Knowledge as a Source of Healing I

What holds good for people today as an almost undisputed authority is science; science in the sense in which it is pursued in the educational institutions of the country. We have often spoken of how far the validity of science can go, and it has also been pointed out that people today must free themselves from its authority. I want now to show how it has become a characteristic phenomenon—but only of the last three or four centuries—to regard medicine as one of these sciences which hold sway as authorities. Indeed, everything connected with medicine is just one science among others—a science the effects of which are intended to bring about the healing of the sick. Today it is hardly realised that this relation of medicine to the other sciences, and to the whole field of knowledge, has come about only during the last three or four centuries. For the further back we go in human evolution the more do we find how everything that could be cultivated by man in the way of science, of knowledge, was considered to be more or less of a medical nature—as having to do with healing. And when we look back to those olden times, particularly to the development then of occult science, we see that with the concept of this occult science, of this body of knowledge, there is always bound up the concept of healing. In any healing, spiritual science was always involved. Thus, at that time it could never have been said: Medicine is one science among many!—In those days when pure intellect was not thought to have any place in occult science it was said: In all science, in all knowledge, we must search for what aims at healing the whole human being.—This thought arose in the soul when they spoke.