Coronavirus
Meeting Covid-19 head-on with Anthroposophy
by Josef Graf
While the latest pandemic expands into the world, it is of significant value to be apprised of the indications Rudolf Steiner has given on flu-like ailments. With this arena of knowledge, we can be prepared, and to some extent, rendered relatively safe from its effects.
Before setting down the Steiner indications here to peruse, it is well to review some of the more current thoughts and speculations that are being set forth in the media on this coronavirus (a generic name for a virus that originates in an animal and transfers to humans) — keeping in mind that this body of information is, for the most part, part of the modern materialist hegemony.
The usual misinformation about influenzas still holds sway, despite the Steiner indications of a hundred years ago — that the condition is passed on by the virus aspect (not so, says Steiner — more on this further on); that heavy duty hygienic warfare is needed; that containment is essential, etc.
In addition to mainstream avenue ideas, there is also speculation that this ailment (I won't call it a virus, because that is not how it is passed on) might have been “weaponized” in a lab. This may or may not be so. Time will tell. And, if it is, once we apprehend the Steiner indications, it may not matter, anyway, in terms of keeping relatively safe.
Then, there is the idea that wherever we have had these modern pandemics, they have tended to originate wherever high tech radiation has been a factor. In this case, the first rollout of 5G technology is said to have taken place in Wuhan province. This factor may very well be an important consideration. But the issue of invasive radiation technology must comprise another article. And, in any case, the Steiner indications still hold to be of utmost importance.
Steiner's indications on flu-like ailments
Anyone who is wondering about Covid-19, or any other flu-like ailment, can discover more relevant information in the Steiner material on health and illness, than what is available elsewhere, in terms of comprehending the overall picture.
If we pursue the indications given by Steiner, by gleaning through the overall anthroposophical material, and then apply our capacity to delve further, then we arrive at the following kinds of understandings:
the origin of Covid-19 is likely due to the debasing of the general astral field of the area (and many of the inhabitants themselves) due to suffering animals. Massive factory farming in China has been degrading the quality of life for animals for a while now.
both the Wuhan lab work, and the local animal meat market, contained suffering animals and/or animal meat products. In the case of most lab work, there is usually suffering entailed in the experimentation with animals, as well as confinement in a cage. In the case of the animal market, which likely sold the meat of animals who suffered undue confinement, Steiner asserted that the suffering of animals lives into the meat. In turn, that suffering persists in the astral bodies of humans who consume the meat, until it is purged. One way for the astral body to get purged is by contracting a severe ailment.
in short, animal suffering lives in “mass meat” and eggs, etc, and is transferred into human astral bodies.
the virus, itself, does not pass on the condition — it just goes along for the ride (more on this below).
the condition is passed on via human astral body to astral body connections, or even just through the general astral field whenever enough compromise builds up.
there are also other causes to consider that induce the condition to become contracted — they comprise things like: intake of “hideous” images (common in video games and many movies); 1On the issue of “hideous” image intake, Rudolf Steiner asserted that anthroposophists can watch movies, but they should compel themselves to “rewind” the movie afterward by a meditative discipline similar to one's daily review in the evening (rückshau). This means a 10 to 15-minute mental exercise of reviewing the movie backwards — thereby cleaning out the astral body's experience, thus reducing the level of “compromise” in the astral sheathe. over-intake of protein; cold, abstract thinking (anthroposophical pursuits are a great antidote then); fear of illness; fear or trauma embedded in the soul; past life karma entailing a compromise in any of — overly materialistic thinking, immoral engagement of occult secret wisdom, or engaging activity that is debasing for the soul.
I want to add here, that, although one might have this list “covered,” one can also contract a flu out of a need for cleansing (toxins, carcinogens, etc). Then the illness is a blessing, and helps prevent worse things (notice the rise in cancer, due, in part, I would contend, to the use of the flu shot).
With the above considerations in mind, once a person engages and responds to the list of factors, if he or she still gets the condition, it can be seen as a blessing. The illness as the remedy on a soul level.
Anthroposophy, the super remedy of our time, is well to engage. As are also its meditative exercises.
Those who consume mass meat and eggs, or any food containing suffering animal energy, are the ones most likely to contract the condition — or at least to get the worst cases of it.
Meanwhile — some key questions to carry are — what is being covered while focussing so intently on this issue? There has to be some covert agenda. Or, is it the case, as some have suggested, that the hidden powers behind the scenes want to promote a regime of switching to digital currency, since the financial upheaval that is coming to bear may pave the way by allowing this radical new system?
