Lecture XIII

Believe me, the exponent of spiritual science finds the mere phrase “mental disease” [Ed: In German: Geisteskrankheit, spiritual disease.] go against the grain; for it is folly simply to use the expression “mental disease”; the spirit is always healthy, and cannot fall sick in the true sense of the term. To talk of mental diseases is sheer nonsense. What happens is that the spirit's power of expression is disturbed by the bodily organism, as distinct from a disease of the spirit or the soul itself. The manifestations in question are symptoms, and symptoms only.