The Healing Plant Initiative by Dr. Steven Johnson, DO
The Healing Plant Initiative
Steven Johnson DO
Over the past six years a dedicated group of biodynamic gardeners have been partnering with Uriel Pharmacy[1] in North America to integrate local plants into existing anthroposophic remedies, as well as to create new medicines and explore potential medicinal plants and minerals not used before.
Jean-David Derreumaux, Ben Davis, and interns at Churchtown Dairy[2] near Hudson, New York, along with Mark Blachere, Andreas Fontein, coworkers and adults with developmental disabilities at Camphill Copake New York,[3] have been working to provide an increasing amount of plant materials to Uriel Pharmacy and some to the nearby Weleda Pharmacy. Thanks to them, an extensive variety of medicinal plants grown biodynamically and wild crafted in the United States are now part of the medicines thousands of people use every day. (It is important to mention that there are other gardeners around the country emerging to support this initiative, for instance in California and Pennsylvania.)
The impulse to create these healing plant gardens as a growing source for anthroposophic medicines began between Jean-David and myself back in 1996, with the Camphill Copake Healing Plant Garden. We wanted to start working with local plants and substances in our medical office as part of an impulse for a more geographic medicine and to support the needs of the Camphill community. We were also inspired at that time by the historical founding of the Camphill movement by Karl Koenig. He told the story of a dream he had of an elemental spirit who gave him guidance and courage to go forward with the Camphill community. It has always been a quiet inspiration for us to try and listen and work with the nature around us, to guide the creation of a beautiful and meditative environment to connect with the healing plants.
Karl Koenig also had a deep karmic relationship with Ita Wegman – the founder of anthroposophic medicine with Rudolf Steiner – and her search for a modern renewal of the spiritual mysteries of medicine. A Camphill community felt like the right place to support this small but sincere initiative, which has now grown significantly. Hundreds of plants have been introduced into Uriel medicines over the last years, and the gardens are now a major resource in this country.
Eventually Jean-David moved to Churchtown Dairy to develop gardens there, and Marc Blachere has brought the Copake Healing Plant Garden forward into the North American pharmacy impulse, as well as furthering a strong workshop for adults with developmental challenges where they can experience nature in a special and meaningful way. For Camphill Copake, this project represents both a local community impulse and a larger medical impulse in North America. Churchtown Dairy is also a mission driven non-profit organization for the education of sustainable living practices reaching out to schools and people in the surrounding region.
The Process
Many forms of anthroposophic and alchemical processes are used to create the carefully harvested and crafted tinctures that are then tested for safety and to meet demanding quality standards. This includes many mother tinctures prepared with the delicate day/night processes used by Wala Medicines in Germany. Tinctures are then shipped to pharmacies for further potentizing, processing, and qualitative analysis purity testing.This work represents deep commitment, focus and love for the elemental qualities of these special plant, animal and mineral tinctures. You can actually witness through these processes the special qualities unique to each plant, which can be measured qualitatively through chromatography, prolonged freshness, and improved clinical outcomes. Further qualitative research is also on the horizon for the future.
Striving to connect more deeply to the healing properties of the substances in the medicines we use, and how the unique elemental qualities unfold particular to each plant and substance, has been a foundation of the current pharmacy efforts. Together with several local physician colleagues and biodynamic gardeners, we regularly study Rudolf Steiner’s suggestions on how to connect more closely with the elemental forces of nature that work in the landscape, pharmaceutical processes and medicines. We pay special attention to how our soul attitudes and actions enhance and enchant the atmosphere around the gardens.
Supporting This Work
The economic practices of this initiative also represent an attempt for a more humanized economic activity. While Uriel Pharmacy supports a good part of this work, it would be impossible to financially support local production of the hundreds of substances these communities prepare, often in small quantities at a time. This is where the mission of each of these non-profit organizations becomes important. The medicines from these gardens serve thousands of people all over the country and even abroad, extending their social and therapeutic mission well beyond their local communities. Grounding this work in a diverse, nonprofit setting may be the only way forward economically, since substances of this quality can only be made with minimal machinery and time-intensive, hands on work. This approach also allows for a spiritual consciousness and devotion that sustains the high-quality product that is produced.
These efforts to support the future of anthroposophic medicine are, in turn, supported by a day long retreat four times a year where doctors, gardeners, and Mark McKibben – the founder Uriel Pharmacy – can study aspects of pharmacy and substances in order to formulate new remedies and gain new insights into existing ones. Thus, the work goes on all the time. This collaboration has helped produce, for example: A new line of Helleborus niger[4] remedies for cancer, psychological, and inflammatory diseases; new bitter formulations for weakened digestion; Reynoutria[5] for lyme disease with new pharmaceutical indications from Rudolf Steiner; and oral Viscum[6] vitalizer for the increase in pre-cancerous and chronic disease conditions appearing in younger and younger people. These are to name only a few of the studies that have been undertaken by this group recently. These efforts are also inspiring other physicians to explore new impulses for medicines as well!