And we can ask, to what extent is the rampant fear in humanity, as evidenced by the masses responding in the way they are — running for masks, and allowing their environments to be sprayed with all that poisonous substance (and to kill what?) — just adding to the power of the pandemic?
Some further perspectives from a spiritual science approach
Consider this — if the ailment is not passed on by the virus — all this focus on the virus is a red herring. The virus just goes along for the ride.
Steiner describes the situation as follows: when it rains, water builds up and frogs breed and populate. But we don't say the frogs caused the rain. To say that the virus causes the condition is to make the same error.
Because of our materialist perspective, we believe it must be a thing, a virus in this case, that causes the ailment.
Then, recalling the Steiner list — those 150K people who contracted the ailment (by the middle of March) likely had compromised astral bodies — ate mass meat, took in “hideous” images, carried fear and/or trauma, held to confining materialist thoughts, or simply needed a cleaning out.
If all of the above holds true — and there is certainly a great chance it does, given the rigorous and dependable veracity of the Steiner material — how can we convey this scenario to the general public?
And to what extent does the majority of humanity have to remain in the dark about all this, so that the drama plays out and they harvest whatever they seem to need, via the hard road paved by the materialist agenda?
A
central point in an article included in 2019 Best American
Science and Nature Writing, “Paper Trails: Living and
Dying with Fragmented Medical Records,” is that
“medical error”
2There are those who would argue that medical error is the number
one cause of death in the West. This becomes plausible when we
add to the official death rates the instances when a patient has
its cause of death entered as “heart attack” or
“kidney failure,” and so on, when the underlying
cause can be the over-prescribing of pharmaceuticals and the
application of questionable practices (in the light of spiritual
science).
For information initially derived for this article on death
rates and issues connected with medial error in the U.S., see
Paper Trails: Living and Dying with Fragmented Medical
Records, from the 2019 edition of Best American Science
and Nature Writing.
is the third leading cause of death
in the US — next to heart disease and cancer. With this
in mind, and reviewing the Steiner indications on flu-like
ailments, consider the work of Ukrainian doctor, Konstantin Buteyko
3Ukrainian doctor, Konstantin Buteyko, pioneered a particular
breathing exercise that, when used by asthma sufferers, allowed
them to dispense with their puffers, and live free of pharmaceuticals,
due to the natural increase in CO2 in their system.
The theory Buteyko held to is that the spirit of someone with
an asthmatic condition induces the asthma condition because the
person needs a higher level of CO2. So breathing is restricted
to get this going. Then medical people interfere and push the
oxygen, and sell the puffers for them to use the rest of their
lives, and round and round it goes.
— that indicated that many ailments call for
— NOT an increase in oxygen, like the medical
establishment holds to (asthma is one, but several others are
affected by this) — but to allow the body to increase its
CO2 level naturally.
Then we might question whether many of the deaths in patients with the Covid-19 condition may be due to medical error. The thought occurred to me when I saw the image of a Chinese doctor who died, while being administered an oxygen mask.
But this gets us into a complicated realm, wherein medical knowledge runs up against its limits. More and more, we are called on to take responsibility for our individual health and well being.
Other Considerations Derived from Spiritual Science
There is always more to consider. Steiner asserted that a greater disposition to contract infectious diseases comes from bad habits in a previous life. He gives the example of the Hun invasion into Europe that was instrumental in generating leprosy. The degenerated astral forces in the Huns (which, in turn, derived from a fallen state in lives lived in a previous debased civilization (whose mystery wisdom had been betrayed and misused) played into the Europeans, who were compromised due to fear and terror, which opened the gateway for the astral impact. The Europeans who were most affected by the condition had compromised past life situations, as well.
Another key element in the reincarnational arena is that a person who is an outright materialist in his or her thinking in one life will be more susceptible to contracting infectious diseases the next life.
The whole scenario is complex. If one happens to be carrying a “negative account” over from a past life, then there is a price to pay. That said, the outcome is really the best one possible, since it provides the opportunity to come to balance in one's overall journey through this life — this life of incredible beauty and wisdom, designed by higher beings of utmost perfection.
