"This biography does not aim for completeness, but focuses on Rudolf Steiner's being, intentions, and journey-aspects that must not be obliterated by the many events, foundations, and people involved with Anthroposophy.... It wants to convey (to quote Emil Leinhas) 'the immense greatness and unique significance of this individuality who radiates out over the centuries.'" -Peter Selg (from the introduction) To acknowledge and understand Rudolf Steiner's unique achievement and life's work, one must be able to accept that the founder and spiritual researcher of Anthroposophy was "a citizen of two worlds" the spiritual and the physical. Anthroposophy teaches that this duality, rather than being a quality reserved for special individualities, is inherent to human nature. According to Rudolf Steiner, it is a central aspect of being human, even in times when the suprasensory aspect of humanity is eclipsed (for ordinary day consciousness) and almost eliminated by certain civilizations. The interest in Rudolf Steiner's person and essence, in his attitude toward life and work, will continue to grow in the decades and centuries that lie ahead, both within and outside the anthroposophical movement. It will take hold of entirely different groups of people, including those who come with spiritual questions or discover them in times of need. Rudolf Steiner's work grew to be "one unique effort of bringing courage to human beings" (Michael Bauer). This is the first of seven comprehensive volumes on Rudolf Steiner's "being, intentions, and journey." It presents Rudolf Steiner from childhood and youth through his doctorate degree and up to the time of his work for the Goethe Archives as editor of Goethe's scientific writings. By considering his formative years in depth, we come to understand better the roots and development of Rudolf Steiner's later spiritual research and teachings.

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.

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).

"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.

This thought-, feeling-, and will-provoking book of reflections by Peter Selg and Sergei Prokofieff on the soul-spiritual, ethical, and medicaltherapeutic issues surrounding physician-assisted suicide (and suicide as such) takes its inspiration from both Rudolf Steiner and the ancient Greek Hippocratic Oath. Peter Selg begins by showing how, for Rudolf Steiner, the principle of life-as immanent spirit and the living medium of the "I" or individuality-is inviolable and wise beyond our reckoning. It is the sacred task of healing always to attend to, honor, and serve life in this sense: to affirm, enhance, and strengthen the life-forces of the sick. As Rudolf Steiner puts it: "The will to heal must always function as therapeutically as possible... even when one thinks the sick person is incurable." Though these words were spoken before the full consummation of materialist, technologically-enhanced medicine, Rudolf Steiner, as Peter Selg demonstrates, was well aware of the dangers of where medicine was heading. Sergei Prokofieff links the initiatory origins of Hippocratic medicine in the Mysteries with the return of the Mystery origin of medicine and healing in Anthroposophical medicine. Turning to Rudolf Steiner's spiritual research, he considers suicide as an "illness" of our time and examines the spiritual consequences of suicide for the after-death experiences of those who have taken their own life: namely, that suicide results in the soul's profound disorientation. He then goes on to show how suicide makes the after-death experience of Christ infinitely more difficult, as it does the "resurrection of the spirit" and the relation to the spiritual world. Far from being a "free" act, he concludes, suicide is quite the opposite. Anyone seeking insight into suicide will find here a profound and esoteric introduction to the problem.

In two related studies, Peter Selg tracks the groundbreaking of first Goetheanum from September 20, 1913, in the context of the so-called Michael movement, the primary active pulse brought by Rudolf Steiner in 1924 that explicitly indicates the anthroposophic movement and its formal society. The author shows the fundamental importance of this beginning in Dornach. He illuminates the fateful goal of the "School of Spiritual Science" with Rudolf Steiner's karma lectures, not only providentially in sense that it involved individualities, but also with regard to the future progress of human civilization. This monograph builds on Peter Selg's book Rudolf Steiner's Foundation Stone Meditation: And the Destruction of the Twentieth Century and Sergei O. Prokofieff's Rudolf Steiner's Sculptural Group: A Revelation of the Spiritual Purpose of Humanity and the Earth. Originally published in German as Grundstein zur Zukunft. Vom Schicksal der Michael-Gemeinschaft by Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts, 2013.

From 1933 to 1935, Ita Wegman was confronted by both Nazi fascism and internal crises in the General Anthroposophical Society. During those years, she traveled to Palestine in the fall of 1934 following a grave illness that nearly ended with her death. Her correspondence during this period, as well as her notes on the trip, reveal the great biographical importance to her of these travels and indeed the whole scope of her spiritual experiences in 1934. Ita Wegman had unambiguous perspectives and a uniquely clear view of both the political threat and her social-spiritual task during this period. There was, however, a radical change in her inner stance toward the opposition, aggression, and defamation she encountered within anthroposophic contexts in reaction to her intense, purely motivated efforts. She tried to live and work in true accord with her inner impulses and, ultimately, with Rudolf Steiner's legacy, especially within the anthroposophic movement. Doing so, she increasingly found her way to her own distinctive and uncompromising path. The author reveals the general nature of those three years-a period whose distinctive spiritual and Christological task and dramatic dangers Rudolf Steiner had foreseen in 1923: "If these men the Nazis] gain government power, I will no longer be able to set foot on German soil." Ita Wegman's efforts in 1933 to confront the dark powers of National Socialism and the convulsions in Dornach, which she experienced firsthand, as well as her subsequent illness and the clarity of her "Christological conversion" in 1934 to '35, reveal a very specific, intrinsically comprehensible and forward-looking quality whose spiritual signature is clearly prefigured in Rudolf Steiner's spiritual-scientific predictions. In this book, Peter Selg focuses exclusively on Ita Wegman, her development, and her words, simply presenting the processes she went through and, implicitly, their extraordinary spiritual nature, without any attempt at interpretation. This focus arises from the governing premise that the mysteries of a great life such as that of Ita Wegman reveal themselves in the details. Tracing the subtle steps in her life allow us deeper insight into Ita Wegman's being. She herself wrote, "In general meetings or gatherings, people always understood me poorly because I lacked a smooth way of expressing myself. But people of goodwill always understood what I meant." This book was originally published in German as Geistiger Widerstand und Uberwindung. Ita Wegman 1933-1935 by Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, 2005.

