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Karl Koenig, the founder of Camphill, was a prolific lecturer and
writer on a wide range of subjects from anthroposophy and
Christology through social questions and curative education to
science and history. The Karl Koenig Archive are working on a
programme of publishing these works over the coming years. This is
the fourth book to be published in the series. In this remarkable
collection of Karl Koenig's letters and essays, Koenig considers
and discusses the fundamentals of special needs education. He shows
that there are three core aspects to a successful holistic
education and healing approach: firstly, a positive social
environment, which in the context of Camphill is achieved through
small family units of carers and children; secondly, that carers'
work is based on an insightful understanding of the nature and
potential of each individual child and disability; and thirdly that
medical treatment is imbued with courage to keep believing that the
impossible is possible.
Edith Maryon (1872-1924) was a trained sculptor who worked
alongside Rudolf Steiner to create the unique sculpture of Christ
(the 'Representative of Humanity') at the Goetheanum in Dornach,
Switzerland. One of Steiner's closest collaborators, she was a
highly-valued colleague and esoteric pupil. As one of his dearest
friends, Maryon kept a busy and detailed correspondence with Rudolf
Steiner, in which he confided freely about his personal situation,
his lack of true colleagues, difficulties with lecture tours, and
the embattled public standing of anthroposophy. Almost invariably,
these letters emphasized Steiner's longing for the Dornach studio
and their shared work on the Christ statue. Maryon's early death,
aged 52 - following fifteen months of illness - shook Rudolf
Steiner to the core. He was to die himself less than a year later.
With this book, the author's central aim is to illuminate the
spiritual signature of Edith Maryon's relationship with Rudolf
Steiner and their mutual work in anthroposophy and on the sculpture
of Christ. Building on Rex Raab's (1993) biography, Peter Selg's
moving study features dozens of photos and facsimiles of letters,
utilizing previously unpublished sources from Edith Maryon's and
Ita Wegman's literary estates and the Rudolf Steiner Archive in
Dornach. -- The most essential and intrinsic quality of her soul
... was not a particular branch of human endeavour, not even art;
the most salient of her soul tendencies, her soul intentions, was
the striving for spirituality...' - Rudolf Steiner
In 1919 Rudolf Steiner spoke about the future physical incarnation
of the being of Ahriman. This would take place before 'a part' of
the third millennium had passed, and was inevitable - but it was
also necessary that people were aware of this event and recognized
it, for earthly culture would be destroyed if the world were to
fall completely to Ahriman. The situation we find ourselves in
today shows Ahriman's unmistakable signature: the rapid destruction
of nature, zoonotic diseases and pandemics, huge social
inequalities, and the overall dominance of high finance. In this
short book Peter Selg presents a timely overview of the challenges
we face, beginning with a pithy and concise survey of Steiner's
commentary on Ahriman's incarnation and the conditions that would
characterize it. This is followed by a study of Ahriman's depiction
in the mystery drama The Souls' Awakening. Steiner's remarkable
personification of Ahriman on stage - portraying his strategies and
activities - provides vital instruction for humanity. Selg
concludes with an evaluation of 'the Battle for Human Intelligence'
taking place in contemporary culture through materialistic ideas
such as transhumanism. In their recent book Covid-19: The Great
Reset, for example, Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret propose
wholesale economic, geopolitical, environmental and technological
revisions to society - ideas that need to be understood and
confronted in human thought and consciousness. The Future of
Ahriman is a crucial aid to comprehending our times.
The relationship between The Christian Community and the
Anthroposophical Society is complex and often misunderstood.
Christian Community priests work out of an understanding of
anthroposophy, and it was undoubtedly Steiner's theological lecture
courses which led to the formation of the movement. Nonetheless
questions remain, which Peter Selg examines closely in this unique
book. -- Steiner's work emphasises the importance of finding the
spiritual in everyday life. So why did he help found a 'Sunday
church'? -- In his lectures, Steiner spoke about a 'spiritual
communion' without physical matter. So why is there any need for a
sacramental communion with real bread and wine, as practiced in The
Christian Community? -- In a much-quoted lecture after the founding
of The Christian Community, Steiner said that anthroposophists
should have no need of the new religious movement. But on another
occasion he said he wished greatly that the movement should
succeed. How can these be understood and reconciled? This
long-overdue book is a significant exploration of Steiner's legacy
which should have far-reaching implications for mutual
understanding and cooperation between The Christian Community and
the wider anthroposophical world.
