The beginning of a cure

If we can believe the truth in a story like the one I told last week, we are confronted with a riddle. In my practice as a doctor and also in reports from colleagues I know about several cases that are more or less similar to the one I told last week. Once in a […]

Cancer and culture

This Autumn is a time for me of many seminars – in more than one country. There is no fixed programme that is the same everywhere; it has, rather, a very rich and growing theme. In Amsterdam and Bern I will speak about dementia. But in Hamburg the theme will be ‘Cancer and culture’. I […]

Enjoying life

It is said that the problem of dementia is growing. 20 percent of western people are said to be facing a future with dementia – which is a very, very large number. Investigations into populations in which dementia is rare, and in social and educational groups in western society that show little dementia at an […]

Alzheimer

It is said that 70% of all dementia cases are ‘Alzheimers’. This form of dementia is thought to be an illness based on changes in the nervous system of the brain. These changes are manifest, but the scientists are not sure about the truth of their suppositions. The symptoms are a progressive loss of the […]

Dementia

After two weeks regarding the positive sides of becoming old, a sense of balance demands the other side of the picture. Because we are regarding the mind here, I will look at this side of becoming older in a more problematic way. In October and November I will have to give two lectures on dementia, […]

The mind sees the mind

We sat on a terrace in the sun, with a glass of cool water. A couple entered the terrace. First came the woman, I think she was about 85 years old. She had to do three steps up, and did it perfectly. Behind her was her husband, at first glance he was maybe 95. He […]

The spirit of ageing

If we look at the human being as a living being and we look at him as if this being has nothing to do with ourselves, we would see a rather complicated physical organism that seems to be at the top of the evolution of nature. In youth it is beautiful and learns a lot, […]

Adam Kadmon – 2

For about two years I wrote about Adam Kadmon, and at Pentecost 2015 I gave a seminar in the Berner Oberland with the title: ‘Pure thinking and the arisen body’. In this seminar the essence of Adam Kadmon became clear, as his being is understood in anthroposophy. The contents of this seminar are now contained […]

The primal Question and the primal Answer

‘We have found the first question, the question with which philosophy begins. The answer to that question we have not found in abstract thinking,  not dubious anymore, but as an inevitable fact, founded on experience in internal, supra-subjective and supra-objective thinking. This has given philosophy a solid foundation. The answer is the becoming aware of […]

The Phoenix from the ashes

Achieving enlightenment towards an understanding of the purely human, I tried to formulate in the book ‘Seek the light that rises in the west’. Here is a quote at the heart of this enlightenment. ‘Now comes the point where we engage the forces at our disposal and move ourselves into the transition from not-thinking to […]