Walther Cloos

Walther Cloos (born in Darmstadt, Germany 22 June 1900 and died in Ulm, Germany, 30 June 1985) was a pharmacist, alchemist, Anthroposophist, lecturer, researcher, inventor, author and pioneer in anthroposophical pharmacy.

Walther Cloos grew up in Darmstadt, and studied pharmacy at the Stuttgart Technical University. He attended lectures on mineralogy and geology and did practical training in pharmacy in the Spessart region, near Hamburg and in the southern Black Forest.

Joanna Thylmann's reading group introduced him to Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy through her reading group. He had already heard Steiner speak at the independent academic course held in Stuttgart in March 1921. He also attended a second course in Darmstadt in July of that year.

After having completed his assistantship in pharmacy, he went to work in a chemical factory in Darmstadt.

In April 1925 Cloos joined the laboratory staff of the Institute of Clinical Medicine in Stuttgart. The center of this group would later become the German Weleda Company. There he started to develop the method of metal distillation that Rudolf Steiner suggested would increase the medical action of metals. Metallic mirror preparations called 'metallicum preparatum' came to play an important role in the medicinal use of metals.^[1]

He took interest as well in medicinal plants grown in the Weleda Schwaebisch Gmuend. With the botanist Gerbert Grohmann and many farmers he studied the ideal conditions and best habitats for different medicinal plants and their biodynamic cultivation.

The main focus of his work at Weleda would be the manufacture of medicines made from minerals and metals. Cloos worked out 200 monographs for these medicaments.

In the 1960s and 1970s collaboration developed in Schwabisch Gmuend with Pelikan, Schmiedel, Krueger and Theodor Schwenk. This would be the foundation for Weleda medicines later on. Cloos also kept in close contact with the medical profession which provided opportunities for further collaboration. He was also in contact with the Science Section of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum. He offered lecture and courses for he workers, farmers, gardeners and students at the Goetheanum.

Cloos was continually invited to give talks to physicians at Lake Hallstatt in Upper Austria. Dr. Franz Bengesser built a house there for small-scale medical meetings in a large room there.

v t e Anthroposophy
Founding board members of the General Anthroposophical Society	Rudolf Steiner Albert Steffen Marie Steiner-von Sivers Elisabeth Vreede Gunther Wachsmuth Ita Wegman
Anthroposophists	Hilma af Klint Henri Bortoft Georg Kühlewind Ehrenfried Pfeiffer Theodor Schwenk Emil Bock Bernard Lievegoed Edith Maryon Sergei O. Prokofieff Peter Selg Jens Bjørneboe Aasmund Brynildsen Daniel Nicol Dunlop Zviad Gamsakhurdia John Fentress Gardner Walter Burley Griffin Karl König Robert A. McDermott Arthur Zajonc Douglas M. Sloan Marjorie Spock Walter Johannes Stein Ernst Lehrs Herbert Witzenmann Massimo Scaligero Ross Rentea Rudolf Hauschka Oskar Schmiedel Hermann Poppelbaum Alfred Meebold Wilhelm Rath Herbert Hahn Francis Edmunds Thomas Weihs Cecil Harwood Daphne Olivier Marguerite Lundgren Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff John Davy Jakob Streit Alfred Rexroth Ernst Weissert Michael Henry Wilson Margaret Cross Fried Geuter Arnold Freeman Rudi Lissau Margaret Bennell Edith Rigby Bertram Keightley Arild Rosenkrantz Eileen Hutchins Eleanor Merry Paul Nordoff Clive Robbins Violetta Plincke Hans Schauder George Adams Kaufmann Liane Collot d'Herbois Egil Tynæs Else Klink Carlo Pietzner Marta Fuchs Wolfgang Schad Julian Sleigh Botho Sigwart zu Eulenburg Johannes Tautz Vydūnas Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven
Notable supporters	Saul Bellow Owen Barfield Andrei Bely Joseph Beuys Russell Davenport Wassily Kandinsky Selma Lagerlöf Albert Schweitzer Andrei Tarkovsky Bruno Walter Ibrahim Abouleish Nicanor Perlas Jacques Lusseyran Millicent Mackenzie Margaret McMillan
Cultural influences	Anthroposophic medicine Biodynamic agriculture Camphill Movement Eurythmy Threefold social order The Christian Community Waldorf education
Institutions and publications	Anthroposophical Society in America Associação Comunitária Monte Azul Demeter International General Anthroposophical Society GLS Bank Goetheanum Harduf SEKEM Triodos Bank Weleda

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National	Germany United States Czech Republic Israel
People	DDB

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