Autoimmun Anhang
[Dr. Philip Incao]
The Problem of Autoimmune Disease
“…and twofold always.
May God us keep from single vision and Newton’s sleep!”
William
Blake (1757-1827)
“We can attain the greatest perfection
in the description of disease, we can know precisely what happens in the
organism in terms of modern physiology and physiological chemistry; and yet we
may still not be able to heal the disease at all. In healing we must proceed
not from the histological or microscopic diagnosis, but from the great
universal connections.”
Rudolf
Steiner (1861-1925) Agriculture, p. 96
Human beings, like plants and animals,
live with and by virtue of the earth beneath us and the heavens above us. The
physical forces of the earth, primarily gravity and electromagnetism, influence
us from below, so that our lower limbs and feet are especially adapted to
gravity, and bear our body’s weight.
The spiritual forces of the universe
around us influence us from above, imparting especially to our upper body, arms
and head the capacity to reach up and out and expand into the space around us.
Some of these universal forces are reflected back to us from the earth, and
thus influence us also from below.
Science in ancient times always viewed
the human being as positioned mid-way between the spiritual forces of the
universe above us and the physical forces of the earth beneath us. All the
processes and functions of our body were perceived to be influenced and
indwelled from above and from below, from the heavens and from the earth, from
spirit and from matter. The source of spirit was perceived to be the universe,
the source of matter the earth, and they worked together within the bodies of
humans, animals and plants.
In the last five hundred years our
twofold human experience of the forces around and within us has drastically
changed.
Today our human mind and our science can
no longer experience that spiritual forces work in the universe, i.e. the macrocosm,
and also in the microcosm of human physiology. Now, the processes of the
universe and the functions of our body are seen as exclusively physical,
allowing no supra-physical or spiritual influences at all, not even those of
consciousness. Our old twofold view of ourselves has become a single vision in
which we see our body as a machine composed of countless microscopic physical
parts: cells, molecules, receptors, effectors, antibodies, cytokines—the list
keeps growing as research progresses.
Today’s medicine and biology are based
on the assumption that these ultra-small cellular and sub-cellular parts of
ourselves hold the secret causes of life, health and illness in our human
organism. This assumption is called reductionism. It is the only acceptable
rationale for most biomedical research today.
R.S.: applauded the triumphs of
reductionistic research, such as the discovery of insulin as the life-saving
treatment for diabetes.
Yet he saw the goal of medicine to be
healing. He perceived that the healing of physical illness or injury gave the
soul an opportunity to grow stronger, to improve habits, maintain balance,
resist stress and move forward in life. In healing, we change for the better
and make progress in our individual lives, and this in turn makes healthy and
moral social progress possible. Thus, how healers treat illness in their
patients ripples out to society, for good or for ill.
The true healer understands the
difference between healing an illness and suppressing it. Suppression is often
the safest and best treatment, i.e. antibiotics for dangerous infections, but
the discerning practitioner will realize that such patients might need
sensitive follow-up care to steer the interrupted healing process toward
completion, so that the patient can experience the soul renewal that healing an
illness can confer. Often it was the gradually increasing need for just this
soul renewal that had triggered the illness in the first place!
As the opening quote attests, Steiner
perceived that reductionistic knowledge would not lead to measures for true
healing but only to measures for life support and extension, which are
certainly worthy goals nonetheless, but which do not necessarily contribute to
individual soul development and to social progress as healing does. For
knowledge of healing he urged practitioners and researchers to look not down
into the realm of the ultra-small within us, but up to the realm of the forces
streaming in from the universe and internalized in our human organism. We all
experience these forces in ourselves without knowing that they originate in the
surrounding universe.
Three kinds of universal forces can be
distinguished by the spiritual researcher, the etheric, the astral and the pure
spirit forces. While most of us lack the clairvoyant ability to perceive these
forces directly, we all have the capacity to recognize the “footprints”
of these forces in our everyday physical
world. Working backward from the physical effects to the spiritual causes,
reversing the direction of reductionism, we can begin to understand how these
forces work in the natural world and in our human organism. How can a knowledge
of these forces help us to understand and heal autoimmune diseases?
Autoimmune diseases are defined as
inflammations. From the viewpoint of reductionism, inflammations are always
caused by our immune system responding to an antigen, usually a microbial or
allergenic antigen (allergen). In autoimmune inflammation, the immune system
responds not to exogenous, foreign antigens but to endogenous, “self” antigens,
i.e. to molecules belonging to our organism.
Any inflammation not known to be caused
by a microbe or exogenous antigen is usually said to be idiopathic until or
unless an antibody auto-antibody) is found that reacts with a normal component
of ourselves that has somehow become antigenic, i.e. provocative to our immune
system. For example, the causation of type 1 diabetes changed from idiopathic
to autoimmune after anti-pancreatic beta-cell antibodies were discovered in
diabetic patients.