Over the past six years, these activities have become an important foundation for the production of anthroposophic medicine in this country. We are fortunate, at this time, to have apprentices who seem enthusiastic for the future. Also, both Camphill Copake and Churchtown Dairy have begun building new support facilities which include laboratories for better quality testing, expanded pharmacy work, and perhaps some research in the future.
Rudolf Steiner’s Vision
Doctor Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophic medicine, had envisioned many local pharmacies in different countries providing locally produced medicines to their local physicians. The thought was that certain illnesses would especially benefit from medicines made from local plants and substances, since many illnesses, such as allergies, have a relationship to the local geography. We have a long way to go in this regard but this initiative is a strong start.
Rudolf Steiner also spoke about the future of health being dependent on collaboration between the fields of medicine, agriculture and natural science, and therapeutic education. Waldorf schools were originally envisioned as places for therapeutic education, where physicians and teachers would work together to support children. Thus, it is no surprise that this pharmaceutical impulse is connected to all of these vocational endeavors. Local schools, for instance, frequently visit these gardens, so that children from both Waldorf and public schools can encounter nature in a very unique way. The medicines are also often helpful to school doctors and patients.
Uniquely North American
As larger pharmaceutical companies such as Wala and Weleda left the United states due to economic and regulatory challenges, we were fortunate to have been prepared in these ways. Myself, colleagues, and coworkers continue to try to build bridges with Weleda in Switzerland and Wala in Germany, to continue to work with them and to maintain potential certifications for some pharmaceutical products. We are also very fortunate to have wonderful alchemical pharmacy teachers such as Albert Shmidili (the former chief pharmacist at Weleda Switzerland, researcher and director of the international anthroposophic pharmacy training) and Mark McKibben, the founder and chief pharmacist at Uriel pharmacy, who have been so open to innovation and serving anthroposophic medicine in this country.
Still, we find ourselves at a crossroads with many questions. Will we find the spiritual, social, human, and financial resources to grow this work in such a hostile regulatory and economic climate? We do not wish to just maintain what we have built, but to evolve anthroposophic pharmacy and medicine forward into the future.
Our two remaining North American anthroposophic pharmacies – Uriel and True Botanica – have invested large amounts of resources to meet the future, which have led to many inspired innovations. But, for the pharmacy impulse to take root independently in North America, more resources to fund facilities and research will be needed. Perhaps most importantly, the support and good will of patients and communities who appreciate anthroposophic medicine will need to step forward for the next steps to be taken.
Medicine for the Future
As a last comment, all of us working with this impulse feel how important such alchemical pharmacy work is at this time. Our times call for a deeper spiritual consciousness and will impulse to meet the counter forces of “good-will” in the modern world. There is a push around the world to distort natural medicine as ineffective despite the wealth of clinical experience. It is an opportunity and privilege to support the healing of people and our mother Earth, both of which are increasingly enchanted with harmful intentions and influences that want to retard the development of human beings by bringing about illness. Look at how younger and younger people are succumbing to illnesses that in the past we thought would only appear later in life.
Personally, I see working in this way with plants and substances out of a renewed pharmaceutical impulse to be part of a renewal of the “Grail Mystery Stream.” This is because our intention to address the harmful actions of our recent past and current times with a new stream of healing remedies is at least one good deed to what is ailing us all in these times. To ask “How can I help?” and “How can I heal?” are powerful gestures. We then heal in a way that makes us stronger as a result. As a physician, I experience this when anthroposophic medicine works, as do many of my colleagues. This medicinal work is a true vocational calling, and a great sacrifice in many ways. Uriel pharmacy and this medicinal plant endeavor need committed new colleagues who have capacities and a deep interest in the anthroposophic and alchemic medicine impulse.
Sometimes the idea of working with plants and medicine seems simple, enjoyable and straightforward. The daily detail and repetition of preparation and processing can be difficult and tedious at times, but also rewarding on a deep inner level. It is a deed of “love” and persistence that can only continue in this way with the emergence of a new consciousness from all of us who want to participate. This is a consciousness of what health and medicine can become as a salutogenic[7] force and renewal of the ancient mysteries which viewed the healing of illness in step with human progress and development. It feels appropriate to now speak about this one-hundred years after Rudolf Steiner’s last address and his call for us to be active out of spiritual science and enlightenment. This short essay describes just one practical sphere of action so greatly needed to bring healing in a world that is presently in need of healing.
Doctor Steven Johnson is currently an anthroposophic medical practitioner at Collaborative Medical Arts in Chatham, New York, as well as nearby Camphill Copake. He has over twenty-five years of experience in Integrative, Osteopathic and Internal Medicine, and is a well respected educator and lecturer in the United States and abroad. He is one of the founders of the Foundation for Health Creation https://foundationforhealthcreation.org/.
[1] https://shopuriel.com
[2] https://www.churchtowndairy.org/
[3] https://camphillvillage.org/
[4] https://fda.report/DailyMed/c6b61b73-a03f-c730-e053-2a95a90a2e90
[5] https://shopuriel.com/product/reynoutria-lyme/
[6] https://fda.report/DailyMed/0af15879-5c5c-472b-9968-1de0ac47dea1
[7] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/salutogenesis