Unique Features of Steiner’s Last Book and the Value of the Anthroposophic View of the Human Being

Anthroposophic medicine (AM) exists on all continents; as medical practices and therapy centers offering various treatment-modalities and in Central Europe even in the form of some recognized regional hospitals. Besides conventional methods this medical approach includes specific anthroposophic medicinal products, nursing techniques and external applications, artistic therapies, healthy lifestyle and nutrition counselling, body work, therapeutic eurythmy, and meditative practices. The basis for this therapeutic direction is Steiner's final book, which he was able to complete shortly before his death in collaboration with the Dutch physician Dr. Ita Wegman (1876–1943) entitled: Fundamentals of Therapy, an Extension of the Art of Healing through Spiritual Knowledge (FoT). The worldwide presence of AM confirms its integrative medical approach that goes well beyond “tolerant cooperation” of different complementary modalities. AM, as presented in Steiner/Wegman’s book, is based on a rigorous anthropological-philosophical method of understanding that encompasses active principles of any spiritual, psychosomatic and natural science-based healing method. Because all ancient and modern medical systems are either partly or entirely based on five principles: the materially tangible processes and facts, the laws of life, which manifest through rhythmic processes, the dynamics of soul and mind, personality formation and finally the fifth essential principle in the being of man, named by Aristotle pempte ousia, the fifth essential. Steiner explained and redefined all the five, making them imaginable and thus observable and practicable for daily use. This not only gave rise to the anthroposophic understanding of man. It provides the opportunity for mutual understanding of the different medical systems. But it also accounts for the fact that, unlike animals which are controlled and driven in their development by instincts, humans must compensate for their instinctive insecurity and “physiological imperfection” through learning processes - through self-consciously controlled thinking, feeling, and willing. According to Steiner/Wegmann, this particular physical-mental constitution predisposes humans to illness.