The preceding discussion makes perfect
sense on the microscopic, reductionistic level, and conforms with our modern
medical knowledge.
If Steiner is correct, this knowledge of
the molecular pathology of autoimmune diseases can certainly lead to, and has
led to, treatments to suppress such illnesses, such as Remicade and
Methotrexate, but not to treatments to heal them.
So let’s look again at illnesses like
lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatic fever, not from a molecular viewpoint
but this time proceeding from “the great universal connections.” How would
Hippocrates have described such diseases?
Hippocrates is called the father of
western medicine because he stood at the turning point in the history of
medicine when the old, fading, clairvoyant and spiritual healing began its very
gradual shift toward modern materialistic and reductionistic medicine. Since
microscopes and reductionism did not yet exist, Hippocrates could only have
described autoimmune diseases from outer clinical observation, that is,
phenomenologically.
Did the ancient Greeks recognize
autoimmune inflammation as distinct from other “normal” inflammations? Yes, we
might surmise that they did, based on the meanings of two medical terms derived
from the ancient Greek language: rheumatism and catharsis.
All of the chronic autoimmune
inflammations of connective tissue recognized today (lupus, rheumatoid
arthritis, scleroderma etc.) would have been viewed as forms of rheumatism in
ancient medicine. Acute, usually self-healing inflammations, like the exanthems
of childhood (measles, rubella, varicella, etc.) and acute common flus, colds
and gastroenteritis were not rheumatic, but cathartic! From outer observation,
the important distinction was the presence or absence of the discharge of
mucus, pus, blood, vomiting, diarrhea, or of an acute exanthem. Inflammations
accompanied by such discharges were seen as cathartic, i.e. purifying, which is
the original meaning of the Greek word.
Rheumatic inflammations had little or no
discharge. In ancient medicine the treatment of rheumatic conditions included
methods to stimulate the flow of fluid humors (chi, etheric) outward to the
surface of the body, thus inducing a discharge of sorts. Methods such as cupping,
counterirritation of the skin, bleeding, purging and the inducement of sweating
were used. In these ways, a stagnant rheumatic inflammation was activated to
move toward catharsis and healing. Care had to be taken not to overdo such
activating treatment, lest the patient suffer a “healing crisis” that might
prove lethal or excessively weakening. It was recognized that an inflammation
could heal “by crisis or by lysis,” or a combination of the two. These two
medical terms are derived from the Greek words for “decision” and “loosening,”
respectively.
In discharging, cathartic inflammations,
the ancient physician perceived that the fluid element of the body (the
etheric) was unimpeded and worked freely and expansively, carrying the toxic
substances of the illness out of the body like a tide depositing flotsam on the
beach. In rheumatic inflammations, the fluid humors of the body were congested,
unable to flow freely to carry the dregs of the inflammatory process out of the
body. When such excreta of inflammation remained in the body, they acted as
toxic irritants, inciting further inflammation in a vicious cycle, which
resulted in the chronic, recurrent nature of the rheumatic diseases.
Thus we see that Steiner’s suggestion to
the physicians of his day to view illness phenomenologically, “from the great
universal connections” in order to heal, was practiced as a matter of course by
physicians in ancient times. We can learn much today from ancient ways of
healing, and many of these ways are still in use throughout the world.
It bears repeating that while the
methods of modern reductionistic medicine have eased much suffering and greatly
extended life, these are not the same as healing. The true healing process
includes some degree of personal (soul) transformation and a step forward in
self-knowledge for each individual so healed.
The anthroposophic approach to healing
is thoroughly modern and points toward the future, yet it also has much in
common with the ancient medical systems of both East and West. The wisdom of
ancient Greece lives in the modern anthroposophic teaching of the four members
(physical, etheric, astral, Ego) of the human being and the four elements,
humors and temperaments. This human fourfoldness traces its origin directly
from the fourfold “great universal connections” of the cosmos around us and the
earth beneath us, connections which for the Greeks and other ancients were
perceptible and self-evident. We can start with this fourfold cosmic view to
help us understand and heal autoimmune diseases today, and then proceed to the
sevenfoldness of the planets, the human organs and the metallic anthroposophic
remedies. Using this phenomenological approach, the definition of autoimmunity
greatly broadens, no longer depending on whether an auto-antibody reaction has
been discovered in this or that illness. For our purpose, which is healing, any
inflammation which is chronic or recurrent or which produces little or no
discharge or which involves primarily muscles, joints, heart or nervous system,
is of an autoimmune “rheumatic” nature.