Steiner described how the origin of an epidemic can arise, also from an astral field debased by untruth. “Imagine a people which was composed entirely of liars, the astral plane would be populated solely by the corresponding demons and these demons would be able to express themselves in a constitutional tendency to epidemics. Thus there is a certain species of bacilli who are the carriers of infectious diseases; these beings are the progeny of the lies told by human beings; they are nothing else than physically embodied demons generated by lies.” (GA 99 - .6)
Steiner also stated that, “Nothing will here be said against the bacterial theory which to a certain extent is very useful. In the various ways by which bacilli arise here or there one can naturally find out many things; for purposes of diagnoses one can generally get a lot of information. In no way do I want to say anything against official medicine, except that it needs to be augmented and developed further when it arrives at certain boundaries — and it can be developed further when the points of view of anthroposophy can be applied to it.” (GA 319 - Polarities in Health)
Steiner compared past belief in superstition with modern scientific germ theory: “I have no desire to uphold ancient superstitions ... nor to support the modern superstitions that bacilli and bacteria cause the different diseases. We need not consider to-day whether we are really faced with the results of the spiritualistic superstitions of earlier times, or with the superstitions of materialism.” (GA 314 - Hygiene, a Social Problem)
Here, Steiner is spelling it out. Because we live in materialistic times, we adhere to the superstitions of materialism. Thus, the panic-generating forces running headlong.
Imagine how it would all play out if humanity were to attune to the reality of the situation. We would embrace spiritual science, ponder the indications given by Steiner, and begin to honour the astral realm, instead of continuing to assail it.
Once consciousness is freed of the illusions now taking up its focus, what arena of thought would we begin to engage? In the following excerpt, Steiner portrays how either end of the human mindset — fear or love — can play out: “All parasites are of Luciferic or Ahrimanic origin ... There is something, as I said, very helpful for Ahrimanic creatures when they infest the human body. Suppose we are living at the time of an epidemic or plague. Naturally at such a time we must look after others, and a strong human fellowship or co-operation comes into being, for the karmic conditions may actually be such that the one who in his individual life seems least likely to have the illness, falls a prey to it ... If we are living among the sick or dying and have to absorb these pictures that are around us and then fall asleep with these pictures in our minds and if nothing is linked with them but selfish fear, the imaginations arising from these pictures in the soul during sleep become filled with this selfish fear, and that enables injurious forces to enter the human body. Imaginations of fear are really the fostering forces. When a noble disposition is present, so that egotistic fear retires and loving help for others prevails, and we pass into the sleep life, not with fearful imaginations but with the effects produced by loving help, this means destruction for the Ahrimanic enemies of humanity. It is quite true that by the encouragement of such an attitude we could put an end to epidemics, if we regulated our conduct accordingly.” (GA 154 - Spiritual/Physical Synopsis)
Concluding Thoughts
Those who study the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner, and adhere to the indications, will fare better than the masses. They will either not contract the condition, or tend to come through it unscathed, and stronger than ever.
Also, there are remedies that can help one's subtle body sheathes to come to balance, and so to work on the underlying, formative elements of one's system. The materialist science of our time (a science that allies itself with pharmaceutical wealth) maintains that homeopathic remedies are placebos, that those who use such a remedy (e.g. Weleda's Infludo comes to mind) are not in touch with reality.
But who in our modern age is in touch with the real under-currents of this world- wide “pandemic?”
A more important issue, now, than Covid-19, is the worldwide climate of fear that is taking hold. Treatment of this issue could comprise a separate article. Forgoing that for now, the short version of it is: The massive generation of fear is creating a sea of terror and illusion. This sullies humanity's shared astral field, and that of the earth, as well.
Individuals are called upon to protect themselves from its effects, including while awake, and while asleep (when we go to sleep, our astral body and ego separate from the physical and etheric, and journey about in the astral realm, encountering the darkened forces of the materialism of our time, and now this added arena of fear. Have you noticed the darker energy upon awaking since the Covid-19 issue went global?).
Some ways we can clear ourselves of the fear (and materialism), and even begin to contribute to reversing the dark arena of the astral field can include: daily study of anthroposophy, which alters consciousness in an effective beneficial way; practicing the exercises entailed in its spiritual path (see Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, for example, and there are others); engaging the “Courage Meditation”; 4The Courage Meditation can be found by searching for it along with the name Steiner. Or it's first line: “We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror ... “ And another verse that goes well with this begins: “Spirit of God fill my I ... “ These two in combination have powerful effects on clearing our astral body, and also well to use before going to sleep. You will bless the shared astral field with this and have a better sleep. exploring the manner in which illusion, maya, plays into these issues, and discerning what is really going on, in the world and in the spiritual realm adjacent to these events; and giving thanks for both the issues that are being presented, and for the dark climate we have to contend with — because it is in meeting these kinds of things that we are presented with the opportunity to waken sleeping forces within, and engage compassion for one another in the face of challenge.
These items are, in a way, just to name a few ways to proceed. We can carry questions further, and discover more.
—Josef Graf offers 16 different themes in anthroposophy in Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, BC.