On Psychiatry

You see, the main thing that must come out of a — let me use the trivial word — popularization of spiritual science is a much, much better knowledge of human nature than you can find today. People face each other today in such a way that there can be no question of any knowledge of human nature. People pass each other by, each living only in himself. Spiritual science will open people up to each other. And then, above all, much of what is perhaps still believed today to lie in the field of psychic pathology will be carried over into the field of psychic hygiene. For the facts are just such that, I might say, straight lines can be drawn from the symptom complexes of disturbed psychic life to the ideas that are so common in public life today that they are not even considered pathological, but are generally accepted. And if one were to follow up some of the very generally accepted concepts, one would find that, although more slowly, the same path is taken after all that can be seen in the pursuit of a psychologically abnormal symptom complex, which, however, progresses rapidly in the case of someone who is found to be mentally abnormal today.