The classic example, which meets all the
above criteria (many autoimmune inflammations meet only one or two) is
rheumatic fever, which is seldom seen today.
An Anthroposophic Approach to the
Pathophysiology of Autoimmune Diseases
Normal “Cathartic” Inflammation
Taking the flu as an example of an
acute, febrile, “normal” cathartic inflammation which usually self-heals, we
can say the following of our fourfold members in an acute flu episode:
Physical body: The illness begins when
our immune system starts reacting to a flu virus, which is understood today as
a foreign, invasive, parasitic particle of organic matter in the physical body.
The immune reaction creates systemic inflammation including fever, pain, cough
and weakness. The physical body is the stage upon which these events unfold,
and it suffers their effects.
Etheric body: becomes very active in
order to bring the flu inflammation to a successful healing. The etheric is the
active inner force working throughout the physical body in the blood, lymph and
in all extracellular and intracellular fluids. The etheric is the “workhorse”
which, directed by the Ego-astral, carries out the processes of inflammation,
mucous discharge and detoxification, and actively clears the flu virus and the
toxic debris of inflammation from the body. In order to accomplish this intense
work, the etheric must, during the acute inflammatory process, temporarily
withdraw from its normal functions of creating energy and a sense of well-being
in the physical body. Deprived of its usual active etheric support, the
physical body then suffers malaise, weakness and prostration.
Astral body: guided by the Ego, the
astral works in a directing, activating, and catabolic way in the inflammatory
process, similar to its function in the digestion of food. In areas of the body
where the physical is denser and there is a sluggish, congested, etheric
stagnation and consequent retention of metabolic wastes, the astral will have
to work more strongly to activate the etheric and get it moving. In these
areas, pain is likely to result from the intensified astral activity, causing
the deep aching that often accompanies flu.
During the acute inflammation, the
astral, like the etheric, will have to withdraw somewhat from its usual
activities in the body in thinking, perceiving and digesting. Therefore these
bodily functions will be diminished during the inflammatory process.
Ego: The Ego provides the ultimate
leadership, direction and balance necessary for every bodily process to unfold
appropriately and in the right measure, both in maintaining health and in
responding to illness. The Ego carries the influence of our individual karma
into all of our physiologic and pathologic bodily processes.
The Ego works in us through its organs
which comprise the Ego organization, such as the blood, the immune system, the
pancreas, and many others. The Ego plays a greater or lesser role in every
bodily organ and process and maintains our overall homeostasis.
In every acute inflammation the degree
of systemic Ego involvement, working though its organ the immune system, is
evidenced by the intensity of the fever and inflammation and of their
accompanying chills and sweats. The classic example of an intense acute
inflammation with very strong Ego participation is malaria.
By contrast, when the Ego is not
involved and active enough in a given inflammatory process, then the result is
indolence, stagnation, chronicity, cooling and eventual sclerosis. Thus it
makes sense that in the early 1900’s the most effective treatment available for
the sclerotic third stage of syphilis, neurosyphilis, was fever therapy, i.e.
the injecting of syphilis patients with parasite-infected blood from malaria
patients.
This barbaric-sounding treatment
produced rigors, high fevers and drenching sweats and caused significant
clinical improvement and even cures in many end-stage syphilis patients! The
Austrian physician Wagner-Jauregg was given a Nobel prize in 1927 for his
successful work using malarial fever therapy in syphilis. By inducing malaria,
the intensely warming, activating and cleansing participation of the Ego was
drawn back into an illness, neurosyphilis, from which it had previously
withdrawn, and sclerosis had set in. The longer the Ego-deficient sclerotic
process continues, the more difficult it is to reverse and to heal. Once the
sclerosis of neurosyphilis had taken hold of a patient in the early 20th
century, nothing short of the powerful reentry of the Ego, in the form of a
malarial healing crisis, was able to heal it. Another profound lesson from
history, understandable from “the great cosmic connections”!
In an inflammation, absence of fever
signifies a deficient Ego participation or else an Ego-focus in a small,
localized inflammation where a systemic fever response is unnecessary to
achieve healing. The Ego initiates the immune system reaction when our flu
episode begins, and the Ego shuts down this reaction at the appropriate time,
karma permitting, before exhaustion and death supervene.
Autoimmune, Rheumatic Inflammation
Today, non-purulent, non-discharging
inflammations that make the “rheumatic gesture” of moving inward rather than
outward, and localizing in inner organs such as joints, muscles, kidneys,
nervous system, heart/pericardium and gut are increasingly common. Such
illnesses include the classic autoimmune connective tissue diseases (lupus,
Sjogren’s, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, polymyositis, polymyalgia
rheumatica etc), the inflammatory bowel diseases (Chron’s, ulcerative colitis,
lymphocytic colitis), as well as glomerulonephritis, multiple sclerosis, the
fairly common uveitis and many others. Viewed phenomenologically, that is,
proceeding from the cosmic/human fourfoldness, these various illnesses have a
basic internalizing, contracting astral/etheric gesture in common, while the
common cathartic inflammations all have an externalizing, expansive gesture.
