THE CURABILITY AND INCURABILITY OF DISEASES IN RELATION TO KARMA
IT may be presumed, in regard to the two ideas which are to form the
subject of our present lecture, namely, the curability and
incurability of diseases, that there will be clearer conceptions and
one might say concepts more acceptable to humanity, when
the ideas of karma and karmic connections in life have gained ground
in wider circles. One may indeed say that in regard to the ideas of
the curability and incurability of diseases there have been various
opinions in different centuries, and one need not go so very far back
to find how greatly these have changed.
We find a time at the turning point between the Middle Ages and modern
times, about the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, when the idea
gradually gained ground that forms of disease could be strictly
limited, and that for every disease there was some sort of herb or
mixture by which the disease in question could be cured. This belief
lasted for a long time, even into the nineteenth century, and when we
as laymen, or as those who have accepted the ideas of the present day,
read of the treatment of disease from the end of the eighteenth or the
beginning of the nineteenth centuries and for some time later, we are
astonished at the remedies and recipes which were largely used at that
time: teas, mixtures, more dangerous medicines, blood-letting, etc.
In the nineteenth century this view was reversed into the exact
opposite in medical circles, and indeed in distinguished medical
circles. I may say that during the earlier years of my life many of
these opposing views came before me in various forms. The opportunity
for this came to all who followed the progress of the nihilistic
school of medicine which was started in Vienna about the middle
of the nineteenth century and which won more and more favour. The
commencement of a radical change in the views on the curability and
incurability of diseases was due to what the renowned physician Dietel
brought to light in regard to pneumonia and similar diseases. From all
kinds of observations he came to the conclusion that fundamentally
there is absolutely no real effect to be noticed from the use of
various remedies on the course of this or that disease. Under the
influence of the school of Dietel, the young doctors of that day
learned to think of the healing value of the remedies which had been
used for centuries in such a way that they almost outdid what is
conveyed in the well-known saying: When the cock crows on
the dung-heap the weather will change or it will remain as it
is! They were of the opinion that it made little difference to
the course of this or that disease whether one administered a certain
remedy or not. Now Dietel was one who, for that period, collected very
convincing statistics showing that in his so-called wait and
see treatment, approximately as many people who were suffering
from pneumonia were cured or died as was the case in the earlier
treatment with time-honoured remedies. The waiting treatment founded
by Dietel, and continued by Skoda consisted in bringing the patient
into a condition in which he was best able to stimulate the
self-healing powers and to draw them forth from his organism. The
doctor had little more to do than watch the course of the disease and
to be at hand if anything happened, so that he could give practical
help with human needs. For the rest, he confined himself to watching
the disease come, so to speak, and waiting to see how the self-healing
forces came out of the organism, until after a time the fever subsided
and self-healing came about.
This school of medicine was called, and is still called, The
Nihilistic School, because it rested on a statement by Professor
Skoda who said approximately: We may perhaps learn to
diagnose diseases, to describe them, perhaps even explain them, but we
cannot heal them! I give you these details of developments in
the course of the nineteenth century so that you may realise how ideas
have changed on this subject. But because this or that is related in
purely narrative form it is not implied that you should take sides in
any way, for obviously the statement of the celebrated Professor
Skoda was a kind of radicalism, the limits of which are quite easy to
define. There was, however, one point or aspect which was repeatedly
emphasised by this particular school of medicine. Although they had no
means of proving it and had not even the words to describe exactly the
content of their conception they repeatedly affirmed that there must
be in man some element which determines the appearance and the course
of his illness, and which is fundamentally beyond the reach of any
human intervention.
Thus a reference was made to something beyond human aid; and if one
really goes to the bottom of these things, this indication cannot
relate to anything other than the law of karma and its activity in
human life. If we follow the course of a disease in human life, how it
develops, and how the healing powers spring forth from the organism
itself; if we follow the process of healing impartially
particularly if we reflect how in one case a cure takes place, while
in another it fails we shall then be driven to search for a
deeper law determining this. Can this deeper law be sought for in the
previous earth-life of man? That is a question for us. Can we say that
a person brings with him certain predispositions which in one
particular case called forth the healing powers from his organism, but
which in another case, in spite of every effort, held these forces
back?
