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4592
Book review
By
Translated by Frank Thomas Smith
Temple lodge Publishing
Judith von Halle is mostly known for her books and lectures about
the life and meaning of Jesus Christ. In this book she concentrates on
a medical phenomenon which today has taken on the characteris cs
of a plague. Senility, involving short term memory loss and the
general weakening of mental facul es associated with old age, has
been known for centuries, but the illness we now call demen a or, in
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its more extreme stages, Alzheimer’s disease, has become more and
more prevalent in modern society. Not only the aged are affected,
but symptoms have been detected increasingly in the middle‐aged,
even in children. Before going further, it should be noted that there is
a difference between “normal” old age forge ulness and the illness
which can lead to the affected persons becoming li le more than
living vegetables. The former is benign, the la er devasta ng.
In her introduc on von Halle describes why she decided to
expand the first edi on of this book, which was directed to readers
who were familiar with anthroposophy and its terminology. When
she was invited to give a talk at a Swiss re rement home, where
many of the listeners would have li le or no familiarity with
anthroposophy, she decided to first give a basic overview of
anthroposophical concepts before going into the details concerning
the nature and causes of demen a. A er her talk, members of the
audience, both those with no previous knowledge of anthroposophy
and even anthroposophists, told her that the inclusion of her
explana on of anthroposophical concepts made everything much
clearer. So for the new edi on she decided to include the
explana on. I won't blame anyone for thinking that as the translator
of the book I may be prejudiced. However, I can honestly say that
one of the reasons for which I offered to translate it was the clarity
and conciseness of this short explana on in the chapter What is the
Human Being, which begins:
“...Such consciousness about the human being, his true
inner and outer nature, can be acquired if one begins to
consider him – which is, a er all, his own being – with the
methods of anthroposophical spiritual science. Prac cing
anthroposophical spiritual science is possible for everyone.
No special qualifica ons are needed. By being human one
is qualified. For it is not at all the task of anthroposophical
spiritual science to inves gate the spirit, but by means of
the spirit to inves gate the world and humanity. The fact
that this spirit is available to the human being means that
we are – without any kind of specialized training – very
well equipped for anthroposophical inves ga ve work,
provided that we are really willing to do so.”
And ends with the paragraph:
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One of the first symptoms of demen a is memory loss. Von Halle
goes on to describe how memory is a collec on of remembrances
and where and how they are collected in the human psyche, and
once collected, or inscribed in the life‐body, why it becomes more
difficult, because of this illness, to retrieve them.
There are short‐term and long‐term remembrances. The author
uses the image of a tree‐trunk and its various layers to explain where
they are stored:
Thus we can at least imagine why the different types of memories
are on one hand more permanent and others less so, and on the
other hand more – or less – , difficult to extract when desired. And
how this affects people afflicted with demen a.
“That ever more people in western culture are stuck in
the decay of their material nature is because they do not
fill the gaps le by the physical decline in the fabric of their
being with such spiritual thinking. This means that the
decline of material nature – for example the dying of brain
cells – would not necessarily be problema c provided that
the human being has mely developed something capable
of taking their place. This was the purpose of the Mystery
of Golgotha, to bring the human being to a stage equal to
that of the Resurrected One on Easter morning, namely to
create an non‐decomposable physical body through his
I‐forces, a no longer mineral‐physical, but a spiritualized
physical body."
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whereas Ahriman wants the opposite: materialism, the denial of the
spiritual world and of the spirit in man. Therefore, she says, it is an
error to think only in terms of good and evil, because Lucifer and
Ahriman, spiritual beings themselves, are actually opposed to each
other. The spiritual scenario is, in reality, a trinitarian one, with Christ
in the middle opposing the evil on both sides.
This does not mean that the individuals suffering from demen a
are necessarily materialists, or the opposite. Rather, demen a is a
plague of humanity as a whole. But who has it and who doesn't isn't
a roll of the dice either. The determining factor is karma.
However – and here's where it gets complicated:
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nature – at least not of an individual karmic nature – are
directly related to the illness of the social organism, that is,
to the unrealized spiritual and Chris an‐moral goals of
today’s civiliza on.”
“Whoever sees through these things will of course not
take them as a reason for opposing modern medicine with
its external remedies. But a real improvement will never
come about through these external methods. What will
come about later always reveals itself in advance through
esoteric knowledge. This consists of rightly perceiving how
morality in the present can lead to be er health in the
future.”
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He or she would also have to be competent enough to carry out,
or at least supervise, the ar s c ac vi es which Ms. Von Halle
recommends.
All this, as the author admits, would be a difficult and expensive
undertaking. Nevertheless, considering that the demen a afflicted
are people who have been affected by life, who at the point in their
lives when the strongest I‐forces should have been developed, they
have completely withdrawn, its seems to me that even the
knowledge of such requirements can be helpful.
In concluding this review, it is, I think, appropriate to quote Judith
von Halle's concluding paragraph:
Thus in a culture influenced by Ahriman, the Chris an
forces of compassion, endurance and love, although
scarce, can be lighted anew, for it has been shown already
how, in company with the demen a afflicted, these
a ributes of the caregiver lead to very beneficial effects –
for the ill person as well as for the caregiver. This moral
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a tude would not only have a posi ve influence on the
following genera on and lead to a certain implicitness in
care‐giving work, but the prevalence of the illness itself
would be limited from the outset by such a standard. Thus
from an evil a good could arise – as in Mephistopheles’
mo o in Goethe’s Faust: “I am a part of that force that
always wants evil, and always creates the good.” – which
can bring humanity a step further in its long and arduous
path to becoming gods through the impulse of Christ.
Judith von Halle, born in Berlin in 1972, a ended school in Germany
and the USA and subsequently studied architecture. She first
encountered anthroposophy in 1997, and began working as a member
of staff at Rudolf Steiner House in Berlin, where she also lectured; in
addi on she had her own architectural prac ce. In 2004 she received
the s gmata, which transformed her life. Her first book was published
in German in 2005, and she now works principally as a lecturer and
author. She and her husband live in Berlin.
Frank Thomas Smith – April, 2015
You can buy this book from Temple Lodge Publishing: Temple
Lodge‐Demen a book or Amazon: Amazon‐Demen a book, or from
your local book store.
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