We’ll attempt to describe below the dynamic of the fourfold human being we
would usually find in autoimmune disease, in contrast to the dynamic previously
described in common cathartic illnesses such as acute upper and lower
respiratory inflammations.
Physical body:
In autoimmune inflammations, as in cathartic
inflammations, the onset of symptoms is caused by the reaction of the immune
system.
In cathartic inflammations, the immune
response or the inflammatory response (they are one and the same) is directed
by the Ego, driven by the astral and carried out by the etheric. This healing
response clears and expels from the physical body the exogenous, foreign
antigens that had provoked the response. This expulsion of foreign antigens and
of the dead and dying white blood cells of the immune system which have
ingested or battled these antigens results in the mucopurulent discharge
commonly seen in cathartic inflammations like colds and flus.
In rheumatic, autoimmune inflammations
there are usually (but not always) no microbial or other foreign antigens involved
and usually no discharge. (As a reminder, in this discussion we are using
phenomenologic criteria and grouping all non-discharging, non-purulent
inflammations which are chronic or recurrent, i.e. not self-healing, in the
category of rheumatic, autoimmune illness, including those inflammations not
considered from reductionistic criteria to be autoimmune.)
As we age the physical body becomes
denser and more mineralized, thus offering more resistance to the active work
of the higher members (etheric, astral, Ego) within the physical. This accounts
for the readily observed differences between children and adults in their
response to inflammation. In children the fever is higher and better tolerated
compared with adults. Children achieve a cathartic discharge more quickly,
easily and profusely. An episode of vomiting, or a continual discharge of thick
nasal mucus seldom interferes with a young child’s play. A child’s physical
body is softer, more fluid, supple and more penetrable and permeable for its
etheric, astral and Ego, thus allowing these higher members freer rein within
the physical. The hardening of the physical body as we age is one reason why
rheumatic, autoimmune inflammations are far more common in adults than in
children.
Etheric Body:
We may visualize/imagine in our mind’s
eye the fluid organism of the physical body to be the vehicle of the etheric
body. We’ve said that this etheric body, working in and through our fluids, is
the “workhorse” inner force in all physiologic processes in our body, including
the neurophysiologic processes of thinking. All of our cells are bathed in
fluid and all of our physiologic processes go forward in a fluid medium. Just
as our circulation of blood and lymph never rests during life, so we may
imagine that our etheric body is in continual flow and movement, permeating our
physical body both from outside-in and from inside-out until we die.
The outside-in permeation of the
physical by the etheric (along with the astral and Ego) was recognized in
alchemy as the salt condition of matter, while the inside-out permeation of the
physical by the three higher members was called the sulfur condition of matter.
In our human physical-material body, our head, brain, nerves and bones are
primarily “salt,” while our muscles and abdominal/pelvic organs are primarily
“sulfur.”
We might imagine that our etheric flows
freely through our physical body like a mountain stream. When this stream gets
sidetracked into dead-end pockets of stagnation, illness can result. In such
pockets, cellular metabolism slows down and acid wastes (carbonic acid, lactic
acid) and other cellular end-products build up. Having fallen out of our inner
etheric flow and having not been carried away and eliminated from the body,
these wastes then act like foreign matter in our physical body and provoke an
inflammatory response from our astral and Ego. Whether the resulting
inflammation is cathartic, rheumatic or entirely subclinical and asymptomatic,
depends on a very complex set of individual factors in the patient.
Summarizing, we can say that in
autoimmune inflammations, there is a restriction, a hindrance to the free
expansive flow of the etheric body from center to periphery, resulting in a
restriction of its ability to eliminate wastes and toxins, which are then
retained and provoke irritation/inflammation in the physical body. This
restriction of expansive etheric flow might have physical or astral causes, or
both. The physical density/hardening factor has already been mentioned.
Astral Body:
I believe that our developing a real
sense and feeling for the astral body, and for “astrality” in our surroundings
is the key to understanding and healing autoimmune illness. Just as the fluids
of our body: intracellular, extracellular, lymph, blood, mucus, are the instruments
of etheric activity in us, so the gases of our body: oxygen, nitrogen, carbon
dioxide, and others are the instruments of astral activity in us. We breathe
these in and out of us continually, so with regard to our astral body the
boundary with our surroundings is fluctuating and indistinct.