It will be remembered from the last lecture that in the events which
take place between death and a new birth, particular forces are taken
into the human individuality. During the period in kamaloca the events
of a person's last life, the good and evil deeds he has done, the
qualities of his character, etc., come before his soul, and through
the vision of his own life he acquires the tendency to bring about the
remedy and compensation for all that is imperfect in him and which has
manifested as wrong action. He is moved to acquire those qualities
which will bring him nearer to perfection in various directions. He
forms intentions and tendencies during the time up to a new birth, and
goes into existence again with these intentions. Further, he himself
works upon the new body which he acquires for his new life, and he
builds in conformity with the forces he has brought from previous
earthly lives, and from the time between death and re-birth. He is
furnished with these forces, and builds them into his new body. From
this it may be seen that this new body will be weak or strong
according as the person is in the position to build weak or strong
forces into it.
Now it must be clearly understood that a certain consequence will come
when, for example, during the life in kamaloca, a person sees that in
the last life, he did many actions under the influence of the emotions
of anger, fear, aversion, etc. These actions now stand vividly before
his soul in kamaloca, and in his soul is formed the thought (the
expressions which we have to use for these forces are of course coined
from the physical life): You must do something to yourself, so
that you will become more perfect in this respect, so that in the
future you will no longer be inclined to commit such actions under the
dominance of your emotions. This thought becomes an integral
part of the human-soul individuality, and during the passage through
to a new birth, it is imprinted still further as a force in the new
body. Thus this new body is penetrated with the tendency so to act on
the whole organisation of the physical body, the etheric body and
astral body, that it will be prevented from performing certain actions
resulting from the emotions of anger, hate, envy, etc. He will be
impelled to fresh actions which will compensate for previous ones.
Thus from a reason which extends far beyond his ordinary rationality,
the person is imbued with a strong desire for a higher perfection in
certain directions, and with the desire also to compensate for certain
deeds. If we consider how manifold life is, and how day by day we
perform actions which require compensation of this sort, we shall
understand that when the soul enters into a next existence on earth,
it contains many such thoughts waiting to be balanced, and that these
manifold thoughts and tendencies cross one another, making the human
physical body and etheric body receive a complex warp and woof of such
tendencies and desires. To illustrate this, let us take a striking
case, and I must again repeat that I avoid speaking from any sort of
theory or hypothesis, and that when I give examples I give only those
that have been tested by Spiritual Science.
Let us suppose that in his previous life a person acted from an
Ego-feeling which was much too weak, and which allowed of too much
influence from the outer world so much so that it gave to his
actions a lack of independence, a lack of character which no longer
fits the present state of humanity. Thus it was this lack of feeling
of self which led him in one incarnation to perform certain actions.
During the kamaloca period, he had before him the actions which have
proceeded from this atrophy of his Ego and from this he acquires the
tendency: You must develop within you forces which increase your
feeling of personality; in your next incarnation you must seek for
opportunities to strengthen this feeling, to train it, as it were,
against the opposition of your body, against the forces which will
come to you in your next incarnation from your physical body, etheric
body and astral body. You must make a body which will show you the
consequences of a weak personality.
The effect of this in the next incarnation will not be able fully to
enter into the consciousness; it will run its course more or less in a
sub-conscious region. The person in question will strive for an
incarnation in which he will encounter the greatest opposition to his
Ego-consciousness, so that he has to exert these feelings to the
highest degree. This striving draws him, as if magnetically, to places
and circumstances where he meets with great hindrances, so that his
Ego is stimulated into action in opposition to the organisation of the
three bodies. Strange as it may sound, the individualities who have
this karma, coming into existence by birth in the way we have
described, seek opportunities where, for instance, they will be
exposed to an epidemic such as cholera, for this gives them the
opportunity of meeting with the opposition we have described above.
The activity which is thus experienced in the inner being of the
person who is ill owing to the opposition of the three bodies, can
then so work that in the next incarnation his feeling of self will be
much stronger.
Let us take another striking instance, and so that we may perceive the
connection, we will purposely take exactly the opposite case. During
the kamaloca period, a person sees that he has acted from too strong a
feeling of self. He sees that he must be more temperate as regards
this feeling and that he must subdue it. So he will seek an
opportunity whereby in the next incarnation his threefold organism
will so condition him that his Ego-consciousness, however much it
strives, will find no limitations, and he will be led to the
unfathomable and to absurdity. These opportunities come to him when
karma brings him malaria.
Here you have a case of disease brought about by karma which explains
that fundamentally man is led by a higher kind of reason than he
perceives with his ordinary consciousness to circumstances which in
the course of his karma are favourable to his development. If we bear
in mind what has just been said, we shall find it much easier to
understand the epidemic nature of diseases. We could bring forward
many different examples showing how, because of his experience in the
kamaloca period, a man actually seeks for the opportunity to get a
certain illness, in order that by overcoming it and by developing the
self-healing forces, he may gain strength and power which will lead
him upward on the path of evolution.
