Anthroposophy or spiritual science is a path of knowledge of the human being and the cosmos, it tries to give an answer to all questions that ever more grow in the inner life of modern man. Materialism has cancelled ancient knowledges in relation to the true nature of human being and his connection to the world. Man has forgotten his spiritual origin and this is why he is always unsatisfied of his inner life; present science, arts and religion do not give any answer to soul requests and, if they do, they are very unsatisfactory. That is why the coming back of ancient spiritual disciplines , particularly from the Eastern world, see the “New Age” one.
However, modern man needs a way to the spiritual world connected with the present and the future time; you cannot follow ancient paths, man has changed; his present constitution (physic, soul and spirit) has evolved, modified and therefore also his needs and his ambitions are different. The human consciousness has changed. Anthroposophy tries to give an answer to questions living in modern human conscience, its task comes from the voice of nowadays human hearts : “It is nothing else than the deep human aspiration of present time....” R. Steiner GA 234
This path of knowledge has been developed by Rudolf Steiner, Austrian, who lived between the end of the XIXth and the beginning ot the XXth century (1861-1925). His work is very wide covering many fields of mankind knowledge and actions : philosophy, history, pedagogy, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, economy, social problems, science, agriculture, medicine. On these subjects he has written many books and he has given lectures (more than five thousand) all over Europe. His whole work is now gathered in his Opera Omnia and published in many languages.
Together with the Dutch Doctor Ita Wegman he has founded a new medicine and its fundamental principles are expressed in a book (R. Steiner, I. Wegman, GA 27) which has been written by the two of them. This new art of healing is the origin of the anthroposophical medicine, at present spread all over the world. This medicine uses substances which come from the kingdoms of nature (mineral, vegetable and animal origin), they are grown, picked up and transformed following specific spiritual-scientific processes and it foresees the use of art for therapy treatments (painting, sculpture, music, eurhythmy, etc.).
Rudolf Steiner has asserted that more and more medicine and art will have to cooperate for the health of men and that art itself will become the medicine of the future.
In this contest Liane Collot d’Herbois (1907-1999) lives and enters with her painting-therapeutic work.