All of us have a greater or lesser aura
(Greek for breath or breeze) of astrality surrounding our physical bodies. I
once heard a quite old and frail anthroposophist say of a very intense young
co-worker, “His astrality stresses me.” I suddenly realized that for her,
“astral” was not merely an abstract word, but a concrete experience.´
The experience of astrality is conveyed
by the word “atmosphere” as in the expression “you could cut the atmosphere in
the room with a knife.” Astrality is contagious, and it works very strongly in
all phenomena of social hysteria, whether infectious laughter, mass panic or
mob rage. Charisma and glamour, as in movie stars and other attractive
personalities, are manifestations of a powerful and expansive astral body.
It is important for the anthroposophic
healer to cultivate a sense and feeling for the astrality of ones patients.
Autoimmune illness, and really all illness, begins as an imbalance or
disturbance in the harmony of the astral body, usually perceptible in the
shades and colors of feelings that we consciously and unconsciously express
with our words, tone, and our body language of gesture and movement.
Infants and children in their openness
of soul, are like sponges for the astrality of their parents and of their home
environment. When this astrality is warm, loving and peaceful, then this has a
health-promoting effect on the child’s etheric body. The Ego forces of the
parents directly influence the child’s astral body. The parents’ etheric forces
directly influence the child’s physical body. Steiner called these
relationships of influence from adult to child the “pedagogic law” in his
course on curative education. This law pertains also to teachers and to any
adult in a position of influence in a child’s life.
Astrality, being a quality of air and
atmosphere, is like the weather. It can be sunny or stormy, peaceful or
threatening, hot or freezing. The words stress and stressors, which were coined
as biomedical terms only in the 1930’s, are really descriptions of negative
astrality and how it affects living organisms. Stress causes the astral and
etheric to be more contracted than expanded. Stress oppresses us.
I always ask a new patient whether they
felt loved, nurtured and carefree in their childhood, or whether they felt
continually stressed. I also ask if they rebelled and acted out a lot in
adolescence or if they were docile and well-behaved. Rebellious acting out is a
strong expansive, cathartic gesture. I find that in most patients with
autoimmune illness, usually women, there was significant stress in childhood
and, more importantly, an inability to adequately act out, express and
externalize the stress, i.e. an inadequate catharsis of the feeling life of the
soul/astral body.
When such stress, i.e. negative
astrality, is not processed by the Ego and released by the etheric but instead
is internalized deeply into an inaccessible focus in the physical body, then
the seed of future autoimmune illness and/or cancer is planted.
The fact that most autoimmune conditions
are more common in females than males is most likely due to the difference
between the sexes in their astral (soul) constitution. If it were due to
physical and etheric differences, we would expect autoimmunity to be more
common in men. We’ve said that rheumatic inflammations are more common in
adults than in children because the physical body is more earthy and dense in
adults. A hardened physical body resists the penetration and action of the
higher members within the physical, just as, by analogy, dense metallic lead is
a very poor conductor of the forces of warmth or electricity. As we age, our
physical body, which in childhood was soft and permeable like copper, becomes
more like lead.
Yet men, whose physical bodies are
denser than women’s and who suffer from sclerotic conditions like heart disease
and COPD more than women, nevertheless have rheumatic, autoimmune inflammations
less often than women. I believe the reason for this apparent discrepancy is that
a woman’s astral body (soul) is more sensitive and impressionable than a man’s.
Steiner has said that life experiences are more deeply etched into a woman’s
soul than a man’s and such experiences have a greater tendency to affect the
etheric/physical organism in a woman than in a man.
A woman’s astral body, compared to a
man’s, is generally more active, more wide-ranging, and more independent from
the etheric/physical on the one side, and freer from the Ego on the other side.
In men, the predominating forces of the physical body keep a restraining grip
on the fluid flow of the etheric as well as on the airy, to-and-fro excursions
of the astral.
A woman’s astral body typically shines
out strongly, expressing all the colors and shades of feminine beauty and
feeling. Thus on the outer side, a woman’s astral body usually extends/expands
further into its surroundings than a man’s. And on the inner side, it also
contracts further. It can dive down so deeply into the etheric/physical that it
leaves the Ego behind, and can get stuck in the depths of the body.
I believe the frightening fairy tales
and legends that tell of getting lost in a deep labyrinth or dark woods are a
picture of this journey of the soul/astral into our inner depths, from which,
without Ego consciousness (portrayed as Ariadne’s thread or a trail of
breadcrumbs etc.), we are unable to return.
