Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects cognition and is characterized by significant alterations in perception, thoughts, mood, and behavior. The person experiences hallucinations (seeing things or hearing voices that aren't observed by others) and delusions (firm beliefs about things that are not true). For the surrounding, these thoughts or experiences are out of touch with reality.

As a result, the patient displays disorganized thinking, speech and behavior and decreased participation in daily activities, sometimes also difficulties with concentration and memory. People with schizophrenia may seem like they have lost touch with reality, which can make daily living very hard and be distressing both for them and their family and friends.

From a spiritual scientific perspective, schizophrenia takes place between the etheric body and the astral body of Man, and it is caused by the aftereffects of unbalanced influences needed in youth for a balanced development of one's etheric body and astral body in the first 20 years of life.

Aspects

• causes
  • factors with a definite action on the organism in the early periods of life, turn their effect into the opposite in later periods; but these effects in the organism can be shifted out of place; schizophrenia is based on such displacement (1920-04-06-GA312)
    • unbalances in youth forces due to education
      • schizophrenia occurs because Man has received mistaken treatment during childhood or early youth - e.g. organs which should normally remain latent till the later age are called into activity during childhood due to education; so that throughout the rest of life, what should have been developed in childhood and youth remains lacking, and only that is evolved which should be evolved in the adult. It is the nature of Man that he develops certain forces in early youth which then become formative for the organism. But not everything formed in the youthful organism finds its right use and place in life during the years of youth, eg if the child's soul development does not live with his whole sole within the act of imitation (in the first period of approx. seven years), and authority in the next. (1920-04-05-GA312)
      • mental illnesses schizophrenia and senile dementia may arise in the later periods of life as a result of education, and the fact that spiritual-scientific viewpoints for education have been disregarded (1910-04-28-GA059)
    • feeding in youth - improper substances to be dispersed in his fluid organism
      • "so-called mental illnesses are in reality not mental at all, because the mind or spirit does not become ill. Mental illnesses are based on body fluids evaporating improperly into oxygen and thereby disturbing the nervous system. "(1922-12-27-GA348)
      • "nowadays a great many people become afflicted with schizophrenia which extends quite far beyond the years of youth. This illness, in which people begin mentally to deteriorate in their youth, originates in great part from the wrong kind of feeding during the earliest years of childhood. It is not enough merely to examine chemically the baby's milk; one must look into completely different aspects. Because people have ceased to pay attention to feeding in our age, this illness arises with such vehemence." (1922-12-27-GA348)
  • incorrectly acquired clairvoyance
    • schizophrenia is related to incorrectly acquired clairvoyance due to unbalance of the etheric body between the physical and astral bodies. Human consciousness is based on an astral soul experience (the astral world of elementals being the world of mobility and metamorphosis), the etheric body also contains this ability of transformation, but during healthy normal balanced life it is restrained through the physical body (1913-08-26-GA147)
    • schizophrenia develops "because humanity is not able to cast out certain powers that are really moon powers" .. symptoms indicate how it attaches itself to the astral body which is just in the process of evolving out of the ether body. One such symptoms is the marked tendency to repeat things .. memory goes haywire, as it were, the person can not get out of the ether body stage, and cannot let the Moon stage develop in himself (1907-03-04-GA096)
      • Note, this is explained in Moon#1924-08-21-GA243: Man always has a 'second Man' inside him due to "Moon forces are within him and that they always tend to develop within him a second Man who is encased within the first Man" and .. we must prevent this second Man from breaking loose, wander phantom-like abroad and stray along false paths. Inner stability and self-control are essential for the acquisition of Initiation-knowledge in order to ensure that this potentially errant second Man stays within the body and remains linked to the normal waking consciousness associated with the physical body. Man continuously struggles to prevent this second being, the creation of the strengthened inner Moon nature, from dissociating itself from us. The second being is strongly attracted to everything associated with metabolism, peristalsis, the stomach and other organs, and makes heavy demands upon them.
    • see also guardian of the threshold

• relationship with balanced etheric body in control between physical and astral
  • the constitution of the soul, such as the temperamental tendency, should be taken into account in diagnosis:
    • schizophrenia will not easily supervene if the child does not exhibit a phlegmatic disposition, that is to say the temperamental tendency appropriate to a much later stage in life, and then only to a limited degree. But still more important is it to recognise the disposition to inner activity or inner passivity. (1920-04-06-GA312). See also Schema FMC00.158 on Human temperaments: the phlegmatic has the etheric body as the dominating bodily principle.
  • In the current fifth cultural age, the human etheric body is shrinking. Ahrimanic influences settle into this etheric body from the side of the nervous system. Materialism strengthens Ahriman, so that the human being can feel him in future, as if he unites with the human being – this phenomenon will appear with children at first – as if he is standing beside him (schizophrenia) (1914-11-20-GA158)
  • see also gradual loosening of the etheric body from the physical body, see Christ in the etheric with reference lecture o.a. Current fifth cultural age#1919-04-05-GA190
• terminology: dementia precox or praecox (also 'insanity of the young' or 'insanity of adolescence' or 'youthful insanity') is an earlier term for schizophrenia introduced in 1880 and no longer used today. It originally designated a chronic, deteriorating psychotic disorder characterized by rapid cognitive disintegration. The term was gradually replaced by the term schizophrenia.

Mental diseases

• "so-called mental illnesses are in reality not mental at all, because the mind or spirit does not become ill. Mental illnesses are based on body fluids evaporating improperly into oxygen and thereby disturbing the nervous system. "(1922-12-27-GA348)
• introduction and overview (1907-01-31-GA055)
  • healthy Man, when in harmony (between 'above' and 'below') is not conscious of inner processes
  • an unwieldy head which the astral body cannot use results in disturbance astral body: it sees itself projected outwardly: hopes, wishes, desires, meet it in forms from outside. Delusions, manias, hysteria result when Man cannot bring his feelings into harmony with the outer world.
  • if the etheric body is unconscious of itself, then the images of the outer meet him truly; if disturbances of the etheric body reflect the images externally, then delusive ideas (paranoia) arise
  • if the physical body itself is diseased and becomes conscious of itself, then idiocy appears.
  • if the physical body is too heavy so that the astral body cannot dominate it, then what one calls dementia appears.
  • if the physical organs are too moveable so they cannot clearly express the soul-activity, then paralysis arises.
  • when projections of the astral body imprint themselves in the etheric body, delusions arise (frenzy, delirium)
  • when discord (between above and below) occurs at birth of the astral body (at puberty), the astral body is left to itself and now appears the discord between it and the physical body. A kind of insanity or 'youthful imbecility' expresses itself by the young person often giving the same answer to quite different questions, or suffering from fixed (compelling) ideas. This does not appear suddenly, but slowly prepares itself from the age of 11 to 12.

General facts schizophrenia

• Patient perspective: distorted perception of reality vs 'consensus reality' of the surrounding heightened sense of threat
  • Because many people with schizophrenia don't know they have a mental health condition and may not believe they need treatment.
  • Fear, frustration, paranoia, delusions can give rise to aggressive outbursts and violence .
• Symptoms
  • Symptoms develop gradually and typically begin during young adulthood and are never resolved.
  • Often psychotic symptoms occur and such transient psychoses may make diagnosis of schizophrenia more problematic.
  • Many people with schizophrenia have other mental disorders, especially depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and obsessive–compulsive disorder.
• Consequences:
  • Social problems such as long-term unemployment, poverty, homelessness, exploitation and victimization are commonly correlated with schizophrenia.
  • Compared to the general population, people with schizophrenia have a higher suicide rate (about 5% overall) and more physical health problems, leading to an average decrease in life expectancy by 20 to 30 years. In 2015, an estimated 17,000 deaths were linked to schizophrenia.
• Occurrence
  • Schizophrenia affects 1 in 300 people (0.32%), 1 in 222 people (0.45%) among adults. In 2017, there were an estimated 1.1 million new cases and in 2022 a total of 24 million cases globally. Males are more often affected and on average have an earlier onset than females.
• Treatment
  • Mainstay treatment is antipsychotic medication .. however up to a third of people do not respond to initial antipsychotics. In situations where doctors judge that there is a risk of harm to self or others, short involuntary hospitalization may be imposed. Long-term hospitalization is used on a small number of people with severe schizophrenia.

