History

Inaugural Meeting and Founding

A Summer School on “Health and Disease” held in 1927 on the west coast of Scotland was attended by Ita Wegman and other anthroposophical doctors as wel as her constant travelling companion Erich Kirchner, business manager of her Clinical and Therapeutic Institute at Arlesheim, who after her death recorded:

“In order to study further this Hibernian and early Christian time, Frau Dr. Wegman then travelled towards and through Ireland, seeking out and finding still little known cultic sites on this ancient island, meant to have been part of Paradise on Earth, into which the serpent never entered.”

Among figures from the early Christian time in Ireland was St Bridget or Bride, after whom is named St Bridget’s Well outside Kildare and the nearby conference centre Solas Bhride. At the suggestion of Julie Thompson, it was here that a meeting initiated by Maria van den Berg was held on the 4th of March 2023, the eightieth anniversary of Wegman’s death, in order to inaugurate the Friends of Anthroposophic Medicine in Ireland. There were present twenty-eight persons who had travelled from as far away as the Belfast locality in the north, County Clare in the west and Cork in the south. Many old friends met once again, and new friends were made as well. Although most participants were adults there was also one young child, alternately sitting in the meeting and running around in the grounds outside, as a visible representative of the future.

A welcome was given by David Fairclough, and he and others also brought good wishes from Matthias Girke and Georg Soldner, Leaders of the Medical Section, Sibylle Eichstaed, its Coordinator in Britain and Ireland, Melanie Taylor and Cathie Green of PAFAM, Peter Selg of the Ita Wegman Institute, Drs. James Dyson and Jolanda de Jong, and therapists Aoine Landweer-Cooke and Edeline Lefevre. David went on to quote from a letter of Wegman in 1920 to the pharmacist Oscar Schmiedel: “What we now have to do is “to act” and not talk and not wait any longer, it doesn’t need to be great at once, only a start must be made [...]. We want to begin.”

Dr. Maria van den Berg then spoke to the meeting on “Health and Healing”. She too brought forward a quotation, this time from a free rendering of Goethe’s Faust published by the Irish poet John Anster in 1835:

"What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

Maria went on to explain that health is not a static given, but a continual process of becoming. Circumstances need to be created in order to bring it about. Whereas present science focuses only on what can be weighed, measured and counted in the physical body, the image of man given by Anthroposophy regards other areas of soul and spirit in which a human being can himself become active. Nature supplies remedies, while art leads toward therapy. In his Dornach lecture on the 29th of December 1914 given during the cycle Art in the Light of Mystery Wisdom, Rudolf Steiner related the different arts to the human sheaths: architecture to the physical body, sculpture to the ether body, painting to the astral body, music to the ego, poetry to the spirit-self and eurythmy to the life-spirit. Some therapies are directly connected to these arts, others such as massage indirectly associated. Psychotherapy, counselling and even human conversation can be a healing process.

Dr. Marek Lorenc then spoke about his experiences since training in Poland of cancer treatment by the mistletoe remedy Iscador which stimulates the body’s own capacities. Since mistletoe does not grow on the ground, one has to climb up in order to harvest it. Everything in the human body is connected, and while a conventional approach attempts to “fight” cancer, a holistic and environmental one increases the body’s natural immunity. We have to open the minds of our patients. It is a cognitive challenge, and needs the courage to heal, and an awakening in thinking, feeling and willing.

Maria then added that both doctor and therapist now stand very vulnerable and exposed when there is no group of support and human trust around. For patients it is also important to have freedom of informed choice. She drew attention to the current drive to exclude anything non-physical from the medical field. Generalised measures of vaccinations and even of the implanting of chips effectively diminish or even prohibit the working of the higher bodies. But every human being is individual, and needs an individual approach. There are also recent good initiatives in the medical field, such as the World Council for Health or the People’s Health Alliance, and here in Europe the already existing ELIANT.

José van der Donk introduced a therapeutic game where participants were invited to describe an unseen object which they could only feel inside a bag. She spoke about her work in Callan and Clonmel in the area of play therapy and creative arts, observing that in children suffering from trauma or other medical, behavioural or sensorial conditions such activities foster both self-motivation and empathy for others, as well as linguistic skill. A therapist with the right attitude can gain insight into a child’s conditions, and find a suitably remedial activity. A warm thank you to all those at the meeting who generously contributed to the bring-and-share lunch.

After this Daniel Grecjevic led participants into some Bothmer gymnastics and therapeutic speech exercises, on hand of the consonantal sequence KLSFM which works from the back of the palate to the front of the lips, and sentences with alliteration of GK and NM.

Dr. Martin Lane then spoke about blackthorn, which he called “a tree of surprises”. It blossoms early in March, with a sudden expansion of white beauty in hedgerows, before the leaves themselves emerge. The flowers can be used as a diuretic, as well as in teas. They have astral qualities of bitterness but also of vitality, and are especially suitable for asthma patients. The trees or bushes only bear fruit late in October with blue sloes, thriving on the autumn frosts. Weleda and Wala remedies with prunus are ideal for conditions of anaemia, exhaustion or heaviness, while the prunus elixir is good in convalescence.

A Co-ordinating Group was formed in order to take forward the work of the Friends of Anthroposophic Medicine in Ireland.