The art of spiritual healing and its practical application in life – part 2

Originally posted in German on 10^th June 2023

by Heinz Grill

The different qualities of warmth

The right distribution of the warmth-conditions in the organism builds a basis for every healthy form of healing. Those who are ill need warmth from the soul and in the majority of cases also a source of physical warmth. The most common imposing current illnesses, like for example cancer, immune deficiencies, nerve diseases, sclerotic vascular processes, infarcts, degradation processes of an unphysiological nature in cartilage systems and general states of exhaustion indicate a certain temperature loss or there is at least very large irregularities in the distribution of warmth and the resulting, constantly recurring, chronic inflammatory processes. In most people the temperature of 37 degrees Celsius has today generally decreased by half a degree.¹⁾ The average human body temperature of 37 °C was determined in 1851 by the Leipzig physicist Carl R. A. Wunderlich on the basis of measurements in 25,000 patients. This temperature has been the standard ever since. However, more recent scientific studies have shown that today’s body temperature is much lower at 36.6 °C, and this is not due to changes in measurement methods, but to an actual continuous decline in body temperature over the last 160 years. (see study by Stanford University from 2020 ) Most illnesses are caused by different types of coldness, they are the consequences of one-sidedness, materialistic fixations, isolated everyday conditions and as a result of the insufficient strengthening-warmth it is common for individuals to lack the strength to meet life with meaning and more conscious relationship. A healthy and well-distributed body temperature, and the ability to generate a healthy fever in the face of external influences, is lacking in a large portion of humanity.

The so-called fire or warmth ether deserves special attention in spiritual healing. With these terms it is not the physical supply of warmth that is meant, for example, through sunlight, hot drinks or the heat of an oven, but rather a very sensitive, invisible dimension of a cosmic, finely distributed action of subtle forces. The cosmos weaves and lives in an invisible flood of warmth. The, so-called, ether forces do not originate from the earthly, physical world, they are subtle, in constant motion and illustrate a kind of ever flowing life energy. When fire ether is referred to it does not arise from the burning of wood or coal. With this kind of warmth, it is even a non-warmth, as it does not feel like a heated phenomenon at all. It is easiest to connect the fire ether with the action of forces that radiate in from the cosmos. This flooding and weaving in subtle presence of a force does not necessarily correspond to the physical sun light alone, but it is like an entity, that touches matter from the outside inwards or from above downwards, penetrates it in the subtlest way and yet stays free from it in its finely distributed working. An ever-present movement lies in the fire ether.²⁾ The warmth or fire ether is described in detail, as are the three other types of ether, in the book „Das Wesensgeheimnis der Seele“ (not yet translated into English).

The connection of the soul to the warmth ether

For every development of healing, individuals need the right amount of human care, affection and attention, they need the warmth of their fellow human beings. But it is worth noting that they urgently need the right warmth and attention for their healing and by no means false fear-laden feelings, which only bind them unnecessarily like an additional weight and create various kinds of dependencies. The main causes of many illnesses are in the moral failings of humanity as a whole and ultimately can be seen in the individual attachments of each affected person. For this reason, uplifting, healthy and honestly chosen feelings can be shown to the patient, for these will have a strengthening effect on them and, if they are empathetically and wisely chosen, can strengthen the life force with warmth.³⁾ Feelings of this kind are not like emotions that swamp the human being, but finer subtle feelings that the human being consciously develops.

The etheric warmth has a very close connection to the soul warmth that people can radiate from their hearts. However, it does not mean an emotional way of being, that can maybe feel warm in the moment, but it is rather the ordered and contemplative, calm and inwardly felt nature of people that is connected with the fine force of fire. The warmth ether even has a cooling effect on all emotional states, for it is based in finely attuned, calm, inwardly felt subtle feelings. The warmth ether can be depicted, from a spiritual perspective, with a deep blue colour. This colour has a depth and at the same time an ability to widely expand and it has a calming effect on the human mind. Whereas, the physical fire evinces its heat with a red or yellow, the warmth ether reveals the enclosing, encompassing, more rounded and cooling consciousness. The blue heavens, cloudless, vast, comprehensive in their span, round the earth elements, differentiate them and give them a position of their own. The warmth ether is receptive and encompassing, it epitomises a subtle life force, that every person needs for their life balance and for their health.⁴⁾ The term ether comes from the Greek word Αἰθήρ, Aither, the (blue) heavens.

The consciousness and warmth ether

How can the healing etheric warmth, which can act subtly and yet intensively, reach an ill person? To answer this wide-reaching question, in a first instance, it is helpful when the different effects of the consciousness on the body can be given sufficient attention. There are many influences that can make people ill; influences that people produce themselves or that are brought about by their surroundings and that they unavoidably absorb. Generally, the consciousness acts on the body through thought processes, through the feeling and lastly through the impulse forces of the will. Many of these influences, that lie within the field of action of the consciousness, remain below the threshold of the consciousness and yet they have a considerable effect. With serious illnesses extraordinarily intensive influences are hidden in people’s unconscious that have a depleting effect on the life forces. Expressed in esoteric language the consciousness and the unconscious are part of individuals and beyond that are connected with those around them. After all, it is precisely the consciousness with all its unconscious parts, that is physically organised through both the central nervous system and the vegetative system, that forms a connection with the cosmos. These two great human components, the consciousness and the unconscious in connection with the cosmos, are described as the astral body. The microcosm of the human being, formed in its individual limited way, has a connection with the macrocosm.

In general, an illness can be explained in an esoteric way by a disturbance in the astral body. Whereas in orthodox medical research the diagnosis of pathophysiological processes and regions of disturbance is determined in the body. In order to confront the illness, the spiritual student searches beyond this to uncover those disturbances that can be found in the environment and in the personal thoughts, feelings and instinctive behaviour of the person who is ill. This work does not interfere with conventional medical therapy.

The correction of false thought processes

The first analysis of the causes, and research to explore the astral body, consists of the therapist together with the patient examining the validity of the various thought processes and the resulting mental pictures and feelings. This work, in the majority of cases, is very individual, because it requires as a prerequisite a consideration of the patient’s development. For a young person certain impulsive thoughts and feelings can be natural and part of development, whereas similar ones for an older person, will signalise degenerative traits. There are an infinite number of thought images. The art of differentiating between relative, erroneous mental pictures from essential ones that are meaningful for the health, can be developed in the therapeutic situation. The medicine here is more in its beginning phases and is not completed. In general, false thought processes effect the state of the people’s feelings and when they have exceeded a certain level, they generate complaints and illnesses.

False thought forms limit an inflow of cosmic warmth and isolate the human psyche from harmonious integrity with itself and with others. The balancing fire element of the cosmos, that most clearly takes its seat in the human heart, cannot effuse in its healing efficacy, when individuals foster false thought images too much and over too long a period. A first step in the therapeutic situation is focused therefore on the development of logically valid thoughts, that are related to human development and have a universal validity both for the individual as well as for humanity. The orderly development of thought and the resulting subsequent development of feelings opens, for people, healing cosmic forces, for that so valuable etheric warmth, and, at the same time, protects them from being too closed off in themselves or vulnerably open to foreign influences.

The ether warmth that has to be developed and that every grown person can bring forth to a certain degree with some effort or, better said, learns to take hold of, strengthens the ability to relate to a whole and at the same time stabilises the individual. The steps can be carried out in a very versatile way through practice, processes of perception, researching exploration and through the right use of the soul forces of thinking, feeling and willing. The individual practical ways of proceeding will be discussed in the next article with case studies.