I said previously that if a person has done many things under the
influence of his passions, he will in the kamaloca period live through
actions which have also come about under such an influence. This will
arouse in him the tendency in his next incarnation to experience some
obstacle in his own body and by overcoming this, he will be in the
position to compensate for certain actions in his previous life.
Especially is this the case in the form of illness which in these
modern times we call diptheric, which in many cases appears when there
is a karmic complication due to previous acts which were dominated by
the emotions and passions.
In the course of these lectures, we shall have to speak on the causes
of various illnesses, but we must now go still more deeply if we wish
to answer the question: If a person enters into existence in
such a way that, through his karma, he brings with him the tendency
whereby he overcomes suffering to gain some other thing, how, then,
does it come about that one succeeds in overcoming the disease and
acquiring forces which bring him higher, while another succumbs, and
the disease is the victor? Here we have to go back to the
spiritual principles which allow disease to be possible in human life.
If a man can fall ill, and can through karma even seek illness
this is due to a certain principle that has come already before us in
our studies of Spiritual Science. We know that at a certain point in
the Earth's evolution there penetrated into the development of
humanity the forces we call luciferic, which belong to beings who
remained behind during the ancient Moon evolution, and who did not
advance far enough to reach, as it were, the normal point of their
development. Thereby was implanted into the astral body of man, before
his Ego could work in the proper manner, a principle which streamed
from these luciferic beings. So the influence of these beings was once
exercised on man's astral body, and he has retained it throughout his
evolution. This influence plays a great part in human evolution; but
for our present task it is important to point out that as a result of
these forces, he had within him that which led him to be less perfect
than he would otherwise have been if such influence had not come. It
also gave him the tendency to act and judge more from his emotions,
passions and desires, than he would have done if the luciferic
influence had not entered. This influence produced a change in the
real individuality of man who became more subject to what we may call
World of Desire than would otherwise have been the case,
and it is because of this influence that man has become much more
identified with the physical earthly world than he would otherwise
have been. Through the luciferic influence man has entered more into
his body and has identified himself more with it, for if the influence
of the luciferic beings had not been there, many of the things that
allure man to desire this or that would not have come. Man would have
been quite indifferent to these allurements. But allurements of the
external world of the senses came through this influence of Lucifer,
and man yielded to them. The individuality which was given by the Ego
was permeated with the activities proceeding from the luciferic
principle, and so it came about that in his first incarnation on earth
man succumbed to the allurements of the luciferic principle, and
carried these enticements with him into later lives. We can say that
the way in which he succumbed to the allurements of the luciferic
principle, became an integral part of his karma.
Now, if man had taken only this principle into himself he would have
succumbed more and more to the allurements of the physical earth
world; he would gradually have been obliged to resign the prospect of
breaking loose again from this world. We know that the Christ
influence which came later opposed the luciferic principle and
balanced it again, as it were, so that in the course of evolution man
again received the means by which to rid himself of the luciferic
influence. But with this influence something else was given at the
same time. The fact that this influence had penetrated into his astral
body made the whole of the external world into which he entered appear
different to him. Lucifer entered into the inner being of man, who
then saw the world around him through Lucifer. His vision of the
earthly world was thereby clouded and his external impressions were
mingled with what we call the ahrimanic influence. Ahriman could only
insinuate himself and make the external world into illusion because we
had previously created from within the tendency towards illusion and
maya. Thus the ahrimanic influence which came into the external world
was a consequence of the luciferic influence. We may say that when
once the luciferic forces were there, man enmeshed himself more in the
sense-world than he would have done without this influence; but
thereby he absorbed the ahrimanic influence with every external
perception. Thus in the human individuality which goes through
incarnations on the earth, there is a luciferic influence, and, as a
result of this, the ahrimanic influence. These two powers are
continually fighting in the human individuality which has become their
field of battle.
Man in his ordinary consciousness is still exposed to the allurements
of Lucifer which work from the passions and emotions of his astral
body; also he is subject to the enticements of Ahriman which come to
him from outside in the way of error, deception, etc., in regard to
the outer world. As long as a person is incarnated on the earth his
ideas put an obstacle in the way, so that what comes from Lucifer and
Ahriman cannot penetrate deeper, but finds a hindrance in his
concepts, his acts being subservient to his moral or intellectual
judgement. But when a person between birth and death sins against
morality in following Lucifer, or against logic or sound thinking in
following Ahriman, that concerns only his ordinary conscious soul
life. When, on the other hand, he passes through the portal of death,
the life of idea which is bound to the instrument of the brain ceases,
and a different form of consciousness begins; then, all the things
which in the life between birth and death were submitted to the moral
or rational judgement, penetrate down into the foundation of the human
being, into that which, after kamaloca, organises the next existence
and imprints itself into the plastic forces, which then construct a
threefold human body. Errors resulting from devotion to Ahriman
develop into forces of disease which affect man through his etheric
body. Faults which were the object of a moral judgement between birth
and death develop into causes of disease which work more from the
astral body.
