Habits and health

A bad habit in a previous life is a cause of disease in the next one, whereas a good habit results in health. In this way are people led to infectious diseases through their own disposition. 

We all know of one who can travel the world to areas ridden with epidemics or contagious diseases, mingling with many individuals, without suffering any ill. But we also know of another who will contract an infection by merely walking down the street. 

It is one’s disposition which determines whether or not one is prone to infection. The initiates know for a fact that a predisposition to infectious diseases originates from the selfish habits of thinking in a previous life. They know how a pronounced desire to possess and gather riches for oneself leads to infectious diseases.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 97 – Das christliche Mysterium – Erkenntnisse und Lebensfrüchte der Geisteswissenschaft – Stuttgart, 14 March 1906 (page 253)

Anonymous translator

Previously posted on 19 November 2018

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Health / Attitude / Epidemics

There is nothing material that does not originate from the spirit. What people experience in health and disease stems from their inner attitude, their thoughts. It is undoubtedly a true proverb: What you think today, you will be tomorrow. It should be clear to you that if an era has evil, depraved thoughts, the next generation and the subsequent period must pay the price physically. It is a true saying: The sins of the fathers will be visited on the future generations. It will not be without consequence that the people of the 19th century began to think in such a grossly materialistic way, to turn their minds away from everything spiritual.

What people have thought then will have consequences. Thus, we are not so far removed from the time when peculiar diseases and epidemics will occur in human life! What we call nervousness will happen, at the latest within half a century, in a severe measure. Just as plague and cholera and leprosy in the Middle Ages once were rife, so there will be psychic epidemics, diseases of the nervous system in epidemic form. These are the consequences of the fact that people lack a spiritual core in their lives. Where awareness of this spiritual core as the centre of life is present, there people will become healthy under the influence of a healthy, correct worldview.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 96 – Ursprungsimpulse der Geisteswissenschaft – Berlin, January 29, 1906 (p. 18)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on October 14 , 2018

 

Predisposition to epidemic diseases

Certain epidemics appear in life — illnesses that affect whole masses of the population and are therefore essentially a social concern. Ordinary materialistic science studies these illnesses by examining the physical organism of man. It knows nothing of the tremendous effect which the abnormal attitude of human beings to waking and sleeping life has upon epidemics and the susceptibility to epidemic diseases. Certain things take place in the organism during sleep and if they run to excess, they strongly predispose the human being to so-called epidemic diseases. Men and women who set organic processes in action as the result of too much sleep — I mean processes that ought not to take place, because waking life must not be broken up by such lengthy periods of sleep — these people have a much stronger predisposition to epidemic diseases and are less able to resist them.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 314 – Hygiene – a Social Problem – Dornach, 7th April, 1920

Everyone needs shoes, but not everyone needs to be a shoemaker

It is paramount for present day humanity to receive a strong dose of esotericism. Plagues, epidemics, and terrible wars would rage among men, under prevailing materialism, if mankind does not receive a deepening in the spiritual realm. However great is the need for spreading spiritual life, and despite the necessity to have more esotericists today, it would be totally wrong to work at propagating spiritual science.

We must have esoterics, but not everyone needs to be one. A very simple example can help us understand: It is a fact that everyone needs shoes. Shoemakers are therefore a necessity. It would however be quite wrong to draw the conclusion that everyone needs to be a shoemaker. Likewise, people need not all to become esotericist, but those who want to do so, will, during their present or future incarnations, have the task of spreading spiritual knowledge, and promoting it in the lives of others.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 266a – Aus den Inhalten der esoterischen Stunden – Stuttgart, September 15, 1907 (page 243)

Anonymous translator

Previously posted on August 31, 2017

Habits and health

A bad habit in a previous life is a cause of disease in the next one, whereas a good habit results in health. In this way are people led to infectious diseases through their own disposition.

We all know of one who can travel the world to areas ridden with epidemics or contagious diseases, mingling with many individuals, without suffering any ill. But we also know of another who will contract an infection by merely walking down the street.

It is one’s disposition which determines whether or not one is prone to infection. The initiates know for a fact that a predisposition to infectious diseases originates from the selfish habits of thinking in a previous life. They know how a pronounced desire to possess and gather riches for oneself leads to infectious diseases.

Source(German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 97 – Das christliche Mysterium – Erkenntnisse und Lebensfrüchte der Geisteswissenschaft – Stuttgart, 14 March 1906 (page 253)

Anonymous translator

Previously posted on November 19, 2015