Inspirational quotes

1917-05-29-GA176

see also Humanity is getting younger

.. in the sixth cultural age .. mankind's general age will then correspond to the ages of the individual between 21 and 14: .. Man's soul will become free and independent of his bodily nature at those earlier ages. Imagine what it will then be like if Man's free and independent soul does not unite with knowledge derived from spiritual investigation. A person may then be 30, 40, 50 years old, but if he has not taken his own development in hand, his age will in fact be no more than 17, 16 or 15.

The all-important aspect of mankind's further evolution consists in the fact that as the Earth progresses more of Man's development is left to the individual himself.

if this is not recognized .. what will happen is that people will suffer schizophrenia

.. you will realize how necessary it is .. to be conscious of the dangers that threaten mankind.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.338: shows the effects of disorders in the human bodily constitution, if Man's bodily principles are not in balanced cohesion.

On the left: the I-organization in a healthy balanced constitution, with the human 'I' that imprints that on astral body through the nervous system, then down the astral body on the etheric body, at various points of contact in the physical body. If these imprints, for reasons of incorrect or unbalanced development (see 1917-01-01-GA174B as well as the sixteen paths of perdition in Schema FMC00.233), cause one of the bodily principles to be loosened and released, this leads to various soul diseases as a result.

Schema FMC00.236: provides an overview of the septennia or seven year periods, and how Man develops his bodily principles corresponding to the planetary spheres due to the work of the various spiritual hierarchies.

Lecture coverage and references

1904-04-28-GA052

Or: what has somebody to think who regarded Goethe, Schopenhauer, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and others as great spirits if this materialistic scholarship has brought it so far that you can find in a little book about Goethe’s illness, about Schopenhauer’s illness—also in other works—these illnesses considered from the point of view of the materialistic psychiatry?

One calls a particular type of insanity manic depression, schizophrenia another, and paranoia a third one.

These three forms of insanity are taken to show that one can also find symptoms of insanities with the great spirits who are regarded as leaders of humankind. One found the symptoms of manic depression with Schopenhauer, paranoia with Tasso, Rousseau and others.

Indeed, the same author has called an even bigger number of people feeble-minded. He is the author of the book On the Physiological Idiocy of Women which concerns one half of the whole humankind. It would be easy to consider the author from his own viewpoint and to scrutinise him.However, one must not laugh at these matters. The materialistic science must get to this because these are partial truths. But one can get only to the right insight if one sees the spirit working behind it. Then one sees that often a higher spiritual development must be purchased for the same symptoms, as on the other side health for other symptoms.

1906-10-01-GA096

Much deeper down lie the prejudices that come from learning and intelligence and prove an obstacle to humanity's progress. You can find an article in a journal about national epidemics. A well-known academic³¹ who works in the field of psychiatry and deals with issues that lie between psychology and psychiatry, writes about mass epidemics. He refers to a phenomenon that existed for 200 years, to the end of the Middle Ages, with excessive asceticism widely practised as a ritual, with people throwing themselves to the ground, scourging and torturing themselves, their fantasies going to extremes and leading to strange excesses. This may be seen as a disease. The psychiatrist calls it hysteria of epidemic proportions. He goes on to say that hysterics of that type are often open to suggestions that cannot be evaluated by thinking. When a person sees someone else who has hurt his arm, he'll feel compassion and do what he can to help. We need not go into the things that go on in normal people's minds. But there are others who feel the pain in their own arm, abnormally so, when someone gets hurt. This is due to suggestion. It can reach such levels that the individual is completely out of control, his inner life lacking all order and given up to all impressions coming from outside.

When a materialistic soul expert speaks of such a phenomenon affecting whole populations, he is referring to public suggestion coming from particular groups—in medieval times from the monasteries—and becoming widespread. A kind of ‘disease of the age’ develops. People are not inclined to ask what they should think about such a thing when it comes up. They are wholly caught up in the suggestion. Such an expert will speak of the matter in all seriousness, but he fails to notice one thing, which is that an independent person who is capable of insight into himself will be able to recognize and clearly distinguish another kind of epidemic among the masses. This has reached many social groups today, even highly educated people. It consists in people living under the influence of specific suggestions, both positive and negative. If you speak of the truths to be found in the science of the spirit to such people, the truths will act as a negative suggestion on them. Such people cannot understand them; they will find them intolerable. Many materialistic prejudices that are widespread today act as positive suggestions. What do you find in medical, theological and law faculties? Suggestion that influences specific social groups and goes so far that one is perfectly justified in calling them a kind of disease, just like the kind of mass epidemic of which I spoke.

A well-known biologist has written something rather strange in a widely-read journal.³² It is strange—perhaps not so much for someone who only reads a bit here and a bit there, but for someone who studies the whole it is something he finds in 95% of the whole academic world. He will find that in future it will be possible to speak of a kind of academic madness, academic feeble-mindedness just as we now speak of hysteria. In the essay it says: ‘If a rolling billiard ball strikes another and makes it move, I cannot imagine that nothing passes from the one to the other.’ The scientist calls the peculiar spectre which emerges from the first billiard ball, creeping into the second one and setting it in motion under the influence of the first ball, the materia movens.

He thinks he is enormously clever but is in fact only under the influence of materialistic suggestion, which affects him just as mass hysteria influenced people in the 16th century. Now just think how the suggestions to which a person is subject are apt to live around him. Their number is infinite. If they occur in large numbers—and it is possible to list a great many of them—they may be brought together in a picture that would be a disease picture of modern academic knowledge like that of dementia precox, which we keep hearing so much about.³³

There you see the unfreedom of those who are governed by suggestion. A little bit has changed since the Middle Ages. Only a theosophist is able to realize this.

In medieval times people would speak of possession when something spoke out of a human being which was not that person himself. Today people laugh at the idea of possession and speak of an illness instead. This kind of possession, which existed in medieval times, has grown a little less today. It only shows itself in particular circles today.

Another kind of possession, real and genuine possession, is however widespread today. The medieval kind of possession was astral by nature, today it is mental. The spirits to be found in academics today, spirits that possess them, are on the mental, the spirit plane. In the world which is considered to be the only real world they come to expression as thoughts and are therefore also said to exist as thoughts. Just as the world of human feelings, inner responses, passions, drives and desires is not merely something arising from existence in a body, but is something independent, true and real in its own right, so the world of thoughts, too, is a distinct entity. It is just that the thoughts which human beings have are not real. These human thoughts are but shadow images of the real thoughts, just as human passions and feelings are only shadow images of something completely different. We have often spoken about the way these things are connected. We know that things we are able to observe in human beings through the physical senses are indeed the physical body, which is only part of the whole human being. We know that muscles and nerves, bones and blood are only part of the whole human being. These things, which we call the parts, the elements, of the human body, are part of the physical world. In the same way, however, human feelings and thoughts belong to another world, the astral world.

...

It is hard to combat these suggestions with good sense, and this is something only someone able to see more deeply into the intellectual life of today is able to know. Popular science, busy as it is, has an extremely harmful effect because it is presented with an air of authoritative infallibility which can only be shown in its true light at some future date. People today have no idea how much they are subject to suggestion presented with an authoritative air. Take what I am saying merely as a characterization and consider how odd it is that nations struggle to rid themselves of one authority yet at the same time fall prey to new ones.

