previously published as Pastoral Medicine
"Foundations of Anthroposophical Medicine" series

In this lecture course, given to a mixed audience of doctors and priests, Rudolf Steiner renews the ancient tradition of "pastoral medicine," which involves the working together of trained physicians with those having the care of the patient’s soul and spirit.

The Healing Process - Spirit, Nature and Our Bodies comprises a series of lectures which Rudolf Steiner gave on the nature of health and illness, and the anthroposophical approach to understanding a disease and the treatment of it. These medical lectures, as a collection, are unique in that they are largely addressed to public audiences that are not familiar with anthroposophical concepts including medical students who had been trained in conventional medicine. Steiner is therefore careful to give a summarised introduction to the spiritual elements of the human being - etheric body, astral body and ego - and to bring these as concepts into an understanding of how illness comes about, and then follows this with the route to effective therapy.