This book follows Karl Koenig's spiritual journey from his early
years to the end of his life. Through the words of his diaries, in
which his battles with health and his impatient temperament are
recorded with merciless honesty, we can follow his inner path that
led to profound insights into the nature of children with special
needs. His personal wrestlings and innate spirituality laid the
foundation for his work in the Camphill Schools and Villages.
Includes facsimile reproductions of some of Koenig's original diary
pages. About the Karl Koenig Archive: Karl Koenig, the founder of
Camphill, was a prolific lecturer and writer on a wide range of
subjects from anthroposophy and Christology through social
questions and curative education to science and history. The Karl
Koenig Archive are working on a programme of publishing these works
over the coming years.
Since 2006, specialists, doctors, psychologists, and therapists of
Parzival-Zentrum Karlsruhe have taken part in emergency education
crisis interventions, carried out by the organization Friends of
Friends of Waldorf Education. They work with psychologically
traumatized children and young people in war zones and disaster
areas, including Lebanon, China, the Gaza Strip, Indonesia, Haiti,
Kyrgyzstan, and most recently in Japan following the tsunami there
and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Bernd Ruf, who heads
these operations, describes in his book in various ways the basics
of anthroposophically extended "emergency education," including the
anthroposophic understanding of trauma itself. In addition, he
describes processes and experiences, focusing on recent experiences
in Japan at the center of his descriptions. Educating Traumatized
Children offers much-needed insight into this little-known area of
education and healing for traumatized children and young people.
This book will be valuable not only for those working in areas of
disaster and armed conflict, but also for any teacher or parent who
is teaching or caring for a traumatized child.
Unlike other Christian creeds, the creed of The Christian Community
is not a statement of belief, but rather a series of assertions
that act as a path to a deeper understanding of Christianity. Peter
Selg offers an insightful and informative overview of how, in the
time leading up to the founding of The Christian Community nearly
one hundred years ago, Rudolf Steiner formulated both the creed
itself and its founding principles. He also examines the history of
Christian creeds including the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed
and compares them to each other. Finally, he explores the ongoing
significance of the creed for The Christian Community today.
'Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' Rudolf Steiner
once called the Lord's Prayer the 'greatest initiation prayer', and
he spoke about it many times, also referring to it as the central
prayer of Christian experience. This book is, however, the first
time that all of Steiner's comments, accounts and perspectives have
been brought together in one place, presenting the full scope and
depth of his ideas. Along the way, Peter Selg reveals some
surprising insights into the spiritual history and mission of
Christianity.
Biodynamic agriculture, which has consistently increased in
popularity over the years, was born from a single course of eight
lectures delivered by Rudolf Steiner in Koberwitz (now in Poland)
in June 1924. In The Agriculture Course Peter Selg presents an
unprecedented study of the context within which the lectures took
place, conveying a tangible sense of the celebratory mood and
atmosphere of those Whitsun events. He highlights Steiner's
intentions for the course - as well as the parallel lectures he
gave in Breslau - by drawing widely on the available literature and
numerous archive materials. Recognizing that chemical manipulation
of agriculture was neither desirable nor sustainable, Rudolf
Steiner helped launch an agricultural movement with a truly
pioneering outlook. As Selg describes, Steiner saw that '...what
was needed instead was new, conscious insight into life forces and
laws, into the nature of organisms, into the diverse realms of
nature, and the determining factors of both earth and cosmos that
influence them.' The vivid picture painted here reveals the
importance Rudolf Steiner placed on launching this work, and the
extent to which his initiative offered an answer to the emerging
forces of cultural and political destruction that would lead to the
Second World War.
Kaspar Hauser was a young man who appeared on the streets of
Nuremberg in Germany in the early nineteenth century. His innocence
and mysterious background captured the hearts of many at the time.
2012 marks the 200th anniversary of Kaspar Hauser's birth. This
timely book draws together Karl Koenig's thoughts on the enigma of
Kaspar Hauser, as well as exploring Koenig's deep connection to the
young man. The book includes Koenig's essay 'The Story of Kaspar
Hauser', as well as essays from Peter Selg on 'Koenig, Wegman and
Kaspar Hauser' and Richard Steel on how Koenig spoke of Kaspar
Hauser in his diaries, notes and letters.