In the past, people would fall for suggestion, with their I given up to something that was active in them, but someone able to look into the higher worlds would see real entities. Human thoughts relate to certain spirits in the spirit world the way shadows do to the actual objects. The thought images you have are shadows cast by spirits in the spirit or mental world. The thought that lives in you is but such a shadow image, all by itself. Someone with vision, someone who has developed his higher sense organs, will see it in connection with a spirit. If you see a shadow cast on a wall you can only understand it if you relate it to the object which cast it. It is the same with your thoughts. Without anything to relate them to, your thoughts are shadows. They relate to spirits that are as real in a higher world as this hand of mine is here. Just as my hand casts a shadow on the wall, so do the higher spirits cast their shadows in this our world. And these shadows are your thoughts.

The human being, as we see him before us, is really the scene of events that take place beyond the physical world. As a physical entity, man is in the first place complete in himself, and as such he lives in a physical world that is complete in itself. To understand the human being as a physical entity we have to remain in the physical world. To investigate and understand blood as a physical substance, for instance, you have to remain in the physical world. To understand the nature of feelings, inner responses and passions, you will either have to use empty phrases or relate these things to spirits that are behind the physical world, to a world that relates to this one as the world of colour does to the world of touch. Also you have to use a similar approach to understanding the world of thought.

So you see that man has a share in the higher worlds, that the astral body extends into those worlds, and that the spirit world for its part casts a kind of shadow into this world. Someone who knows nothing of those higher worlds is subject to them like a slave, powerless against powers that control the chains. Just as the physical person can only be free if able to develop the will to face another person in freedom, so can the astral nature of Man only be free if it recognizes its connection with the whole astral world. For as long as people live only in their ordinary inner feelings, their astral nature has them on leading strings, as it were. They are always possessed by it. They come free when they recognize it. Just as we perceive and know the physical world around us, so we must face those spirits, spiritual eye to spiritual eye, and know who we are dealing with. It is the same for the world of human thoughts. This is the way to real freedom, seeing through the world around us. To gain the right measure of understanding we have to consider what lies behind the physical aspect. A beginning has to be made and you need to study these things; the world must study these things.

1907-01-31-GA055

title: Insanity in the Light of Spiritual Science

We need above all the Hermetic basic sentence for the explanation of mental diseases. Everything above is as below, and everything below as above.

The cheerfulness of Man expresses itself to us in the smiling countenance without anything further. Tears announce inner grief of soul. Cheerfulness and grief in this case we will call “the above.” laughter and tears, which represent the material image cheerfulness and grief, “the below.” A rightly educated Man sees the whole world differently. A flower is for him the expression of the grief or joy of the Earth-Spirit. And that is just as little merely a poetical thought. The Earth-Spirit lies at the base of the Earth as “the upper.” All material is condensed spirit, just as ice is merely condensed water. As one can melt ice and it becomes water, so one can also transform matter so that it becomes spirit.

We distinguish the following physical parts in Man, which correspond to his upper members:

1. Purely physical, which is built according to purely physical laws, above all the sense-organs.
2. Everything connected with growth, digestion and procreation. That which builds crystals could also build the human body, but it would then be a dead organism. The etheric body is the architect, which builds organs of digestion, etc.
3. Nervous system (brain and spinal cord). The astral body is its architect.
4. The blood. The ego dwells in this and is at the same time the architect of the blood-system.

Blood circulation ------------------ I

Nervous System ------------------- Astral Body.

Procreation ------------------------- Etheric Body.

Physical ---------------------------- Physical Body.

Everything physical is subject to the laws of physical heredity; but also, the procreative organs, nerve system and blood circulation.

The Individuality must unite itself with the physical body. The I with its ennobled astral and etheric bodies, indeed even parts of the physical body, must harmonise with what is inherited; together they must form a harmony. Almost always a harmony also is really formed, for the physical adapts itself to the spiritual (transforms itself).

How, if such an adaptation is not possible? How, if the astral body gets a nervous system which it cannot employ straightway?

as a rule, we do not reckon sense-illusions among mental illnesses. A book of the Vienna criminal anthropologist Benedict can here offer us many interesting things although it is not written in an anthroposophical sense. Benedict there gives us his own experiences. He had a partial cataract in the left eye so that he saw with some irregularity. If he looked in the dark in a quite definite direction, he saw ghosts of a quite special kind. He was once so horrified that he took up arms.

This is to be explained thus: a healthy Man is not conscious of the inner constituents of his eye. Whoever has irregularities in the eye will become conscious of them in such a way that they appear to him externally in mirror-images.

We will now extend that to the entire human being.

We are not at all conscious of our own inner being, but only of what is transmitted to us from outside.

If harmony prevails between the ABOVE and the BELOW, then Man is not at all conscious of inner processes.

If one has, e.g. an unwieldy head which the astral body cannot use, then this disturbance which the astral body suffers expresses itself outwards just as the disturbance in the eye does. Then the astral body will become conscious of itself because it is disturbed. It then sees itself projected outwardly, hopes, wishes, desires, meet it in forms from outside. Delusions, manias, hysteria, are connected with this everything where Man cannot bring his FEELINGS into harmony with the outer world.

But the etheric body too can suffer inner abnormalities. It is the bearer of image-like ideas. If the etheric body is unconscious of itself, then the images of the outer meet him truly. If the disturbances of the etheric body reflect the images externally, then delusive ideas (paranoia) arise.

If the physical body itself is diseased, (which should be in harmony with the physical environment), if the physical body becomes conscious of itself, then idiocy appears.

If the physical body is too heavy so that the astral body cannot dominate it, cannot leave it, then what one calls dementia appears.

If the physical organs are too moveable so that they cannot clearly express the soul-activity, then paralysis arises.

Yet there exists here a multiplicity of oases which can have quite different origins, especially ideas of delusions:

• Out of the projection of the astral body.
• Out of disease of the same

then the effects become so strong that frenzy, delirium arises. These imprint themselves in the etheric body, and hence arise delusions. These delusive ideas are like scars on the wound in the astral body. They are much more difficult to cure than delirium.

Cataract of the pupil is a preparation for mania. Only the fewest doctors know all this.

We will now call to mind that Man is born more than once. At first physically but then at the change of teeth, the etheric body is born, then at puberty the astral body.

It can how happen that first with the birth of the astral body, the discord is noticeable between the ABOVE and the BELOW. Previously the surrounding astral veil-maintained harmony. After the astral birth, the astral body is left to itself and now appears the discord between it and the physical body. This kind of insanity expresses itself by the young person often giving the same answer to quite different questions. He can also suffer with fixed (compelling) ideas. One calls this disease 'youthful imbecility'. Yet this does not appear suddenly, but slowly prepares itself from the age of 11 to 12. Conditions of depression, liability to fatigue, not getting on with one's environment, headaches, disturbances in digestion and sleep are the forerunners. It is sad if one considers that most parents still punish their children for such ills, while they regard these conditions as “peculiarities.” It is just this youthful imbecility that is most difficult of all to cure. But the spirit, as such, cannot be ill; for it is always healthy.

It is only disturbed when the BELOW does not accord with it. If one looks at oneself in a distorting mirror, one sees a caricature of oneself. No one concludes however from the caricature that his true likeness is also distorted, thus it is also with spiritual diseases. The forms of mania are caricatures of the spirit in the physical. Hence a healing is never possible on the path of logic, of abstract thoughts. Such endeavours are utterly worthless. Even our bodily organs are condensed spirit, even if not our spirit. And empty logical forms stand furthest removed from the spirit, condensed to the physical; nearest of all, however, are the image-like ideas of Imagination, saturated with passion. These can drive from the field the disease-producing power of other images. One must give counter-ideas through the force and power of another personality. One cannot demonstrate the illogicality to the diseased through propositions, but one can work through living presentation. The power of the personality must prove to the diseased that, e.g. he yet CAN do what he believes he cannot.

In this sphere of the so-called mental diseases (spiritual illnesses) ordinary science will one day have to unite with spiritual science. An exhaustive study is necessary to have always ready the necessary counter-ideas. Spiritual science is not devoid of deeds, it does not creep away to distant worlds. It will co-operate practically. Because spiritual forces lie at the basis of the world, we must learn to know them if we will work in the world. Our material world is a copy of the spiritual. We must get to know this, in order to understand the physical.

