February 14, 1941 - February 28, 2022 • Philip Incao crossed the threshold in Crestone, Colorado at 6:30 am on Monday, February 28. The funeral will take place on Thursday, March 3, at 1:00 PM at The Incaos' house in Crestone, CO.
Dear Friends,
A beloved member of our community, a beloved physician from our area, Philip Incao has died at 6:30 am on Monday in Crestone, Colorado. We are far from him and yet we wish to honor his life by holding a vigil, of sorts, from afar. Anyone is able to participate inwardly in their own home at any time of day or night, up to the time of his funeral which will be Thursday, 3 pm our time (1 pm Mountain standard time).
We can light a candle, read a verse, the prologue from the Gospel of John, the Lord's prayer. He is going through a mighty transition time, we can accompany that. Many in our community were close to him, united with him for many years even from afar.
We are in conversation with the family about a memorial event at The Christian Community here in Hillsdale at a later time, to be announced.
Rev. Mimi Coleman
Sebastian Incao's words on his father:
My father, Philip Frank Incao was born in 1941 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn NY to Philip and Anne Incao. From an early age, my father was curious and mystified by what happens to one after death. As a young child, he asked his mother a big question one evening at bedtime, the answer would change his life and begin his journey. He asked his mother, “What happens to you after you die?” Nothing she replied, you’re dead. Unsatisfied with this answer and wanting to know more, he decided early on he wanted to explore this through becoming and working as a doctor.
After graduating from medical school, my father was disillusioned with the allopathic approach to the human body, fear, and denial of the dying process, and total disregard for the spirit. The body, seen as mechanical and divided into individual parts, treated in a one size fits all approach with no discernment or intelligence for its innate capacity to heal and maintain homeostasis, left him deeply unsatisfied. While enlisted in the Navy and living in Berkley California, he was introduced to Anthrophosophy and the works of Rudolf Steiner. This began a lifelong study that finally began to address the mysteries and questions he was so interested in, and began to nourish in him a new vision of what medicine and healing could be as the role of Physician in Anthroprosophical medicine.
He moved to Harlemville NY with his wife Annemarie, where an Anthroprosophical community was being started and opened his practice.
As a child, I remember a busy waiting room with patients waiting for hours to speak to my father. He took his time, he listened, he was curious about people and their lives, he asked a lot of questions and he never rushed. Through his patience, diligence, his ability to listen, and truly be interested in a patient's story, he helped them attain a better understanding of themselves, their Karmic process, and how it related to illness and the healing process; from this, he grew a lifelong following of patients who cherished his care.
Patients had a deep respect for my father, and throughout my life, I was often told from people in the community that they had moved to Harlemville because of him, stayed in Harlemville because of him, or that he had saved their life.
One Steiner quote I came across while going through his voluminous collection of life papers stood out to me. It reads “The real nature of thinking is warm, luminous, and penetrating deeply into the phenomena of the world…it is the power of love in its spiritual form”. This was very much my father’s nature.
My father's adventurous spirit took his three boys on many trips and adventures that were memorable and so important to the well-rounded development of a child, which left a deep impression on all our lives. He loved to hike and camp, taking us into the White Mountains, the Smoky Mountains, The Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Grand Tetons, the Adirondacks, and various National Parks across the country.
He shared with us experiences which were invaluable growing up in a small town and isolated community, lessons one cannot learn in school or see from home… We made an epic road trip in a huge station wagon across the country, returning home through the Provinces of Canada. When I was 12, we canoed for 2 weeks with a group down the Mississippi through several states, camping on inlets and shorelines, cooking over fires. We hiked high up into the Sierra Nevada mountains where there were frozen glaciers without a soul around, and deep down into the scorching bottom of the Grand Canyon along stretches of the Colorado River. I remember waking in our tent to the dog barking and my father grabbing a pot and beating on it as a brown bear visited camp. He did something for us his father had tried to do for him growing up that left a great impression, showing us the beauty of the country, the wildness that still existed in great expanses of wilderness and mountain ranges and rugged plains, the diversity of landscapes and peoples and cultures. It showed us the possibilities of the world were vast and to be discovered.
Steiner said “all ways into the spiritual world pass through the heart”, my father embodied this in his life’s work and most importantly as a loving father. He is survived by his loving wife Jennifer and his three sons, Quentin, Sylvan, and Sebastian.
* In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to:
https://paam.wildapricot.org/Donate
The Dr. Philip Incao Fund for Spiritual Science & Medicine
Dr. Philip Incao is well known as one of the leading pioneers and outspoken advocates of Anthroposophic Medicine in our country. As Dr. Incao nears the threshold, he has reflected on the legacy he would like to leave to future generations of spiritual scientists and medical practitioners, aside from the deep insights and wisdom he has already shared with students, mentees, fellow practitioners, and patients throughout the decades. To honor his desire to support interested and motivated doctors who want to deepen their Anthroposophic understanding and spiritual schooling, we have established a fund specifically devoted to offering financial assistance for doctors and medical students wanting to attend Medial Section offerings and other Anthroposophic conferences and trainings focused on spiritual science.
LINK to the New York Times article on May 18, 2022
‘Being the Smoke’: One Man’s Choice to Be Cremated Under the Open Sky
A small Colorado town maintains the country’s only public outdoor funeral pyre.
Philip Incao saw it as his own perfect ending.