"Not only do we pass through the gate of death as immortal beings,
we also enter through the gate of birth as unborn beings. We need
the term unbornness, as well as the term immortality, to encompass
the whole human being." (Rudolf Steiner) As anyone who has had a
child knows, newborns enter the earthly world as beings different
from their parents. They arrive with their own individuality,
being, and history. From the beginning, they manifest an essential
dignity and a unique "I," which they clearly brought with them from
the spiritual world. This unborn life of a person's higher
individuality guides the whole process of incarnation. It frames
our lives, but we fail to recognize this because of a single-minded
focus on immortality, or life-after-death, which makes us forget
the reality of our "unbornness." This unbornness extends not only
from conception to birth, but also includes the whole existence and
history of one's "I" in its long journey from the spiritual world
to Earth. Unbornness-the other side of eternity-allows us to
experience the fact that birth is just as great a mystery as is
death. In a new and striking way, unbornness poses the mystery of
our human task on Earth. It was one of Rudolf Steiner's great gifts
that he returned the concept of unbornness to human consciousness
and language. In this brief, stunning, and moving, almost poetic
work, Peter Selg gathers the key elements and images needed to
begin an understanding of-and wonder at-the vast scope of our
unbornness. Drawing on and expanding on Steiner's work, as well as
Raphael's Sistine Madonna and the poems of Nelly Sachs and Rainer
Maria Rilke, Selg unveils this deepest mystery of human existence.
After reading it, one will never look at a child or another human
being in the same way again. Life after death life before birth;
only by knowing both do we know eternity. (Rudolf Steiner)
Unbornness is a translation of Ungeborenheit: Die Praexistenz des
Menschen und der Weg zur Geburt (Verlag Ita Wegman Institut, 2009).
"Every moral deed and every physical action in human life is
connected in the human heart. Only when we truly learn to
understand the configuration of he human heart will we find the
true fusion of these two parallel and independent phenomena: moral
events and physical events." -Rudolf Steiner Today we know very
little about the true nature of the human heart. Our knowledge
arises only from a materialistic or an emotional standpoint.
However, the human heart, as Rudolf Steiner knew and taught, is
both spiritual and physical-the place where body and soul come
together. It is the place of their unity. We have lost this
knowledge, yet it is integral to the Western understanding of what
gives humanity its vocation-our spiritual/physical, our
earthly/heavenly nature. In this astonishing and inspiring book,
Peter Selg focuses on the evolution of the spiritual understanding
of the heart as transmitted through Aristotle, the Gospels, and
Hebrew Scriptures to the Middle Ages, when, in the light of the
Mystery of Golgotha and its sacramental life, it was synthesized
and transformed by Thomas Aquinas, after whom, with the rise of
modern science it, was lost until Goethe began a process of
recovery and development that led to its complete renewal and
transformation in Rudolf Steiner. The Mystery of the Heart tells
this story in three parts. Part one, "The Anthropology of the Heart
in the Gospels," examines the spiritual anthropology of the heart
in the Gospels in the light of Ezekiel's prophetic saying: "I will
give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove
from you your heart of stone and give you a living heart of flesh."
Part two, "De Essentia et Motu Cordis," describes Aristotle's
understanding of the heart and its transformation and deepening in
Aquinas. Part three, "The Heart and the Fate of Humanity," examines
the spiritual-scientific view of the heart as developed in Rudolf
Steiner's teachings. Also included is an appendix containing
selected meditative verses and therapeutic meditations for the
heart.