Heldenbach indeed says: What does all this spirit-stuff concern us? We say: .. this human stuff does concern us and since human beings are united with the spiritual world , we will find the bridge between the two.

1907-03-04-GA096

From the 14th to the 21st or 23rd year you then have human Moon existence, with above all the astral body coming into its own. This is the period when the drives that must be fought tend to emerge; everything that cannot be purified must be cast off. Things come out that really must sometimes be treated like the moon cinder; things truly have to be cast out, the way it happened with the moon.

We might indeed look more deeply into this time, and we would see how deeply Man is connected with the whole world. We would see how - because humanity is not able to cast out certain powers that are really moon powers - the terrible diseases develop which are called dementia precox, insanity of the young.

This is a specific phenomenon, with symptoms of definite character that indicate how it attaches itself to the astral body which is just in the process of evolving out of the ether body.

Try and observe someone who sails into dementia precox in puberty. You get specific symptoms that show a marked tendency to repeat things. The astral body if often very bright, but the way in which the astral body should relate to the ether body is in disorder. So if you were to ask such a person: ‘How much is 5 times 6?’ he’ll say: ‘30.’ ‘How much is 7 times 8?’ ‘30.’ How much is 6 times 9?’ ‘30.’ And so on, always 30. Memory goes haywire, as it were, and you can imagine that he cannot get out of the ether body stage, and cannot let the Moon stage develop in himself.

Such aspects make it possible for us to look very deeply into the microcosm.

1908-10-21-GA107

from RSH

• astral body / schizophrenia
• Astral forces form the basis of the formation of the animal and human physical bodies, which can come from quite different astral localities. The human I holds them together. This becomes clear with certain mental illnesses with which the person concerned regards himself as several persons, example Nietzsche. One can also make this clear at the example of the siphonophors (state jellyfishes) where the single functions or organs still appear like a conglomerate, which come only in closer contact with the higher animals and the human being.

1910-GA013 – Ch 5

to be added

1910-04-28-GA059

Let us take an example which has been emphasised before and which can be found in my little work The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy. There it says that

• the child up to the seventh year of age primarily feels the impulse in all its actions to imitate.
• Then, between the changing of the teeth and puberty, its development is characterised by what might be called “orientating oneself according to an authority” or acting according to the impression made on us by another person.

Let us assume that these two stages of imitation and bowing to authority are ignored. If no account is taken of them the outer body, instead of becoming an instrument of the soul, will develop irregularly and the soul will then no longer have the opportunity in the consecutive periods of human development to affect in the correct way the irregular nature of the outer human being and interact with it.

Then, when the human being enters a new stage of development at significant periods in human life, we see that to a certain degree a member of his being may have fallen behind if these rules are not observed. Ignoring this law lies at the basis of schizophrenia, dementia praecox. By ignoring the correct processes in earlier periods dementia praecox can arise as disharmony between the inner and outer human being, a symptom of belated imitation.

It is often the case that the disharmony of those things which are cleanly divided by spiritual science is in many cases the cause of abnormality in the soul.

Similarly we can see in the appearance of senile dementia towards the end of life the disharmony between inner and outer human being, brought about because the human being did not live in such a manner that harmony could exist between inner and outer man in the period between puberty and the time when the astral body is fully developed.

This shows us that knowledge of the human being can illuminate the nature of error and mental disorder. And even if we find only a superficial link, if a person cannot say that error, in so far as it is part of normal soul-life, can affect our outer nature, it has to be said in contrast that the law according to which the development of a strong logic, a regulated soul-life harmonious in feeling and willing can strengthen us against the obstacles which arise from the outer human being is greatly encouraging. Thus spiritual science gives us the possibility, perhaps not always, but most of the time, of countering the superiority, the supremacy of the outer human being.

It is important that when we strengthen and nurture the inner human being we strengthen and nurture it against the predominance of the outer human being. Spiritual science gives us the healing power to do this. It therefore always emphasises the importance of developing ordered thinking which avoids irrelevancies, not to stop with one's thoughts half-way but to pursue them consistently to the end. That is why spiritual science, with its strict demands to order our soul-life in such a manner that it appears internally disciplined and in harmony, is itself a medicine against the predominance of the pathological symptoms of our outward bodily nature.

And the human being can be victorious over pathological pre-dispositions when he can envelop bodily weakness, bodily mis-formation with the light of a healthy willing, a healthy feeling and a self-disciplined thinking. That is something which is unpopular today, and yet it is important for an understanding of the present. Thus spiritual science even gives us some consolation, namely that in the spirit, if we truly strengthen it, we continue to have the best remedy for everything which can affect us in life. By means of spiritual science we learn not merely to theorise about the spirit, but we learn to turn it into a healing power within us when we make the effort to continue where philistines like to stop: the half-finished thought. For it is nothing but half-finished thinking when it is said: “Prove what you say about repeated earth lives and so on!” It cannot be proved to the person who refuses to lead his thoughts to their conclusion. Whole truths cannot be proved with half thoughts. They can only be proved to whole thinking, and whole thinking has to be developed by the human being within himself.

from RSH for lecture

• Disturbances of the interrelation of sentient soul and sentient body (≠ astral body) lead to idées fixe, those between the intellectual soul and the etheric body to error, those between the consciousness-soul and physical body to megalomania and persecution mania. Strengthening of soul-life as remedy and protection.
• “In gymnastics people should not do the kind of exercises that are done for the sole purpose of strengthening particular muscles; but care should be taken that each exercise provokes inner joy, and that the impetus for every exercise comes from an inner feeling of well-being.”
• If spiritual-scientific viewpoints for education are disregarded, mental illnesses may arise like dementia praecox or schizophrenia and senile dementia in the subsequent periods of life.

1913-08-26-GA147

from RSH

• mental illnesses
• About the experiences of the soul in the elemental world (astral plane), which is the world of mobility, of metamorphosis. The etheric body, a being of the elemental world, also possesses this ability of transformation, which is restrained only through the physical body during life. On the danger to take this ability into the sense-perceptible world due to incorrectly acquired clairvoyance: schizophrenia.

quote A

We have to have, then, one peculiarity of soul for the elemental world: the capacity for transforming our own being into other beings outside ourselves. We must have the faculty of metamorphosis. We must be able to immerse ourselves in and become the other being. We must be able to lose the consciousness which always—in order to remain emotionally healthy—we have to have in the sense world, the consciousness of ‘I am myself.’ In the elemental world we get to know another being only when in a way we inwardly have ‘become’ the other. When we have crossed the threshold, we have to move through the elemental world in such a way that with every step we transform ourselves into every single happening, creep into every single being. It belongs to the health of a person's soul that in passing through the sense world he should hold his own and assert his individual character. But this is altogether impossible in the elemental world, where it would lead either to the darkening of his field of vision or to his being thrown back into the sense world.

You will easily understand that in order to exercise the faculty of transformation, the soul needs something more than it already possesses here in our world. The human soul is too weak to be able to change itself continuously and adapt itself to every sort of being if it enters the elemental world in its ordinary state. Therefore the forces of the human soul must be strengthened and heightened through the preparations described in my books Occult Science and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds from these the life of soul will become stronger and more forceful. It can then immerse itself in other entities without losing itself in the process. This being said, you will understand at once the importance of noting what is called the threshold between the sense world and the super-sensible world. We have already said that the clairvoyant consciousness of a human being on earth must go back and forth continually, that it must observe the spiritual world beyond the threshold while it is outside the physical body and must then return into the physical body, exercising in a healthy way the faculties which lead it to the right observation of the physical sense world.

