I'm envisioning eurythmy as being a bit like Tai Chi-- so I guess one could say that the notion of channeling Chi predates Steiner by a considerable margin.


Hmm. Yes, Steiner's ideas are interesting, and in some cases insightful, but I'm also thinking about the truism about broken clocks. While Steiner's grasp of intuitive neuroscience might seem rather sophisticated, let's also not lose sight of the fact that this is the same dude that also thought that Buddha vacated the home planet for Mars and fame via crucifixion, and that the Sun has healing powers.

I guess that only applies if you don't happen to have a DNA repair disorder of some sort, and it is certainly an odd belief for someone believed that melanin expression was apparently inversely proportional to human worth. I have to also wonder why Steiner's ideas caught on so well, whereas those of people like Alisdair Crowley really have remained fringe. It's a strange world.

Hey, and in an update to the Disney thing, apparently about 6 of the 22 patients identified by health departments in five western states have needed hospital care, which is comforting in a way since this means that this is about "average" as measles outbreaks go. Unfortunately, it also means that there are likely to be a few cases in which deaths or permanent injuries occur when the number of cases grows large enough.


Steiner would suggest, by the way, that these patients are working their way to better karma or something-- which is the basis of anthroposophic avoidance of vaccination, incidentally.

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2013/04/steiner-schools-vaccination-and-measles-outbreaks.html

A more pro-Steiner viewpoint expresses the anthroposophical position on infectious disease.

Originally Posted by Anthromed.org
Thus, anthroposophic and con­ventional medicine have dramati­cally different viewpoints as to what causes common childhood illnesses. Conventional medicine views child­hood illnesses for which vaccines have been developed as a physical disease, inherently bad, to be pre­vented. Their main goal, therefore, is protection against contracting the disease making one free of illness. In contrast, these childhood illnesses are viewed by anthroposophic medi­cine as a necessary instrument in dealing with karma and, as discussed by Husemann, and Wolff, (6) the incar­nation of the child. During childhood illnesses, anthroposophic medical practitioners administer medical remedies* to assist the child in deal­ing with the illness not only as a dis­ease affecting their physical body in the physical plane, but also for soul ­spiritual development, thereby pro­moting healing. In contrast, allopathic medicaments are aimed at suppression of symptoms and not necessarily the promotion of healing.

In Manifestations of Karma, Rudolf Steiner states that humans may be able to influence their karma and remove the manifestation of cer­tain conditions, i.e., disease, but they may not be liberated from the karmic effect which attempted to produce them. Says Steiner, "...if the karmic reparation is escaped in one direc­tion, it will have to be sought in another ... the souls in question would then be forced to seek another way for karmic compensation either in this or in another incarnation." (7)

In his lecture, Karma of Higher Beings (8), Steiner poses the question, "If someone seeks an opportunity of being infected in an epidemic, this is the result of the necessary reaction against an earlier karmic cause. Have we the right now to take hy­gienic or other measures?" The an­swer to this question must be decided by each person and may vary. For example, some may accept the risk of disease but not of vaccine side effects, while others may accept the risk associated with vaccination but not with the disease.**

Anthroposophic medicine teaches that to prevent a disease in the physical body only postpones what will then be produced in an­other incarnation. Thus, when health measures are undertaken to eliminate the susceptibility to a disease, only the external nature of the illness is eliminated. To deal with the karmic activity from within, Anthroposophy states that spiritual education is re­quired.


Oh, well, then that makes it okay. I've just misunderstood the causes and purposes of things like polio. I've deprived my child of the important opportunity to work through her karmic baggage the easy way via possible paralysis or death. I'm clearly a horrible parent. In related news, btw, Steiner also proposes that I may have set her up for cancer later by doing this, since the karmic baggage is what causes that, as well.

What a shame that organizations like MSF insist on 'interfering' with the naturally wonderful karmic process in third world locations... tired



* and by medical remedies, here, the author is probably meaning magical herbal preparations and homeopathic ones, and while I respect that there are those who believe that those things are "medical remedies" I personally tend to think of them as placebos. At best.


** of course, this assumes that ALL of those without vaccine-acquired immunity have elected this particular immunological status. Maybe they could dance their way to immunity instead. Of course, if they are karmically okay, they are naturally immune to begin with, I suppose the right children are being infected anyway and we shouldn't concern ourselves for those who are being punished through the wisdom of the universe.



Yes, I realize that I sound like a skeptic. I'm actually pretty easy to convince-- but I do require extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims, and that first link should demonstrate that there's a fairly robust link between pockets of underimmunisation which coincide rather well with Steiner educational communities, and the resultant epicenters of outbreaks.

It's very dangerous to have neighbors who are Steiner acolytes if you happen to be a cancer patient or a newborn, for example. I've also quite commonly heard that my daughter's disability is somehow her "burden" karmically and that we should put her on organic food and quit interfering with "nature."

I gotta go with Val here. Some of this wackadoo nonsense is funny and more or less harmless, but there comes a point at which it isn't funny and public health is my personal line there, I suppose. Besides, nobody wants a Nazi cow anyway, biodynamic enology aside.


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.