Ita Wegman spent the last three years of her life in Tessin, in the
Casa Andrea Cristoforo. In this secluded province, largely
protected from the destructive events of those years and imbued
with certain forces, she developed a great work for the future,
gathering, leading, and nurturing people both therapeutically and
spiritually, preparing for the war's end with the full intensity of
her being. Her last three years were a period of devotion to Rudolf
Steiner and his work, as well as to esoteric Christianity-to the
forces of the Archangel Michael and to Christ for the present and
future. She continued to take a great interest in the difficulties
of her time and never ceased to participate in events-taking in
refugee children and the homeless, keeping up extensive
correspondences with others, struggling with aid organizations and
various agencies, caring daily for the afflicted and for patients
and colleagues. On March 4, 1943, Ita Wegman passed into the
spiritual worlds, well prepared and with all of the spiritual
intentions of a Christian initiate. This book contributes to
documenting the final phase of Ita Wegman's life, focusing on the
forces of the future that emerged in her. It draws on her notebooks
from her time in Ascona, as well as from her extensive
correspondence and memories of those who lived and worked at Casa
Andrea Cristoforo. She remained upstanding, free, and positive with
an esoteric Christian orientation and felt that she was obligated
only to her conscience and to the spiritual world for which Rudolf
Steiner stood and that she served. This book was originally
published in German as Die letzten drei Jahre. Ita Wegman in Ascona
1940-1943 (Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, 2004).
Rudolf Steiner referred to the wooden 'group' sculpture of the
figure of Christ surrounded by adversary spiritual beings as the
centre of the first Goetheanum. Steiner even told the architect of
the second Goetheanum that the sculpture he made with Edith Maryon
should occupy the same central position 'as in the first building'.
What was Rudolf Steiner's essential aim for the sculptural group
within the Mystery building he conceived, and why did he regard it
as the crown of the building? What were Steiner's intentions - and,
specifically, what were the spiritual aims behind this remarkable
depiction of Christ? Rudolf Steiner described the core task of
anthroposophical spiritual science as preparing for Christ's
reappearance in the etheric realm. The Christ he sculpted was not
the possession of a specific community with a religious world view,
but rather a being active throughout humanity, and thus 'a figure
of the future'. In this focused and powerful short book, Peter Selg
engages with these highly-contemporary issues, providing thoughtful
insights and answers that point to mysteries of the future
involving humanity's further development and the transforming of
evil.
Ita Wegman, born in 1876 to a Dutch family living in Indonesia,
first met Rudolf Steiner in Berlin in 1902 when she was 26 years
old. She studied medicine at the University of Zurich and in 1917,
following Steiner's indications, developed a treatment for cancer
using mistletoe. In 1921 she founded the first anthroposophical
medical clinic, in Arlesheim, Switzerland, followed in 1922 by the
Sonnenhof home for children with special needs. Karl Koenig first
met Wegman in 1927, and she quickly recognized his great potential,
as well as his weaknesses. She invited him to work at the Arlesheim
clinic as her assistant, and encouraged and advised him in his
medical work. This book includes the complete correspondence
between Koenig and Wegman.
"It is a simple but essential principle: education aims at the
future, at a time that we as educators do not yet know and cannot
foresee. The challenges that will confront the children in the
future are not those of the past-of our past, of our life story and
our horizon. Times change, so do the realities of life, and in our
times they change quickly and dramatically. Education aims at the
future and that puts us as educators in a difficult situation: this
future is not-or is only to an extent-identical with our past, with
our life experiences. My youth, your youth: they are not identical
with the adolescent constitution and life reality toward which we
currently have to direct our educational efforts. Yet educate we
must, and educating means preparing for a future." -Peter Selg
(from the book) Schools reflect the state of society. If society is
materialistic, competitive, egoistic, technological, and without
concern for human values and long-term thinking, our schools will
tend to reflect those values. However, what if education were about
something else? What if education were about the future? What if
education were a about nurturing a new generation of human beings,
integrated in body, soul, and spirit and able to think for
themselves and have the capacity to love? Perhaps the world would
change. The Waldorf school, initiated and guided in 1919 by Rudolf
Steiner, was conceived with precisely such an end in view. In this
passionate, inspiring, and moving book, Peter Selg, speaks from a
deep knowledge of Anthroposophy and from his extensive experience
as a child psychiatrist. He returns to the original impulses behind
the first Waldorf school to show their continuing validity and how
they still respond to what we need. From this view, Waldorf
education is future-oriented, based on a holistic worldview and
cosmology that is humanistic, scientific, and spiritual, and
develops through a curriculum and a teacher-student relationship
based on love. Its focus is the miracle of the developing human
being. Recognizing the equal importance of thinking, feeling, and
willing, Waldorf education works through bodily movement and art,
as well as through intellect and mind. Waldorf Education is not a
theory but a living reality, and Selg brings this reality to life
before us through the biography of the first Waldorf school. Thus,
we learn to see it in a new way-in its essence, as a healing model
of what education might become if the primary relationship, the
inner core of a school, is the free relationship between teacher
and student. As Steiner wrote: "It is our task as teachers and
educators to stand in awe of the individuality of the student and
offer our help so that it can follow the laws of its own
development. We are merely called upon to remove any obstacles in
body or soul that might hinder the individuality from realizing its
potential freely." A verse given at the dedication of a building at
the Waldorf School in Stuttgart expresses the essence of Waldorf
Education in poetic form: May there reign here spirit-strength in
love; May there work here spirit-light in goodness; Born from
certainty of heart, And from steadfastness of soul, So that we may
bring to young human beings Bodily strength for work, inwardness of
soul, and clarity of spirit.