Let us suppose that a person's clairvoyant consciousness, when returning over the threshold, were to take back into the sense world the faculty of transformation it has to have in order to be at all aware of the spiritual world. The faculty of transformation I have been speaking about is a peculiarity of the human etheric body, which lives by preference in the elemental world. Now suppose that a person were to go back into the physical world keeping his etheric body as capable of transformation as it has to be in the elemental world. What would happen? Each of the worlds has its own special laws. The sense world is the world of self-contained forms, for here the Spirits of Form rule. The elemental world is the world of mobility, of metamorphosis, of transformation; just as we continually have to change in order to feel at home in that world, all the beings there are continually changing themselves. There is no enclosed, circumscribed form: all is in continual metamorphosis. A soul has to take part in this everchanging existence outside the physical body if it wants to unfold itself there. Then in the physical sense world we must allow our etheric body, as an entity of the elemental world capable of metamorphosis, to sink down into the physical body. Through this physical body I am a definite personality in the physical sense world; I am this or that distinct person. My physical body stamps my personality upon me; the physical body and the conditions of the physical world in which I find myself make me a personality. In the elemental world one is not a personality, for this would require an enclosed form. Here, however, we must note that what the clairvoyant consciousness recognizes in the human soul is, and always has been, present within it. Through the forces of the physical body, the mobility of the etheric body is restrained only for the time being. As soon as the etheric body sinks back into the physical encasement, its powers of movement are held together and adapted to the form. If the etheric body were not tucked into the physical body as if into a tote bag, it would always be impelled to continuous transformation.

Now let us suppose that a soul, becoming clairvoyant, were to carry over into the physical world this desire of its etheric body for transformation. Then with its tendency towards movement it will fit rather loosely into the physical body, and thus the soul can come into contradiction with the physical world that wants to shape it into a definite personality. The etheric body, which always wants to move freely, can come back over the threshold in the wrong way, every moment wishing to be something or someone else, someone that may be quite the opposite of the firmly imprinted form of the physical body. To put it even more concretely: a person could be, say, a Scandinavian bank executive, thanks to his physical body, but because his etheric brings over into the physical world the impulse to free itself from physical constraints he may imagine himself to be the emperor of China. (Or, to use another example, a person may be—let us say—the president of the Theosophical Society, and if her etheric body has been loosened, she may imagine that she has been in the presence of the Director of the Universe.)

1914-11-20-GA158

from RSH

• The basic experience of the fourth and the fifth post-Atlantean cultural ages: the meeting with the sphinx (Lucifer) and with Mephisto-Ahriman.
• In the fourth post-Atlantean age, the etheric body tended to be larger than the physical body. A more vigorous breathing process thereby appears, it becomes more conscious, and Lucifer receives the possibility to penetrate into the human organism via breathing. This expresses itself more coarsely as nightmares, and as a subtler process as doubts and questions. This is the basis of the legend of the sphinx and Oedipus.
• In the fifth post-Atlantean age, the etheric body is shrinking. Ahriman can settle down into this etheric body namely from the side of the nervous system (in contrast to Lucifer it is hard for him to approach the blood and with it the human being, see Faust legend).
• Materialism strengthens Ahriman, so that the human being can feel him in future, as if he unites with the human being – this phenomenon will appear with children at first – and as if he is standing beside him (schizophrenia).
• Oedipus as a representative of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch compensated the luciferic element, the sphinx, absorbing the ahrimanic element (clubfoot of Oedipus, Mephisto’s cloven hoof) and developed his I-nature. The human being of the fifth cultural age must extend this I by absorbing spiritual science to compensate the ahrimanic influence.

1917-05-29-GA176

The sixth cultural age will follow our own. As mankind's general age will then correspond to the ages of the individual between 21 and 14, it will mean that Man's soul will become free and independent of his bodily nature at those earlier ages.

[see Schema FMC00.232 on Humanity is getting younger]

Imagine what it will then be like if Man's free and independent soul does not unite with knowledge derived from spiritual investigation. A person may then be 30, 40, 50 years old, but if he has not taken his own development in hand, his age will in fact be no more than 17, 16 or 15.

The all-important aspect of mankind's further evolution consists in the fact that as the Earth progresses more of Man's development is left to the individual himself.

What will happen if this is not recognized?

What will happen is that people will suffer schizophrenia [dementia praecox, insanity of adolescence].

You will realize how necessary it is to know about the fundamental facts of earthly existence and to be conscious of the dangers that threaten mankind.

At present there is plenty of courage shown in external action, a fact which is by no means always sufficiently appreciated.

But Man's further progress will need courage of soul, the courage which will enable him to face truths which at first appear disagreeable if one's first love in life is ease and comfort, if all one strives for is knowledge that one finds, as the saying is, “elevating,” i.e., one demands all truths to be pleasant ones. This is an attitude that is very widespread in our time. A dislike is taken to someone the moment he speaks about things that are uncomfortable, albeit necessary; one feels let down because he fails to uplift. But truth which has been recognized as such stands higher than words spoken merely because they deal with things that are pleasant and can be taken home to be enjoyed like a comforting beverage. The satisfaction derived from knowledge of life as it necessarily and truly is stands higher than that derived from ease and comfort.

1920-04-05-GA312

These matters are more connected with the spatial and regional interactions of forces in the human organism. There is, however, also an interaction in time which is unmistakably conspicuous in cases where a Man has received such mistaken treatment during childhood or early youth, that throughout the whole of life, what should have been developed in childhood and youth, remains lacking, and only that is evolved which should be evolved in the adult.

To put it in another way. It is the nature of Man that he develops certain forces in early youth which then become formative for the organism. But not everything formed in the youthful organism finds its right use and place in life during the years of youth. We form and build up our bodies in youth, in order to obtain and conserve some things which can only be active and evident in later life. Thus, in childhood certain organs, as I would call them, are built up, which are not meant for use during childhood; but in later life they can no longer be acquired. They are therefore held in reserve, so to speak, for use in adult age.

Let us assume that no heed is paid to the fact that until the teeth are cut a child should be educated by imitation, and that after dentition, education and teaching should attach great importance to authority. If both imitation and authority are thus ignored, the organs which appertain to the adult may be used prematurely.

Of course the materialistic attitude of today may deprecate the use of imitation or authority as principles of education. But their significance is great, because of their effects, and they reverberate throughout the organism.

It must, however, be understood that the child must live with his whole soul within the act of imitation. Here is an example. Suppose you educate the child in liking and eating some wholesome food, by accustoming it to copy the adult's enjoyment of that food: in this manner you will combine the principle of imitation by action, with the cultivation of an appetite for suitable food. The imitative act is continued into the organism. The same suggestions holds good with respect to authority in education.

If those organs (they are naturally subtle organisations) which should normally remain latent till the later age are called into activity during childhood, then the dreadful schizophrenia [dementia præcox] may result. That is the true origin of schizophrenia [dementia præcox].

And a sound objective education is a splendid remedial method. We are at present making efforts in this direction at the Waldorf School, but cannot as yet extend them to an earlier stage of growth before the sixth or seventh year. But when we are at last in a position to put the whole educational process at the service of the knowledge that spiritual science offers—on the lines of my booklet Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy, schizophrenia [dementia præcox] will be on the way to disappear. For such educational methods will avert the danger of premature and precocious employment of organs essential to the adult. So much for the general principles of sound education.

There is also the opposite phenomenon. It consists in this: we also tend to accumulate and conserve what should only be unfolded as an activity of the organs in youth. Throughout life there are, to be sure, calls on the organs which are destined to function mainly in childhood and youth; but this continued activity must become less vigorous, or harm may ensue. Here is the domain in which owing to different causes such theories as that of psychoanalysis have been able to confuse the whole of human thinking. Indeed it is true that the most harm in life is not done by the greatest mistakes, for such great errors can soon be refuted, but by conceptions containing a grain of truth, for this grain of truth is accepted, exaggerated and abused.

What are the facts which support the rise of conceptions of psycho-analytic lines?

Because of the current habits of life today (which are in many respects opposed to nature, and in no way give Man the necessary adaptation to the external environment) - much that makes a deep impression on the human mind in childhood, is not worked up.

