The Third Trial : Anthroposophy in Italy and Covid-19. Spiritual Phenomenology of a CounterNarrative

Anthroposophy is the spiritual and esoteric current conceived by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) after his experience in the Theosophical Society established by Helena Petrovna Blavatski (1831-1891). This paper focuses on the digital ethnography and the content analysis of a sample of independent anthroposophical social network production, analysing the 2021 Facebook posts of ten users selected on the basis of the cohesion and pre-eminence principle. Moving from these data and from the theoretical premises of independent Italian anthroposophy, I aim to discuss the epistemological status of its peculiar epidemiological counter-narrative, its socio-political implications and the role of conspiracy narratives within the contemporary spirituality frame. The specific feature emerging from the analysis is that of a narrative in which political power - mediumistic in its very nature - would be nothing more than an automaton acting for global economic elites, in their turn being tools in the hands of supernatural hindering entities. In this perspective, the social network production conveys a complex set of paradigmatic narratives in which the dynamics of re-sharing and amplification feed not only the internal semantic circuit, but also the offline social environment the actors belong to.

National informative system for surveillance of hazardous exposures and poisonings (SIN-SEPI). surveillance of exposures to detergents: an example of collaboration between the national institute of health, Poison Centers and the ministry of health

This report describes the exposures to detergents and related products (e.g., borderline disinfectants) managed by the Poison Control Centres of Bergamo and Foggia in the period 2016-2020. Descriptive analysis was conducted using tables and graphs and the differences between population subgroups were analysed using the X2 test. There is an excess of non-hospital calls (70.4%) compared to the expected value, probably influenced by the lockdown 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic. A focus for the year 2020 highlighted an excess of exposures to cleaning products (p < 0.05) and borderline disinfectants (p< 0.001) in the months of lockdown. Another focus on exposures to washing machine detergents in soluble packaging for single use confirms that children (< 6 years) have a higher risk to be exposed to these products (< 6 year: 88.1%) compared to other laundry detergents (< 6 years: 66.4%), (p < 0.001), despite the preventive measures provided by the Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008.