In the second lecture of the Course for
Young Doctors, Steiner speaks of the seed of illness being planted when a feeling
and the life events that produced it are too overwhelming, too painful to be
tolerated within the conscious life of the soul and the feeling then “shoots
down” into, and unites with, the physical body. This resulting astral-physical
focus of intense but unconscious feeling then acts like an irritating foreign
body which can be a seed for later autoimmune inflammation or for cancer. This
is the exact same process I mentioned a bit earlier, using the words “stress”
and “negative astrality,” which, here we see, always engender and are
accompanied by strong, disturbing feelings. These internalized, overwhelming
feelings can also be a cause of ongoing post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Here the simple and insightful words of
William Blake are again relevant:
“I was angry with my foe.
I held my wrath;
My wrath did grow.
I was angry with my friend.
I spoke my wrath;
My wrath did end.”
When anger is held, internalized, and
fixed, then the Ego and etheric are more or less shut out of the process,
resulting in a cold and hardened astral-physical focus of resentment which
keeps growing and developing in a sclerotic direction like an irritating
accumulation of plaque or dysplastic cells.
Speaking ones anger is an Ego/etheric
act of courage and expression, allowing warmth, movement and ultimately
forgiveness and healing to enter into the process. This is another example of
the healing power of catharsis.
We know that in early, subclinical
cancer, dysplastic or malignant cells can accumulate for years before becoming
detectable or eliciting symptoms.
I believe that in early, subclinical
autoimmune disease, something physical also accumulates, perhaps dysfunctional
cells or their products. Such accumulations are likely to develop in localized
areas like joints or muscles, or sometimes diffusely, possibly causing fever,
malaise and rash. They accumulate because the previously mentioned
astral-physical focus or knot has created, like a log in a stream, an
obstruction in the fluid lifestream of the etheric, where substances which
should be swept along with the body’s metabolic and eliminative processes
instead become trapped and stuck. Anything thus falling out of our etheric
lifestream, gradually ceases to be “us” and instead becomes, like retained
waste matter, something foreign, toxic and antigenic. This is how we might
imagine that a repressed feeling of the soul/astral body eventually causes the
appearance in the physical body of antigenic substances that elicit an immune
reaction. When these substances reach a critical mass, then the immune system
is triggered and inflammation ensues. If the Ego and etheric are strong enough
to overcome the contracting gesture of the astral, then the inflammation
proceeds cathartically and in the process the soul/ astral/feeling knot is greatly
loosened and often healed. If the contracting gesture of the astral is too
tight and deep to be loosened by the Ego and etheric, then an autoimmune
inflammation ensues, rather than a cathartic one.
Thus, when the astral body is inherently
dysfunctional as a result of old karma, or when the shocks and stresses of life
batter the soul (astral), weaken the etheric and intimidate the Ego to the
point of engendering feelings that are too confused, conflicted or painful for
the soul to express them or for the Ego to resolve them consciously, then these
feelings are often repressed to avoid the pain of dealing with them. If
feelings are driven inward below consciousness to become tightly bound up with
the physical body, then only physical illness can release them. The causes of
many physical illnesses and specifically of rheumatic, autoimmune illnesses,
thus lie within the soul, the astral body.
Ego:
We’ve said that an inflammation begins
when the astral/Ego, working through its instrument the immune system,
incarnates more deeply into the etheric/physical than normal, locally in a
tissue or organ and/or systemically in the whole organism, producing fever.
Whether an inflammation follows an acute
cathartic course or a chronic/recurrent rheumatic course will depend on the
relative strengths of the physical, etheric, astral and Ego in the individual,
and also on whether an overall expansive or contracting gesture predominates in
the etheric/astral of the individual.
The healing forces in the human being
reside in the etheric body and in the Ego. The Ego provides the wisdom and
direction to heal and the etheric, when guided by the Ego, is the workhorse
that carries out the work of healing. It is interesting in this regard that
Hippocrates said that illness consisted of both pathos, i.e. passive suffering
and ponos, i.e. active work. We could say that in physical illness our astral
body suffers and learns and our etheric body works hard. Through illness the
Ego guides the purification and edification of the astral body (soul), and the
astral is healed a bit from its own karmic illness: its imbalance, disharmony
and intractability. In the process, the physical body usually becomes better
adapted to serve as an instrument of our three higher members.
Through physical illness, our astral
body learns and opens a bit further to the wisdom of our Ego, a stepwise soul
progress that happens via illness when it is unable to occur solely in
consciousness through our Ego’s experience of life.
The soul/astral always progresses
through illness, regardless of whether the illness is cathartic, rheumatic or
even terminal. In all rheumatic, autoimmune inflammations we can say that,
compared with cathartic self-healing inflammations, the healing process is
hindered and lengthened due to a part of the astral being stuck in the physical
and due to the insufficient strength of etheric forces and Ego forces to free
the astral from its physical attachment.