Thus there remain in the life of the soul, factors not adequately embodied by the organism; for all that operates in the soul's life, however slightly, has its continuance, or should have it, in some effect on the organism.

Our children, however, receive many impressions so contrary to normal conditions that they remain confined to the soul, they cannot forthwith transmute themselves into organic impressions. Thus they remain, as it were, in the soul where they are and as they do not share in the whole development of man, they remain as isolated impulses of the soul. Had they kept pace with Man's whole organic development, had they not remained isolated impulses, they would not take possession, at a later stage, of the organs which are destined only to function at maturity and which have no longer the task of turning to account the impressions of youth. Something wrong is thus brought about in the whole human being. He is obliged to let the soul's isolated impulses work upon organs which are no longer fitted for it.

There then result the manifestations which may certainly be diagnosed by means of a psychoanalytic method, wisely employed. Careful interrogatories will bring to light certain things in the life of the soul which are simply not worked up, and which have a devastating effect on organs already too old for such working up.

But the main thing for consideration is that by this route it is never possible to effect a cure, but only to diagnose a condition.

If we keep to the purely diagnostic use of psycho-analysis, we are employing a method which has its justification when used with due discretion. Note well, with due and honourable discretion, so that there may be no such occurrences as I can testify have happened in some cases and for which there is corroborative written evidence. Such occurrences, for example as the employment of servants and attendants, as spies to furnish intimate particulars which are then used as bases for catechising the patients in question. That kind of thing happens sufficiently often to constitute a grave danger and gross abuse. But apart from this—for after all, in these matters so much depends on the ethical standard of the persons concerned—we can admit that from the standpoint of diagnosis, there is some truth in psycho-analysis. But it is impossible to achieve therapeutic results on the lines laid down by psycho-analysts. And that is again linked up with a characteristic of the present age.

1920-04-06-GA312

from RSH:

Whereas mental illnesses are to be treated with remedies best of all, the psycho-spiritual component must be considered with physical illnesses, especially the temperaments. E.g., with phlegmatic children schizophrenia is likely to appear [see preceding abstract] (phlegm should be developed only in later age). Important is the stimulation of inner activity. Working on phlegmatic children by suggestion and hypnosis is negative, positive, however, eurythmy: it wakes them up. “The hypertrophied imagery of dreams is removed, and in its place a healthy development of the will is driven into the limbs.”

When we consider this aspect we are offered an important clue for the further estimate of actual dosage of remedies. You see in the process of organ formation itself a continuous oscillation between sympathy and antipathy. The genesis of the bodily constitution is dependent on the production of sympathy and antipathy, and their interplay. Moreover smaller dosages of substances used pharmaceutically have the same relation to highly potentised dosages, as sympathy has to antipathy, in the human organism. High potency has the opposite effect from low potency. That is bound up with the whole organising force. And in a certain sense it is also true that factors with a definite action on the organism in the early periods of life, turn their effect into the opposite in later periods; but that these effects in the organism can be shifted out of place. On this displacement is based on the one hand schizophrenia [dementia precox] as I have already stated, and, on the other, the formation of isolated “soul provinces” which at a later period of life wrongfully encroach on the organisation.

These matters will only be viewed aright if our science itself becomes somewhat spiritualised and we reach the stage of ceasing to try to cure so-called mental disorders by way of the spirit and the soul, but ask ourselves: where is the organic disorder or inadequacy, as this or that so-called mental or soul-sickness becomes apparent?

And vice versa — however strange this may sound — in sickness of so-called physical kind there is even more need to examine the conditions of the soul, than in a case of sickness of the soul itself. In the latter class, the phenomena exhibited by the soul help little beyond the diagnosis. We must study these soul phenomena in order to guess where the organic defect can lie.

The Ancients have provided for this in their terminology. It was not without purpose that these men of old time connected the picture of that mental disorder hypochondria with a name that sounds wholly materialistic: the bony or cartilaginous character of the abdomen. They would never have sought for the primary cause of the psychological unbalance — even when the hypochondria develops to actual insanity — anywhere except in some sickness of the lower bodily sphere.

We must of course progress to the point of being able to regard all so-called material things as spiritual. We suffer severely today, simply because materialism is the continuation of medieval Catholic asceticism in the region of thought. This asceticism despised nature, and sought to attain to spiritual realms by an attitude of condemnation. Those who hold the modern world conception have extracted from the ascetic point of view just what they find convenient, and have no doubt that all the processes of the lower abdomen are crudely material and need not be seriously considered. But the truth is very different: the spirit works in all these things — and we need to know just how the spirit works there. If I bring the spirit which works within the organism together with the spirit acting in some external object or substance — the two spiritual forces collaborate. We must cease to despise nature, and learn again to regard to the whole external world as permeated with the spirit symptom and one of great value for the whole reform of medical thinking that just at the high tide of materialism there has arisen the custom of using hypnotic and other forms of suggestion in treating abnormal conditions in the individual? Things which seem at the opposite pole to materialism have come into favour in the materialistic age, when people had lost the possibility of learning the spiritual aspects of quicksilver, of antimony, of silver and of gold. That is the crux of the matter; the loss of the power to learn about the spirit of material things; and from this loss arises the attempt to treat spiritual ailments as spiritual only, just as in the psycho-analytic doctrines where it is attempted to direct the spirit as such. Sound views must again prevail on the subject of the spiritual attributes of matter.

It is one of the chief services of the nineteenth century to have held alive this acknowledgment of the spiritual permeation of external material things. One of the most important services; for external medicine of the allopathic school has unfortunately tended more and more to believe that one is only concerned with material, i.e., external-material effects and processes in the “extra-human” substances.

Today on the one hand, in the diagnosis of so-called physical disorders, attention should be given to the state of the soul, and on the other, i.e., in abnormal soul states, the physical disturbances should be examined.

Physical sicknesses should always prompt the inquiry: “what is the temperament of the person in whom they appear?”

• Suppose we find the sufferer is of hypochondriacal nature, that alone should be an indication for treatment of the lower organic sphere, with materially effective remedies, that is with low potencies.
• If we find that apart from the illness, the patient is of active mind or “sanguine,” it will be necessary to use high potencies from the outset of treatment.

In short, the state of the soul is something that needs study and coordination when we consider bodily sickness.

The total constitution of the soul is up to a certain point already obvious in the child; schizophrenia [dementia precox] will not easily supervene if the child does not exhibit a phlegmatic disposition, that is to say the temperamental tendency appropriate to a much later stage in life, and then only to a limited degree. But still more important is it to recognise the disposition to inner activity or inner passivity. Only consider — if we work through so-called psychic treatment by means of suggestion we are placing the human being wholly in the sphere of influence of another. We repress his activity. But suppression of activity and of inner initiative gives rise to something even in outer life, which is important for the whole course of life. It appears externally in childhood and reacts on the whole dental condition, in later years as well. We shall deal further with this subject tomorrow.

1920-10-09-GA314

from RSH:

• One has to pay attention to the temporal interaction of forces beside the spatial one. Some forces are not used in childhood/youth and preserved for the later age as supply. If this does not happen (e.g., due to wrong education), dementia praecox (schizophrenia) can come into being.
• The curative effect of correct education (Waldorf school pedagogics, principle of imitation in the first seven-year period, that of authority in the second).
• Psychoanalysis as another example of temporal interaction: many impressions of childhood are not processed due to the modern life-style (cannot be transformed immediately in organic impressions) and, hence, use the organs in the later life that are there, actually, for the age. Psychoanalysis can be applied as diagnostic means, however, not as therapy [re: GA303 Lecture 1].

1922-12-27-GA348

It can be said that internal physical illnesses are based on something in man that causes improper substances to be dispersed in his fluid organism.

