Age-old sayings often contain some truth, but are as often totally false. So it is with the saying, “There are many illnesses, but only one state of health.” This is foolish. Fact is, there are as many states of health as there are human beings. For each human being has his individual state of health. What this says is that all general standard prescriptions holding that this or that is healthy for the human being are nonsense. The very part of humanity that is overcome by the feverish pursuit of health suffers most from the general prescriptions for health. Among them are those who believe that there could be something generally tagged as health, that if one does thus and so, that it would be healthy. It is most incredible that there is no realisation that a sun bath can be healthy for a person, but quite harmful for another. Generally, this is admitted but there is no following through in particular instances. We must make it clear to ourselves that health is a quite relative concept, something that is liable to a continuing process of change, especially for the human being, who is the most complicated being on the earth. We need but look into spiritual science. Then shall we penetrate deeply into human nature and recognize how changeable what we call health is. In reality, one forgets almost entirely today that upon which so much value is laid in material aspects. One forgets that the human being is in the throes of development.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 56 –Illusory Illness and the Feverish Pursuit of Health: II – THE FEVERISH PURSUIT OF HEALTH – Munich, 7th December 1907
Translated by Sarah Kurland
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