From this we see how, in fact, our errors from the ahrimanic forces
within us, including such voluntary errors as lies, etc., develop into
causes of disease, if we do not merely consider the one incarnation,
but observe the effect of one incarnation on the next. We see also how
the luciferic influences in the same way become the causes of disease,
and we may in fact say, our errors do not go unpunished. We bear
the stamp of our errors in our next incarnation. But we do this
from a higher reason than that of our ordinary consciousness
from a consciousness which during the period between death and a new
birth directs us to make ourselves so strong that we shall no longer
be exposed to these temptations. Thus in our life, disease even plays
the part of a great teacher. If we study illnesses in this way we
shall see unmistakably that an illness is a manifestation of either
luciferic or ahrimanic influences. When these things are understood by
those who under the guidance of Spiritual Science wish to become
physicians, the influence of these healers on the human organism will
be infinitely more profound than it can be today.
We can examine certain forms of disease from this standpoint. Let us
take pneumonia for example; it is a karmic effect which follows when
during his life in kamaloca the person in question looks back to a
character which had within it the tendency towards sexual excess, and
a desire to live a sensual life. Do not confuse what is now ascribed
to a previous consciousness with what appears in the consciousness in
the following incarnation. This is quite a different matter. Indeed,
that which a person sees during his life in kamaloca will so transform
itself that forces are imprinted in him by means of which he will
overcome pneumonia. For it is exactly in the overcoming of this
disease, in the self-healing which is then striven for that the human
individuality acts in opposition to the luciferic powers and wages a
pitched battle against them. Therefore in the overcoming of pneumonia
is given the opportunity to lay aside that which was a defect in the
character in a previous incarnation. In this complaint we see
unmistakably the war of man against the luciferic powers.
Now the case is different in the so-called tuberculosis of the
lungs, when we see the singular phenomenon whereby the
self-healing forces become active, and the injurious influences are
surrounded and framed in by a calcareous matter with a tissue which is
then filled in and which forms solid concretions. A person may have
these concretions in his lungs, and many more people have such things
than is usually supposed, for these are the persons in whom a
tuberculous lung has been healed. Where such a thing has taken place,
a war has been waged by the human inner being against what the
ahrimanic forces have produced. It is a defensive process from within
against what has been brought about by external materiality, in order
to lead to the independence of the human being in this special sense.
We have shown how, in fact, the two principles the ahrimanic
and the luciferic are at work at the very foundation of a
disease. And in many ways it can be pointed out that in the various
forms of disease one distinguishes essentially two types, the
ahrimanic and the luciferic. If this were considered, the true
principles would be discovered by which to find a suitable remedy for
the patient; for luciferic diseases will require entirely different
remedies from the ahrimanic. To-day external forces are used for the
purposes of healing in a way which betrays a certain want of judgement
forces such as electro-therapy, the cold water treatment, etc.
Much light could be thrown by Spiritual Science on the suitability of
one method or another, if it were first decided whether a luciferic or
ahrimanic illness is being treated. For example, electro-therapeutics
ought not to be used in illnesses which originate from luciferic
causes, but only in ahrimanic forms of illness. For electricity, which
has no connection whatever with the activities of Lucifer, is useless
in treating luciferic forms of disease; it belongs to the sphere of
the ahrimanic beings, although, of course, other beings beside the
ahrimanic make use of the forces of electricity. On the other hand,
warmth and cold belong to the sphere of Lucifer. Everything which has
to do with making the human body warmer or colder, or that which makes
it warmer or colder through external influences, belongs to the sphere
of Lucifer; and in all the cases in which we have to deal with warmth
or cold we have a type of luciferic form of disease.