But so-called mental illnesses are in reality not mental at all, because the mind or spirit does not become ill. Mental illnesses are based on body fluids evaporating improperly into oxygen and thereby disturbing the nervous system. This can happen when some organ is so slightly impaired or indisposed that it cannot be detected externally. You see, then, that Man must continually process substances correctly so that nothing inappropriate disperses in his fluids and that his fluids in turn do not improperly evaporate. But even in everyday life there is a process that causes improper evaporation of water, and this becomes noticeable when we are thirsty. We cure the thirst by drinking; we free our water, so to speak, from what is inappropriately evaporating within it and wash away what is incorrect.

So we can say that in hunger there is actually the tendency to physical illness, and in thirst there is the predisposition to mental illness. If a Man does not properly nourish himself, he forms the basis for organic diseases, and if he does not quench his thirst rightly, he may bring about some form of mental illness.

In some circumstances, the improper quenching of thirst is difficult to detect, especially if it occurs in infancy. At this stage one cannot clearly distinguish between assuaging thirst and hunger since both are satisfied by milk. Therefore, if through the mother's milk or that of a wet nurse something harmful comes into the organism, this can much later cause the fluid organism to evaporate incorrectly and thus lead to some mental disorder. Or let us say a person is wrongly inoculated. An ill-chosen inoculation with one or another cow lymph or diseased human lymph can afflict the organs that work upon the water, even though the water itself does not become directly diseased. As a result of an inappropriate inoculation, a person's evaporation processes may not function correctly, and later he may be disposed to some kind of mental illness.

You will have noticed, gentlemen, that nowadays a great many people become afflicted with dementia praecox, so-called “youthful insanity,” which extends, however, quite far beyond the years of youth. This illness, in which people begin mentally to deteriorate in their youth, originates in great part from the wrong kind of feeding during the earliest years of childhood. It is not enough merely to examine chemically the baby's milk; one must look into completely different aspects. Because people have ceased to pay attention to feeding in our age, this illness arises with such vehemence.

You will have realized from all this that it does not suffice simply to train doctors to know that a certain remedy is good for a certain illness. One must rather seek to make the totality of life healthier, and for that one must first discover all that is related to a healthy life. Anthroposophy can provide this understanding. It aims at being effective in the field of hygiene and seeks to comprehend correctly questions of health.

Epidemic mental diseases

see also: Illness#Epidemics - key lectures

1905-09-27-GA093A

Before the human being as pupil is led to that point at which of his own choice he can work on his etheric body, he must at least, to a certain extent be able to evaluate karma in order to achieve self-knowledge. Meditation therefore should not be undertaken without continual self-knowledge, self-observation. By this means, at the right moment Man will behold the Guardian of the Threshold: the karma which he has still to pay back. When one reaches this stage under normal conditions it merely signifies the recognition of his still existing karma. If I begin to work into my etheric body, I must make it my aim to balance my still remaining karma. It can happen that the Guardian of the Threshold appears in an abnormal way. This happens when a person is so strongly attracted to one particular life between birth and death, that because of the very slight degree of inner activity he cannot remain long enough in the spirit world.

If someone has accustomed himself to be too outward looking, he has nothing to see within. He then soon comes back into physical life. His desires remain present, the short spirit world period is soon over, and when he returns, the collective form of his earlier desires still exists in Kamaloka; he comes up against this also. He incarnates. The old is then mingled with his new astral body. This is his previous karma, the Guardian of the Threshold. He then has his earlier karma continually before him. This is a specific form of the Double.

Many of the popes of the notorious papal age, as for example Alexander VI, have had such a Double in their next incarnation.

There are people, and at present this is not infrequent, who have their previous lower nature continually beside them. That is a special kind of insanity. It will become ever stronger and more threatening, because materialistic life becomes ever more widespread. Many people who now yield themselves up completely to materialistic life will in their next incarnation have the abnormal form of the Guardian of the Threshold at their side.

If now the influence of spirituality were not to be very strongly exercised, a kind of epidemic seeing of the Guardian of the Threshold would arise as the result of the materialistic civilisation.

Of this the neurotic tendency of our century is the precursor. It is a kind of losing oneself in the periphery. All the neurotics of today will be harassed by the Guardian of the Threshold in their next incarnation. They will be pursued by the difficulties of a too early incarnation, a sort of cosmic premature birth. What we have to strive for in Theosophy is a sufficiently long time in the spirit world, in order to avoid too early incarnations.

1906-01-29-GA096

How could one teach a human race which only understood materialism and show that there is also the spirit? Why was it so important to help humanity gain awareness of the world of the spirit?

Here we touch on one of the important secrets that lie dormant in our age. I have indicated on a number of occasions why we have a spiritual scientific movement, and why it is needed. Anyone able to look into the world of the spirit knows that everything which exists in outer material terms has its origin in the spirit, comes from the spirit. There is nothing material that does not come from the spirit. The health and sickness people know in outer terms thus also comes from their way of looking at life, from their thoughts. The saying ‘What you think today you'll be tomorrow’ does indeed hold true.

You have to understand that when people have bad, corrupt ways of thinking in one age, the next generation and the next age will have to pay for this physically. It is the truth that lies in the saying of visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children for many generations.⁵

The fact that people began to think in such coarse material terms in the 19th century, turning their minds away from anything spiritual, did have its consequences. What people thought then will be fulfilled. And it will not be long before strange diseases and epidemics will appear in our human world. Nervousness, as we call it, will take on serious forms not more than half a century from now.

Just as there was the plague once, and cholera, and leprosy in medieval times, so there will be epidemics in the inner life, diseases of the nervous system taking epidemic form. These are the very real consequences of the circumstance that people lack a spiritual core to their life. Where someone has awareness of this vital core at the centre, he will grow healthy under the influence of a sound, true and wise way of seeing the world. But materialism denies the soul, denies the spirit; it hollows people out, focusing them on the periphery, on the outside. Health is only possible if the inmost core of the human being is spiritual and true. The very real disease that follows when the inner human being is hollowed out—that is the epidemic in mind and spirit which we now face.

1906-03-14-GA097

In considering the karma of sickness for individuals as well as whole tribes and nations, we found that something initially prepared for in mind and spirit will later emerge again in physical life.

Let us therefore provide good education and make sure that people develop good habits, for that will also promote their health. Good inclinations help not only in the moral sphere but really and truly also one's state of health, for a bad habit will create sickness in the next life. The nervous tension which is really the most widespread disease today has arisen because of a particular attitude of mind at an earlier time. It would never have developed if the materialistic way of thinking had not gained such dominance in the world.

If this way of thinking were to continue it would have a disastrous effect on the health of nations, taking humanity to the brink of insanity. Children would be born with tremors due to weak nerves, and increasing materialism would hold the threat of epidemic insanity, with people suffering real pain from any sensation they have. That is the terrible influence materialism will have at the physical level once it has infected people's minds.

This future prospect was the true reason why the occult guides of the human race found it necessary to let part of the treasury of spiritual truths go out into the world. For the coming generations can only be given a sound new foundation for health if a spiritual view of the world, free from the bonds of materialism, helps them to look up to the highest streams of life for humanity, letting these enter into themselves. The reasons why our spiritual scientific approach is being put forward today are much more profound than some would think. With it and through it each can do his part in helping humanity to regain health. The term ‘nervous ’ had quite a different meaning in the past. It meant to be sinewy, muscular, strong, with nerves like ropes. The changing in its meaning is in itself evidence of something completely new having come into the world.

1906-08-28-GA095

see also on: Aspects of human behaviour#1906-08-28-GA095

From what has been said you will realise that habits and feelings, which first belong to the spiritual life, can later express themselves in physical life. There is an important principle here: if care is taken to inculcate good habits, not only will the moral life of subsequent generations be improved, but also the health of a whole people, and vice versa. This is then their collective karma.

There is a form of illness, very widespread today, which was hardly known a hundred years ago—nerves or neuroticism—not because it was unrecognised, but because it was so uncommon. This characteristic illness springs from the materialistic outlook of the eighteenth century. Without that, the illness would never have appeared.

