Dear co-workers of the Medical Section and everyone else interested in it!
As the opening event for the hundredth anniversary of Anthroposophic Medicine, we warmly invite you to our research conference “Spiritual Science and Anthroposophic Medicine” at the Goetheanum. At Easter 1920, Rudolf Steiner gave his first specialist course for physicians and medical students in the Glashaus at the Goetheanum: twenty impressive lectures concerned with a fundamental reform of medicine as part of which, starting from natural science, the spiritual dimension of the human being in its relationship with nature and the cosmos was to be investigated and integrated. This led to many different methodological and anthropological suggestions with a direct effect on diagnosis and therapy.
We will focus on three key topics in our research conference:
1. Overcoming the heart-as-pump paradigm towards a holistic theory of the circulation –“because the activity of the heart is not the cause but a consequence”.
2. The problem of the motor nerves – “it is not the nervous system that stages some kind of intent, but it perceives what happens in us through the will”.
3. The relationship between intestine and brain – “the intestinal organs are the faithful reverse side of the brain organs […] that is an exceptionally important connection which throws an incredible amount of light on all of nature’s work”.
These three subject areas, which we will consider by means of keynote presentations and plenary discussions, are particularly relevant in view of current research. The latest work results will be presented particularly from the perspective of the edition project which has been in progress since
2017 as a collaboration between Witten/Herdecke University (Prof. Dr Peter Heusser), the Ita Wegman Archive (Prof. Dr Peter Selg), the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung (Dr Eva Streit) and the Medical Section.
In addition, we will trace the structure and composition of the twenty lectures and deepen key topics such as mistletoe therapy, the potentised substances, the Tria Principia, and psychiatry or dentistry in individual specialist courses. In doing so, we will acknowledge not only the past but will venture a vigorous look into the future of the next 100 years of “Spiritual Science and Anthroposophic Medicine”.
Since the course was originally addressed particularly to physicians and medical students, we would be delighted if as many medical colleagues as possible were to be involved in this anniversary conference. Additionally, we also however warmly invite people from other health professions!

For the preparatory group
Matthias Girke, Georg Soldner and Johannes Weinzirl