Another very important function of the
Ego-organization is to maintain the appropriate rate of turnover of all of our
cells, through ensuring that mature cells of a given tissue die before becoming
overripe and degenerating into a dysplastic/premalignant condition.
The death process connected with the
Ego-0rganization works through apoptosis, so that old cells die to make room
for new ones, and
our physical body is continually
renewed. (Goethe: “Death is Nature’s maneuver to create more life.”)
Steiner implies that if the apoptotic cell-death
process is hindered or slowed down and post-mature cells accumulate instead of
dying, this is caused by our Ego’s withdrawal from its incarnation into our
etheric and physical. Modern science has discovered that inflammation causes
the rate of cell apoptosis (and necrosis) to increase. This makes perfect sense
from the anthroposophic viewpoint, knowing that inflammation comes about
because the Ego (bringing the astral with it and working through the physical
instrument of the immune system) incarnates more deeply into the
etheric/physical body, locally or diffusely.
Summarizing: deeper Ego penetration
intensifies the processes of inflammation, apoptosis and necrosis, while a
withdrawal of appropriate Ego penetration in a bodily region or tissue causes a
slowing of apoptosis and an accumulation of cells that become more overripe and
“non-self” as the Ego withdraws. Biological selfhood is conferred by our Ego’s
proper penetration into the cells, tissues and organs
of our body, bringing death in order to
make room for new life, maintaining cell turnover and the continual renewal of
our tissues and organs.
We can further assume that if the Ego
takes along with it most of the astral and etheric as it withdraws from a part
of the physical body, then this sets the stage for tumor development. Ego
withdrawal is more likely to lead to autoimmune inflammation, rather than
cancer, when the astral remains stuck in the physical, creating a focus of
irritation/inflammation, and the etheric is not inherently strong enough, nor
aided by the Ego enough, to push the inflammatory process toward catharsis, out
through the eliminative channels of the body.
Therefore the treatment of rheumatic,
autoimmune illness will consist in measures and remedies to loosen the astral
from its bondage in the physical and to impart healing, equanimity and harmony
to the astral. Also important are measures and remedies to strengthen the
etheric and the Ego-organization and to bring their forces to bear on healing
the root of the illness in the patient’s astral body.
Again, all physical illness originates
from inherited or acquired defects in our astral body, our soul. Steiner
states, “… an abnormal soul life must inevitably express itself in an abnormal
bodily life, although the abnormality may, to begin with, be hidden from outer
observation … Thus if we are able to perceive truly, … we can ascertain the
approach of the illness a long time before it can be physically diagnosed, in a
wrong functioning of the life of feeling. Illness is only an abnormal life of
feeling in the human being.”
Thus autoimmune illness and most chronic
illnesses have long latency periods during which the future physical illness
dwells in the soul.
With the above pathophysiology of the
great universal connections as our basis, we will discuss in this course the
seven metallic remedies, and other anthroposophic therapies in autoimmune
disease.
Autoimmunerkrankung
Krankheit dessen Ursache eine überschießende Reaktion des Immunsystems gegen körpereigenes Gewebe ist/Immunsystem erkennt körpereigenes Gewebe als zu bekämpfenden Fremdkörper/es kommt zu schweren Entzündungsreaktionen/zu Schäden an den betroffenen Organen führend.
Ursache: Borreliose?
Vermic. Alum-sil.
Iquilai = Lanthanide. Complex
Quelle: remedia.at (Lanthane A/Lanthane B).
The remedy induces an immune response and so restores the inadequate
functioning of the human immune system.
Prepared from the Lanthanides group which has a strong positive
influence on the immune system. In a pilot study into the efficacy of Iquilai
involving some 228 patients proven to be highly effective in improving the
clinical status of patients with HIV./AIDS. The
study showed that the remedy increased Karnofsky scores and CD 4 counts in a
way that is statistically significant, indicating that the quality of life
improved and AIDS. symptoms were reduced.
Pregnant women, babies and children can take the remedy. The whole
treatment consists of a total of 10 granules, used over a period of six months.
Within 2 weeks a clear improvement of the quality of life was frequently
observed. To date no side effects were observed and their occurrence is not
likely. A characteristic of all homeopathic medicines. The problem of
resistance frequently seen in standard ART therapy cannot arise. The patient
fights the viruses and bacteria that cause the illness from the inside out. The
remedy is cheap and easy to produce. New premises are that the rise in CD4 cell
count leads to a sustainable restoration of the immune system.
Viral mutation and resistance against antiviral treatment, due to
regular pharmaceutical treatment (ART), does not cause a problem.
We expect the viral load to come to a low or non-detectable level, in
which case health is restored and the patient is no longer infectious.
