination. But it doesn't always have to define what I'm going to do.

Yeah.

So I, I think we're yeah. Right in the thick of it.

We really are. And I'm not also I'm not saying like the shot of serotonin isn't important sometimes. Like, I don't know, sometimes, like you need an IV of something, right? If you're so depleted and things aren't going well, like sometimes you do. I don't know. I don't know what anthroposophical medicine says about this. Like, is there a function of a reset where you just get the thing you need that is so low and it just gives you this reset, and then your system can more easily get itself into place. But you've addressed the one specific thing. I mean, I guess if you have like a cut, you wouldn't like, just do the whole arm like you would go. You would go to the cut and take care of the cut, right?

Sure.

But I don't know if you want to say anything more about that. And then we can move to the third paragraph.

Okay, good. I think in anthropomorphic medicine, a goal really is to have a lot of tools.

Yeah.

I think a consistent goal and different doctors, different providers, different therapists do it in their own way. But a goal really is to try to expand beyond the picture of, here's this problem. You're going to need to take this medication for the rest of your life, because that's that's a replacement paradigm.

There we go.

It can be really helpful if you're totally exhausted. So if I'm at a place where life has been so demanding with stress, with depression, and you say, I just need space, I just need the chatter, the buzz, the heaviness to be better for a while so I can reorient. That's totally appropriate and understandable. And at the same time, it's also possible to try to be working on these other levels, or sometimes just on your own. You get to a place where you say, okay, I think I'm ready for a step. What's going to help me with my taking a new step? And that's where these other kinds of supports are really fascinating. And and if somebody's already getting ready to take the step, which is part of our physiology, then again, these things can be very gentle but very potent because it just helps that door open. But if you're totally exhausted, totally depleted, you need some time to build up your etheric forces.

Yeah.

Then having something hold your body, hold your soul. Life in a in a certain, um, safe place, steady place can be very important. And so I would say anthropomorphic medicine also tries to include the and and we can be working on other possibilities. Next possibilities.

Yeah.

Great. Thank you. That's like the, the philosophical like piece there that I was wondering about. I love.

That. Mm.

Okay. So, um, I'm going to read the third paragraph.

Yeah. Otherwise, Laura will be here for hours.

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Just on three paragraphs. Okay. That's that's incredible to me. I think somebody said to me, oh, yeah, when I read Steiner, it's so stimulating. And it's also like this very full meal. Like, it's just like something to really substantive in there, and it's just getting in. So let me go to this third substantive paragraph. One can comprehend the processes of becoming ill and of healing directly through this interrelationship. If there is an increase within the organism of such processes, as are found to a normal degree, and what is stimulated by the nerve process, then there is illness. If one is able to counter these processes with others that represent a reinforcement of functions of outer nature within the organism, then healing can be brought about. When these functions of outer nature are mastered by the ego organization and counterbalance the processes which are oriented in opposition to them.

Right. So we sometimes for healing you need to reduce the illness process, and sometimes you need to heal where you need to strengthen the healing capacity, because we've got them both. And it's actually pretty common to do both things that you say, let's, let's try to change what's really out of balance and let's also help regain health restructure. Yeah.

Yeah that's great. So that's pointing to to to both saying okay I'm going to look at my chapter for another minute.

Sure.

One of the other things I was thinking, you know, was that this is sort of like this idea of the the blood and the ego, and then the nerve and the astral. Right. Like, it was kind of like the pedagogical law because like in high school, you know, you bring the ego, you bring your own ego to help the students work on their astral. Is that correct?

Like you're like the one level above.

Like, so I was thinking that that was like this relationship. People probably don't know what the pedagogical law is. Um, so I think to explain that I don't know if you can explain that, but basically, basically, as the person in front of young people, you're always like, if they are developing their physical body, then you are meeting them with your etheric. Is that right? Then you have the strength in your theory. And then as they get a little older and then they're in this 7 to 14, they're they're in this etheric. And then you're, you're meeting them with your strong, clear astral because they're going there next. I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And then it keeps going. So then in the high school, you know, in the next seven year cycle, they're working on their astral, you know, list. Very. My kids will say the very emo like this very emotional time. Um, and then the teachers, you know, you don't meet them in that same emotional way that they're, they're feeling. You meet them with your own ego presence, so then they can develop into that next. So this is what I sort of see this like in the, in the nerve and in the blood. The pedagogical law does that. Am I making a correlation that's not really there?

