Eugen and Lili Kolisko and Homeopathy

Eugen Kolisko 1893 - 1939 and his wife Lili Noha Kolisko 1889 - 1976 were born in Vienna and died in Britain.

They were both orthodox physicians who converted to homeopathy, and working with Rudolf Steiner, the Koliskos did the pioneeering work on homeopathic dilutions that led to Anthroposophical medicine and to Agro-homeopathy.

Eugen Kolisko and Lili Kolisko were homeopathic agriculture pioneers who worked at Rudolf Steiner’s Biological Institute of the Goetheanum in Stuttgart, where Lili studied the function of the spleen, and on proving the high dilutions in homeopathic remedies, Foot and Mouth disease, studies on coffee which led to a treatment for Foot and Mouth disease.

The Koliskos studied agro homeopathy and homeopathic remedies, and they worked industriously for over twenty years in their endeavours.

The Kiliskos were colleagues of Walter Johannes Stein, Rudolf Steiner, and many others in the Anthroposophical movement.

Studies made by the Austrians Eugen and Lili Kolisko and many other investigators before them, indicate a reliable scientific line of agro-homeopathy, allowing for the objective validation of experimental results (Eugen Kolisko and Lili Kolisko., 1978).

Agro-homeopathy is based on scientific investigations during the last ten years. It revolutionizes the static panorama of agriculture, immersed within the lineaments of the green revolution in several aspects: Dilution and succussion, two indispensable parts for the potentization of substances into homeopathic remedies, demand little as regards to the technology they require, apart from costs of laboratory equipment and sophisticated devices.

Moreover, a very important contribution of Agro-homeopathy is that it neither attacks nor affects the environment, but instead, lends to the re-establishment of the ecological equilibrium.

Experiments with homeopathically applied herbicides and other artificially synthesized substances were made, and where found to function as growth promoters. That is to say, agro-homeopathy is not necessarily a synonym of an organic, eco-friendly or biodynamic approach, it is only a tool.

Agro-homeopathic preparations can be made from synthesized substances, but do not cause anything residual or produce damage to the environment…

The homeopathic potentising of the biodynamic preparations dates back to the work of Doctors Eugen and Lily Kolisko, during the 1920’s… It is clear from Rudolf Steiner’s encouragement of the Kolisko’s work, his other suggestions in ‘Agriculture’, and his effort in Anthroposophical medicine, that he was very much in favour of using homeopathic methods in all spheres of life… The work done by the Koliskos, establishing the effective potencies using seed baths on wheat seedlings (followed by measuring the root and first and second leaf lengths) was redone in 1991.

Eugen Kolisko was born on the 21st March 1893, in Vienna into a medical family with his father acting as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Vienna. He met Rudolf Steiner in 1913 and immediately felt a great connection to him.

Through this contact Eugen developed ideas of medical practice which were not conventional at that time. He wanted deeply to work in close contact with a school, to work with teachers and truly understand the learning processes of children. He was the first “school doctor” of his time, teaching children in the mornings in areas such as biology and physiology. He would sit in on classes to observe children, and also the interaction with the teachers, whilst in the afternoons he could run clinics for children.

He could thus share case studies with parents and teachers, plus offer counseling and medical care for the adults of the community. Eugen left Vienna to re settle in England in the mid-thirties, just before the war. sadly he passed away 3 years later in 1939. However he has left an important legacy for the school and medical movements which the Kolisko Conferences seek to explore.

The Kolisko conference tradition goes back to 1989, the 50th anniversary of the death of Eugen Kolisko, … who ran the Medical Section at the Goetheanum, and initiated a first large scale conference of doctors and teachers in Stuttgart, Germany, where Kolisko, the first school doctor, was active.

In January 1920 the 27 year old medical school graduate was asked by Emil Molt to do some substitute teaching at the Waldorf school, founded just a few months earlier. Shortly thereafter, Rudolf Steiner asked him to become the school’s physician.

Thus he became the first to form and inform the picture of this new profession of the school doctor who knows the children in their various stages of development and stands at the side of both teachers and parents with advice and help… From January to August 2006 there were nine pedagogical medical Kolisko Conferences. In India, Taiwan, South Africa, the Pilippines, Ukraine, Australia, Mexico, Sweden and France, there was a total of 3,600 participants…