From this we see how karma works in illness and how it works to
overcome illness. It will now no longer seem incomprehensible that in
karma there also lies the curability or incurability of a disease. If
we clearly understand that the aim the karmic aim of illness is
the progress and the improvement of man, we must presume that if a man
in accordance with the wisdom which he brings with him into this
existence from the kamaloca period contracts a disease, he then
develops the healing forces which involve a strengthening of his inner
forces and the possibility of rising higher. Let us suppose that man
in the life before him, owing to his other organism and his remaining
karma were, to have the force of progressing during this life itself by
means of that which he has acquired through illness. Then the healing
has an object. The person comes forth healed from the illness, having
gained what he was to gain. Through the conquest of the illness he has
acquired perfect forces where previously he had imperfect forces. If
through his karma he is equipped with such powers, and if through the
favourable circumstances of his former fate he is so placed in the
world that he can use the new forces, and can work so as to be of use
to himself and others, then healing comes about and he recovers.
Now let us suppose a case in which a person overcomes a disease,
develops the healing forces, and then is confronted with a life which
exacts from him a degree of perfection he has not yet gained. He
would, indeed, gain something through the conquered disease, but it
is, however, impossible because the rest of his karma does not
admit it with the little he has gained to assist others. Then
it comes about that his deeper subconsciousness says:
Here you have no opportunity of receiving the full force of what
you really ought to have. You had to go into this incarnation to gain
the degree of perfection which you can only attain in the physical
body by overcoming the disease. That you had to acquire; but you
cannot develop it further. You have now to go into conditions in which
your physical body and the other forces do not disturb you, where you
can freely work out what you have gained through the illness.
Such an individual seeks for death so as to use further, between death
and another birth, what he cannot use in life. Such a soul goes
through the phase between death and re-birth in order to construct an
organisation with the stronger forces it has gained by overcoming
disease. In this way through the presence of an illness, a payment on
account, as it were, may be made, and the payment is completed after
passing through death.
When we consider the matter in this way we shall say: It undoubtedly
seems to be founded on karma that one illness ends in being cured and
another terminates in death. If we see illnesses terminated in this
way, we shall obtain through karma, from a higher standpoint a kind of
reconciliation, a profound reconciliation with life; for we shall know
that it lies within the law of karma that even if an illness
terminates in death man progresses, and that even in such a
case the illness has the object of bringing the person higher. Now no
one must draw from this the conclusion that we ought to wish that
death should take place in certain cases of illness. No one may say
this, because the decision regarding what ought to happen, whether
healing or otherwise, belongs to a higher power of judgement than the
one included in our ordinary consciousness. In the world which lies
between birth and death, and with our ordinary consciousness, we must
humbly let such questions stand over. With our higher consciousness we
may, however, even take the standpoint that death is the gift of the
higher spiritual powers. But that consciousness which is to help and
set to work in life must not presume to place itself along with this
higher consciousness, for we might then easily err and we should
interfere unjustifiably in something which must never be interfered
with, namely, the sphere of human freedom. If we can help a person to
develop the self-healing forces, or assist him to aid nature, so that
a cure may come about, we must do it. And if the question should arise
as to whether the patient ought to live on further, or whether he
would be more helped if he died, our assistance must nevertheless
always be given towards healing. If this is done we help the human
individuality to use its own powers, and the medical assistance only
supports him in this. It does not work into the human individuality.
It would be quite different if we were to help on an incurable disease
in a person in order that he should seek his further progress in
another world. We should then interfere with his individuality, and
deliver this up to another sphere of action. We should be imposing our
will upon the other and we must leave this to the other individual
himself. In other words, we must do everything possible for him to be
cured; for all the deliberation which leads to a cure comes from the
consciousness which is ripe for our Earth, and all other measures
would reach beyond our Earth sphere. Other forces than those which
belong to our ordinary consciousness would then have to work.
Thus we see that a true karmic understanding concerning the curability
and incurability of disease leads to our doing everything possible to
help the person who is ill, and, on the other hand, it also leads to
our being comforted if a different decision comes from another sphere.
We do not require anything else as regards this other decision. It is
necessary for us to find a point of view from which the incurability
of a disease does not depress us, as though the world contained only
what is imperfect and evil. The conception of karma does not paralyse
our activities in regard to healing. On the contrary, it will again
bring us into harmony with regard to the hardest fate, with regard to
the incurability of a certain illness.
Thus we have seen today how the understanding of karma alone makes it
possible for us to comprehend the course of an illness in the right
way, and to understand that in our present life we see the karmic
effects of our previous life. Detailed examples will be given later
when we discuss the other subject. We have now to distinguish between
illnesses which come from the inner being of man, which appear as the
result of karma, and those illnesses which come to us apparently by
chance, through our being exposed to some accident or other. In brief,
we shall now see how we may arrive at a karmic understanding of
accidents, as, for example, when one falls under the wheels of a
railway train. How are we to understand so-called accidents in
connection with karma?
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