Oh, I think that's absolutely true. Like the nerves, the the astral responsiveness, we're just doing that all day. And then don't organize it to heal it. The blood process, the ego, the eye process steps in to. Make sure we're still on the right path.

And does the nerve process then also help with the correct process? Like what's the connection there? If we really were going down this pedagogical law thing, then so is the nerve process. You know we can edit this out if it doesn't make sense.

No, no, no it's good.

I'm just asking a question like does it really work all the all that way. Like then the asterisk helps to heal the physical dis astral.

It does.

If there's a dysregulation in each of those areas.

So so there's a different place in these chapters where Steiner says illness mostly comes from the astral, and a healing process comes from the eye. The ego on one side to organize it, and the etheric on the other side to bring new healing vitality so that you can really grow and repair what's been worn down. So absolutely I think. We're we're doing that process with ourselves that our eye is trying to catch up with our astral body all the time, and then our astral body hopefully goes to sleep for a while and leaves with the etheric can really build us up again. And we're doing this in relationship and community to to say maybe it would be helpful to think about this, or why don't you let me do that for you instead? So so we're also bringing more guidance, more organization, and also more, more support to each other.

Right?

So we we can be we can be the eye, the ego or the etheric for each other as well.

So nice.

Yeah, it's fun to be astral to astral as well. I mean especially.

Yeah.

Jokes or something like that, but but just like arguing.

Uh, eventually.

You feel the destructiveness of that as well.

Yeah.

That's right. Well, I think, you know, before I go to bed now, uh, knowing what you talk about, like, you know, on the daily, we're, we're working with these nerve processes and, like, if I can give my ego and my blood processes some space to really have to process everything that's happening through the day, I think I'm just going to have a different perspective now before I go to bed at night. And I know what I've been taking in and dealing with all day, and just know that there's this repair that's possible because of the processes in my body, not just what I'm thinking necessarily, even though the ego is connected to that as well. But it's like it's a it's a natural process that's possible. And I can support that. I can support that through remedies, or I can support that one just through my own awareness of that, instead of just feeling like I can have a trust in that process as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then support it as needed.

Absolutely. It's it's there. So we don't have to recreate it from scratch. That's good.

That's right.

Okay. So you said the next chapter we're doing is the one on silica.

Silica is a lot about boundaries.

Mhm.

And where do we where do we define a boundary. It's it's kind of at the opposite of this iron process of meeting and taking hold and transforming. And silica is a lot about where is it enough. Where do I end and how do I, how do I keep deciding and remembering and reassuring that this is my space inside of my boundaries, which also is is a fascinating thing to think about, and something I never was taught in medical school. That's why these chapters are so nice. Completely new thoughts?

Yeah, really new thoughts. Okay, well, thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to share before we. Before we go?

Well, Laura, it is so much fun to do these with you. It feels like some kind of continuation of exploration should happen in the future. And so if you think that these are helpful, and we hope that you're sharing them with your friends or your community. We'd also love if you would think about joining the circle of friends for the medical section. And that's a place where you can give us a little bit of financial support, because we don't charge for these podcasts.

There are no pharmaceutical ads supporting.

There are no.

Pharmaceutical.

Ads. No. That's so funny. This is.

Spiritual life.

That's right.

Free spiritual life. Uh, Circle of friends for the medical section. I'll make sure we we have that link available. And everybody can also email us and ask questions about that, um, or send us ideas about the show at extending the Art of healing at gmail.com. We really hope you will be interacting with us where you probably already have been. So thank you so much for that. And um, Adam, I can't wait till the the fifth episode. This is very exciting for us.

So I'm looking forward.

Okay.

Thanks so much, Laura.

Thanks, everybody. Bye. Thanks, Adam.

Bye bye.