Instruction: One granule of Iquilai for 5 days, then 1 granule each
month.
Asthma
Colitis
Diabetes. I Betazellen der Bauchspeicheldrüse
Hashimoto-Thyreoiditis Schilddrüse
Lichen sclerosus Haut
Morbus Basedow TSH-Rezeptoren der Schilddrüse
Morbus Bechterew Wirbelsäule, Iris
Morbus Crohn. Gesamter Verdauungstrakt, v. a. aber Dünn- und Dickdarm
Multiple Sklerose. Myelinscheiden im zentralen Nervensystem
Myasthenia gravis Acetylcholinrezeptoren an der motorischen Endplatte
Lupus Discoid = Tub-deer.
Lupus
Rheumatisches Fieber Bindegewebe der Gelenke, Herzgewebe, Basalganglien des Gehirns, Haut
Rheumatoide Arthritis. Bindegewebe der Gelenke, Sehnen
Sarkoidose (Morbus Boeck) Lymphknoten, Lunge, Bindegewebe
Zöliakie./Sprue = Glutenunverträglichkeit Haut, Dünndarm
Schema shows transition between allergies and auto-immune illnesses:
Gell and Coombs: oversensitivity reactions into four groups, based on
the type of antibodies prevalent: IgE, IgG, IgM, cytokines…
Type 1. Mest cells bind the antibody IgE,
thereby releasing mest cell mediators such as histamine, which induce an
allergic inflammation. Reaction takes place after about 20 minutes. Test via
blood test for IgE (RAST test), skin test, elimination diet. Examples:
Anaphylaxis (fainting and shock); Atopia (asthma and eczema); food allergies;
medication over-sensitivities, hay fever.
Type 2. An antibody (IgG or IgM) is directed
against antigen cells. This can induce cytotoxic or cell-killing reactions by
stimulating killer cells, as is the case after blood transfusions with an
incompatible blood group. Reaction takes place after several hours. Examples:
Auto-immune haemolytic anemia (destruction of red blood cells); Myasthenia
gravis (muscular weakness due to a disturbed relay of stimuli from the nerves
to the muscles); pemphigus (blistering of the skin); over-sensitivity to
medication.
Type 3. Immune complexes (of antigens together
with IgG or IgM) which are deposited in tissue. This attracts leukocytes, and
local tissue damage and inflammation result. Takes place after 6 – 8 hours.
Examples: Polyarteritis nodosa (inflammation of arteries); post-streptococc
glomerulonephritis (inflammation of filter system of kidneys); systematic lupus
erythematodes (an auto-immune illness).
Type 4. Antigen-sensitised T-cells produce
cytokines, resulting in local inflammation reactions, for instance after organ
transplants. Takes place after 48 – 72 hours.
Examples: Nickel allergy; sarcoidosis; Crohn’s disease.
Allergie = nützliche und schädliche Immunreaktionen. Mit Allergie bezeichnet eine pathologische spezifische Immunreaktion gegen exogene Substanzen (= Allergene). (Abzugrenzen = Autoimmunerkrankung = eine krankhafte Immunreaktion gegen körpereigene Antigene).
[Carola und Ravi Roy]
Zur Feststellung „vorher gesund" ist manches zu sagen. Wir können in dem Bericht sehen, daß mehrere oder sogar alle im folgenden aufgezählten Tatsachen auf die Aids-Erkrankungen zutrafen.
Wir finden folgende Faktoren in der Vorgeschichte der AIDS-Kranken:
• verschlepptes Fieber, Husten und Atemnot;
• bestehende oder durchgemachte CMV-Infektion;
• hohe Leberwerte;
• durchgemachte Hepatitis B;
• Geschlechtskrankheiten (sie können, wenn sie mit hohen Dosen Antibiotika behandelt werden, immunsuppressiv wirken);
• Drogenmißbrauch (Nitroverbindungen zum Inhalieren sind sehr immunsuppressiv);
• Candidiasis;
• vorhergehende oder bestehende Krankheiten wie Leukopenie, Morbus Hodgkin;
• Behandlung mit Cortison und anderen toxischen Medikamenten (z.B. TMP/SMX);
• Bestrahlung.
Dies alles wirkt immunsuppressiv bzw. schädigt das Immunsystem.
Dabei erscheint die Definition von Gesundheit, wie sie hier gebraucht wurde, merkwürdig. Bevor wir fortfahren, ist es wichtig, den Begriff Gesundheit näher zu betrachten und die Folgerungen der landläufigen Definition sowie die Tragweite dieser Denkweise zu bedenken.
Die WHO (World Health Organisation, Weltgesundheitsorganisation) definiert Gesundheit als körperliches, geistiges und soziales Wohlbefinden.