Lili Kolisko began applying capillary dynamolysis to plant saps in 1923 again following indications from Rudolf Steiner… (including studies) showing the effect on capillary dynamolysis patterns of high homeopathic potencies of a particular substance corresponding to its absence in molecular terms… Kolisko, Lilly (1929) Das Silber und der Mond - Experimentelle Studien aus dem biologishen Institut am Goetheanum - Schriftenreihe der Natura III. Orient-Occident Verlag, Stuttgart, Kolisko, L. (1952) Sternenwerken in Erdenstoffen - Saturn und Blei - Ein Versuch die Ph?nomene der Chemie, Astronomie und Physiologie zusammen zu schauen. Kolisko, L. (1936) Gold and the Sun - an account of experiments conducted in connection with the total eclipse of the Sun of 19th June 1936. School of Spiritual Science, Rudolf Steiner House, London, Kolisko, L. (1932) Sternenwirken in Erdenstoffen IV - Der Jupiter und das Zinn - Experimentelle Studien aus dem Biologischen Institut am Goetheanum. Mathematisch-Astronomisch Sektion am Goetheanum, Stuttgart, Kolisko, Eugen & Lilly Kolisko (1978) Agriculture of Tomorrow

Agriculture of Tomorrow contains research reports from 16 years of field and laboratory work conducted by the German researchers Eugen and Lili Kolisko. Unlike much of the biodynamic research by Koepf, Reagonold, Pfeiffer, and Brinton which focuses on compost and soil agronomic conditions, the Koliskos dive right into the esoteric nature of biodynamics: the moon and plant growth; the forces of crystallization in nature; planetary influences on plants; homeopathy in agriculture; experiments with animals to study the influence of homeopathic quantities; capillary dynamolysis; research on the biodynamic preparations.

During many years of extensive research on the nature and treatment of Foot and Mouth disease, Eugen and Lily Kolisko developed a comprehensive picture of it. They came to recognise that the disease has the effect of increasingly separating the animal’s nervous system from the rest of its organism as a result of severe disturbances in the rhythmic (breathing, circulation) system of the animal.

As it develops and takes hold the Foot and Mouth virus can attack and eventually destroy the heart. This illness picture very much supports the findings of Albert Howard in that, due to over stimulation, incorrect feeding, one sided breeding and an overall lack of consideration for the animal’s true nature, the organism loses its living connection to the earth and hence its resistance to the virus.

Following indications given by Rudolf Steiner, the Koliskos went on to develop a remedy for the disease based on coffee. Coffee stimulates metabolism and brain activity and hence a remedy based on it can provide the possibility for counteracting the deadening effect of the virus on the nervous system and redirect the circulation of blood towards the brain. Initial vials showed promising results although with the necessity for repeated intravenous applications it proved extremely time consuming.

They also had some success with its prophylactic use. Eugen & Lily Kolisko undertook much research in the fields of biodynamic agriculture and medicine. Their book Agriculture of Tomorrow contains a detailed account of their research including a fascinating chapter on Foot and Mouth disease.

Born in Vienna on the 21st March 1893, Eugen Kolisko grew up in a home which was equally filled with the arts as with the sciences. His father, Dr Alexander Kolisko, was professor of Pathological Anatomy in Austria. Eugen Kolisko also studied medicine and stood at the beginning of a shining academic career, when he was called to the newly founded Waldorf School in Stuttgart by Rudolf Steiner.

There, he formed a new professional occupation: the specialist doctor for preventative medicine, a doctor active in the school, who could get to know children from their developmental situation and could advise, both teacher and parents, how best to support and accompany the child’s development.

Eugen Kolisko was at the same time a member of the College of Teachers. He taught Anthropology, First Aid, Zoology and Chemistry in the upper classes. In connection with the lessons, he was sort out, as a doctor, by students and teachers, and also people in the school’s environment. Perceptive, and with lively thinking, he moved people who had something to do with him, through the goodness of his being and the healthy and fresh atmosphere he had about him.

The new developmental ideals of Rudolf Steiner were enlivened by Eugen Kolisko. An education art with the aim to develop and realise the healthy body, soul and spiritual development of the child, with a healing therapeutic effect. This was the life task to which Eugen Kolisko was committed.

After (he left) the Stuttgart Waldorf School, he brought about the founding of the first Association for the Expansion of Medicine, in Unterlengenhardt (Germany).

In 1936 Eugen Kolisko emigrated to England (due to the Nazi regime), where he undertook the founding of a private university. From there he travelled to America in search of new possibilities for a healing cultural and developmental work through Anthroposophy.

On the 29th December 1939, Eugen Kolisko died near London from a sudden cardiac death.

Rudolf Steiner had called upon the representatives of the World Religions, present at an International Congress of Religion in London in July 1936 to form themselves into a permanent Ministry of Culture… founded on the School of Spiritual Science and opened in London in 1936 by Eugen and Lili Kolisko…

In 1937, Walter Johannes Stein published King Leopold’s Plan in _The Present Age_, purportedly at the behest of Winston Churchill, and Walter Johannes Stein and Eugen Kolisko travelled to Brussels to meet the King (Leopold III) at the home of Walter Morse Rummel.