The occult teacher knows that if this materialism were to continue for a few decades more, it would have a devastating effect on the general health of mankind.

If these materialistic habits of thought were to remain unchecked,

• people would not only be neurotic in the ordinary sense but children would be born trembling; they would not merely be sensitive to their environment but would receive from everything around them a sensation of pain.
• Above all, mental ailments would spread very rapidly; epidemics of insanity would occur during the following decade.

This was the danger: epidemic insanity, that faced mankind, and the possibility of it in the future was why the leaders of humanity, the Masters of Wisdom, saw the necessity of allowing some spiritual wisdom to be diffused among mankind at large. Nothing short of a spiritual picture of the world could restore to coming generations a tendency to good health. Theosophy, you will realise, is thus a profound movement which has been given out to meet the needs of humanity. A hundred years ago a “nervous” man meant one with iron nerves. Simply from the change in the meaning of the word you can see that something quite new has come into the world.

1907-05-30-GA099

Materialism in natural science is primarily a consequence of materialism in religion, and would not exist if the religious life were not saturated with materialism. Men who have been too lazy to deepen their religious life—it is they who have introduced materialism into science.

And the derangement of the nerves caused by this materialism works itself out among racial stocks and among whole peoples, as well as in the individual.

If the stream of spirituality is not powerful enough to influence lazy and easy-going people as well, the karmic consequence of nervous derangement will gain greater and greater hold over humanity, and just as in the Middle Ages there were epidemics of leprosy, so, in future, materialistic thinking will give rise to grave nervous diseases; there will be epidemics of insanity besetting whole peoples.

Insight into this domain of the Law of Karma reveals that spiritual science should never be a matter of strife but a healing power in humanity. The more spiritual men become, the more will troubles connected with diseases of the nervous system and derangement in the life of soul, be expunged.

1907-06-22-GA100

The qualities which the etheric body possesses during one life appear, in the next, in the physical body. Thus if a Man has bad habits and bad characteristics and does nothing to get rid of them, this will appear in the next life in the physical body as a disposition, a predisposition to illness. Strange as this may sound the disposition towards certain illnesses, particularly infectious ones, depends on the bad habits of a preceding life. This insight therefore enables us to prepare health or illness for our next life. If we conquer a bad habit, we become healthy and immune against infections in our next life. Thus we can prepare health for our next life. By endeavouring to foster only noble qualities, we can prepare a healthy body for our next incarnation.

...

It is the materialistic conception in religion which corroded most deeply the life of nations. Materialism will hold sway more and more in the religions sphere, and. particularly in this direction people will less and less realise that the spirit, not physical material things, counts most of all. It will readily be admitted that the materialistic way of thinking, feeling and willing has gradually penetrated into the whole life-conception of mankind, and finally this appears in the state of health of the succeeding generations.

In an epoch in which men have a sound conception of life, a strong central point is produced within them, enabling them to be self-contained personalities whose descendants become strong and healthy. But an epoch in which people believe only in matter, will give rise to a generation of men who have a body where everything goes its own way, where nothing is directed towards a centre, thus producing symptoms of neurosis, of nervous diseases. If materialism continues to be the ruling world conception in the future, these nervous health conditions will gradually increase.

The clairvoyant can tell you exactly that which must occur if materialism is not counter-balanced by a sound spiritual conception.

Mental diseases would in that case become epidemical and even newly born children would suffer from symptoms of trembling and from other nervous disturbances, while the further result of the materialistic mentality would be a race without any power of concentration; in fact, we can see this already today. About three decades ago, this thought—how mankind would fare without spiritual remedy against the effects of materialism—led to the inauguration of the spiritual-scientific movement. Many discussions may arise regarding a remedy, yet no objections can be of much avail in the face of the chief argument: its efficacy. It is the same with the efficacy of spiritual science as a remedy, for it is a preventive against that which would inevitably occur if men continue along the path of materialism.

1907-11-21-GA100

The spiritual feelings form the basis of the conditions of the body, and a constitutional disease is the expression of some spiritual aberration. Leprosy, the terrible disease of the Middle Ages, was an expression in the physical of the fear of the Huns which possessed the people of Europe at that time. The Huns were decadent descendants of the Atlanteans. Their physical bodies were still healthy, but their astral bodies were already infected with the substances of decay. Fear and terror form an excellent fostering soil for the decaying substances of the astral plane, hence these decaying substances living in the degenerated descendants of the Atlantean peoples could take root in the astral bodies of the European peoples and from thence they produced leprosy in the physical bodies of later generations.

Everything appears first of all in a spiritual way, and then it expresses itself later in the physical body. The nervousness of the people of the present day is the result of the materialistic frame of mind in our age. The wise Leaders of humanity know that if the high tide of materialism were to continue, great epidemics of nervous diseases would break out, and children would be born with quivering limbs.

[editor: tremors, see Parkinson's disease .. In rare instances, Parkinson's-like symptoms can appear in children and teenagers. This form of the disorder is called juvenile Parkinsonism; in 2016 .. a two-year-old toddler was diagnosed with 'juvenile Parkinson's disease with dystonia'. his family say, “his hands shake when he tries to concentrate on tasks and his legs jiggle when he tries to stand still] The Anthroposophical Movement was brought into the world to rescue humanity from the dangers of materialism. One who spreads materialistic thought and feeling among the people is preparing the way for these devastating diseases; and one who combats materialism is fighting for the health of the people

and its power to develop further. The individual can do but little towards his own health, for he is part of the whole body of humanity and draws the substances for his maintenance from the source that is common to all men: One who sees into the laws of human evolution must observe with a bleeding heart how the individual suffers, and how his suffering is but the expression of the spiritual and mental aberration of the whole of humanity. It is the task of Anthroposophy not so much to help the individual but, rather, to give to the whole of humanity the upward swing into the spiritual, and thereby to work for the bodily health of humanity

1908-04-13-GA102

the danger of spiritual death and insanity in current and future times if the etheric body loosens and Man only believes in the physical material - not realizing the realities he is experiencing

see: Human etheric body#1908-04-13-GA102

1908-08-09-GA266

see: Man's new organ#1908-08-09-GA266

Discussion

Note 1 - Growth of so-called mental disorders

2019 - Study in The Lancet

• see: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00395-3/fulltext

• Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019

• aimed to measure the global, regional, and national prevalence, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYS), years lived with disability (YLDs), and years of life lost (YLLs) for mental disorders from 1990 to 2019 (males and females, 23 age groups, 204 countries and territories)

• 12 mental disorders: depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, conduct disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, eating disorders, idiopathic developmental intellectual disability, and a residual category of other mental disorders

• Findings
  • Between 1990 and 2019, the global number of DALYs due to mental disorders increased from 81 to 125 million
  • proportion of global DALYs attributed to mental disorders increased from 3,1% to 4,9%

2016 - Study Schizophrenia

• Global Epidemiology and Burden of Schizophrenia: Findings From the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6192504/
• prevalence rose from 13 to 21 million between 1990 and 2016

Related pages

• Illness
• Nerve-sense subsystem
• Ahrimanic influence on Man
• Humanity is getting younger

References and further reading

• Berthold Peipers: 'Vom Wesen der Schizophrenie : Wissenschaftliche und geisteswissenschaftliche Studienergebnisse' (1982, based on two articles in Ärzte-Rundbrief (1949))
• Rudolf Treichler (1909-1994)
  • 'Der schizophrene Prozess : Beiträge zu einer erweiterten Pathologie und Therapie' (1967, 1981; in FR 1995 as 'Dynamique De La Schizophrenie. Pour Une Psychiatrie Differente')
  • Friedrich Hölderlin. Leben und Dichtung. Krankheit, Stuttgart 1987;
• E. Leonora Hambrecht, Andreas Zucker, Gerhard Roeber: 'Licht, Finsternis und Farbe bei schizophrenen Störungen' (2007)