The Essence of Anthroposophy

We get to know the human being's relationship to its surroundings, in the broadest sense to the cosmos. In this way we arrive at a real, genuine knowledge of the human being. And you have seen that we not only gain knowledge of the human being, but also of the outer world. We get to know the sun-like, moon-like, that which otherwise lives in the cosmos, in the plant, animal and rock world. We learn about the processes that take place in healthy and sick people. We recognize external processes that are, in a sense, the opposite processes of these processes. We get to know the plants and minerals that contain the opposite processes. We penetrate to a pathology and therapy, to a medical science that is not only based on trial and error, but that, like any rational science, learns from knowledge of man and the world how to observe health and disease and how any medicinal substance helps any process in the human body that deviates from what is beneficial for the human body. So you can see how it has come about that anthroposophical research has been made fruitful by setting up our Clinical Therapeutic Institute in Stuttgart, where we are looking for new remedies and new therapies. The experiments have already progressed so far that they can go out into the world and prove how it has been possible to make anthroposophy fruitful in this field of practical scientific life.