Why is it so difficult actually to understand and implement the
"intentions of the Christmas Conference" (in Rudolf Steiner's
words), which represent a very concrete answer to the
Anthroposophical Society's identity crisis'? - Peter Selg More than
100 years after its founding, the Anthroposophical Society faces
serious questions - some of an existential nature - regarding its
purpose and tasks in the present day. On 30 March 2012, in the
course of the Society's Annual General Meeting in Dornach, both
Sergei Prokofieff and Peter Selg gave lectures in which they
addressed difficult issues relating to the General Anthroposophical
Society and its global headquarters, the Goetheanum in Switzerland.
These lectures were met with a mixture of enthusiastic support and
stern disapproval. They are reproduced here in full - together with
supplementary material that helps broaden and deepen their themes -
in order for each and every interested individual to have access to
them. 'The intention of my lecture was to draw attention to the
fact that the recent development of the Goetheanum is no longer
heading in the right direction; rather, it is heading in a
direction that can be considered neither in the spirit intended by
Rudolf Steiner, nor of service to anthroposophy. Before it is too
late, this direction must be altered...Otherwise, the Goetheanum is
in danger of being degraded to spiritual "insignificance", and of
becoming a mere combination of museum and conference centre.' -
Sergei O. Prokofieff
"Only in our time has it become possible once again to unlock the
sources of Rosicrucian wisdom and allow them to flow into the whole
of culture... Christian Rosenkreutz has always lived among us and
he is with us today too as the guide of spiritual life.... "The
spiritual stream related to Christian Rosenkreutz offers the most
potent assistance to those who strive to understand the Christ
impulse." -Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Steiner spoke often of the
relationship of Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science to
Rosicrucianism, but he spoke less of the being of Christian
Rosenkreutz himself. As he said, "To speak of Christian Rosenkreutz
presumes a profound trust in the mysteries of the life of the
spirit-a trust or faith not in the person of Christian Rosenkreutz,
but in the mysteries of spiritual life." For Steiner, Christian
Rosenkreutz was active in at least three ways. First, as one of the
"great leaders of humanity," he worked to bring esoteric
spirituality into the modern world and to lead it into the future.
Second, as "the greatest teacher of Christianity" he worked to
bring to humanity true "heart knowledge" of Christ through the
continued unveiling of the Mystery of Golgotha in the etheric.
Third, as a concrete, particular individual being, Steiner had a
living, actual, personal relationship with him. As such, because of
our failure to understand, Steiner called him "a noble
martyr...who, through his way of working, endured, and will in
future endure, more than any other person. I say 'person, ' for the
suffering of Christ was the suffering of a god." In the first part
of this inspiring book-a work of devotion both to Rudolf Steiner
and to Christian Rosenkreutz-Peter Selg, as "The Great Servant of
Christ Jesus," gives a detailed, chronological, and fascinating
account of Steiner's portrayal and, as much as possible,
experiences of Christian Rosenkreutz. He shows how Steiner had
essentially two teachers: the Master Jesus (Zoroaster) and
Christian Rosenkreutz. Moreover, Selg shows how these two, with
Rudolf Steiner, unfolded spiritual science for our time. In the
second part, he shows how all this culminates, astonishingly and
miraculously, in the Michael School as it manifested in the First
Class. Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz concludes with an
appendix containing the text of the original (1614) Fama, or
"Announcement of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood." Anyone interested in
the esoteric foundations of Anthroposophy or in the true meaning of
Rosicrucianism will be find this book of great value.
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