"This biography does not aim for completeness, but focuses on Rudolf Steiner's being, intentions, and journey-aspects that must not be obliterated by the many events, foundations, and people involved with Anthroposophy.... It wants to convey (to quote Emil Leinhas) 'the immense greatness and unique significance of this individuality who radiates out over the centuries.'" -Peter Selg (from the introduction) To acknowledge and understand Rudolf Steiner's unique achievement and life's work, one must be able to accept that the founder and spiritual researcher of Anthroposophy was "a citizen of two worlds" the spiritual and the physical. Anthroposophy teaches that this duality, rather than being a quality reserved for special individualities, is inherent to human nature. According to Rudolf Steiner, it is a central aspect of being human, even in times when the suprasensory aspect of humanity is eclipsed (for ordinary day consciousness) and almost eliminated by certain civilizations. The interest in Rudolf Steiner's person and essence, in his attitude toward life and work, will continue to grow in the decades and centuries that lie ahead, both within and outside the anthroposophical movement. It will take hold of entirely different groups of people, including those who come with spiritual questions or discover them in times of need. Rudolf Steiner's work grew to be "one unique effort of bringing courage to human beings" (Michael Bauer). This is the first of seven comprehensive volumes on Rudolf Steiner's "being, intentions, and journey." It presents Rudolf Steiner from childhood and youth through his doctorate degree and up to the time of his work for the Goethe Archives as editor of Goethe's scientific writings. By considering his formative years in depth, we come to understand better the roots and development of Rudolf Steiner's later spiritual research and teachings.

"Occult events that took place between the Christ and the community of his disciples form a significant part not only of the four Gospels but also of the Christ Mystery or Golgotha Mystery itself. Today, many human souls are still moved by this apostolic community, by how the disciples accompanied Christ Jesus, by their place in history (as an esoteric circle charged with an exoteric task), by their failures, and by the great new dawn that showed them the way after Pentecost...For three years, they were close to Christ, shared his life, and received a great deal of instruction from him, often in their own intimate circle away from public view. They were there when Christ performed healings and even when he prayed.... "Rudolf Steiner once said that we in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries must live with the 'etheric Christ' in the Earth's aura in the same way that 'the disciples once lived with Christ Jesus on the physical plane.' If this is so, it is essential for us to focus on the community of Christ's disciples. Rudolf Steiner himself made major contributions to illuminating the depths of the disciples' relationship and life with the Christ, both during the three years of his earthly life and after the Resurrection. An essential element of Steiner's life work was to apply 'anthroposophically oriented cognition' to events of the beginning of the Christian era in order to 'bring the Gospels' deeper content to the light of day.' He spoke in detail about the Christ's community of disciples in many lecture cycles, and, in his lectures on the Fifth Gospel, he shed light on this community from the perspective of the processes of human consciousness that were intimately involved in events at the beginning of the new era and inscribed in the chronicle of evolution.... "In his lectures on the Fifth Gospel and elsewhere, Rudolf Steiner opened up many perspectives that help us understand what took place between Christ and his disciples. This book's purpose is to make those perspectives available and accessible. Although all of Steiner's statements have been published, they are widely scattered among his lectures and remain unknown to many individuals deeply committed to the community of Christ's disciples and to anthroposophical Christology. In view of the challenges to consciousness we face in modern times-including those that deal with Christianity and the Christ Event itself-it seems urgently important to present details of the positive and often illuminating results of Rudolf Steiner's research." As is true of other works by Peter Selg, Christ and the Disciples is one of those books that sharpens the reader's mind to cut through the myriad of representation (and misrepresentations) of Rudolf Steiner's teachings, clarifying many otherwise-knotty issues.

"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).

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.

Maria Krehbiel-Darmstadter (1892-1943), who was killed at Auschwitz, was a highly gifted pupil of Rudolf Steiner and a member of The Christian Community. Born into a Jewish family in Mannheim, she was deported to Gurs camp in the Pyrenees on October 22, 1940, where she survived harsh conditions and helped many of her fellow inmates. Following temporary sick-leave (under police supervision) in Limonest near Lyon, and a failed attempt to flee to Switzerland, she was brought to Drancy transit camp near Paris before being taken to Auschwitz. This book offers unique testimony of an individual rooted in esoteric Christianity and Spiritual Science who found sources of inner resistance during one of history's darkest periods. As the portrait of a highly ethical and sorely tried woman amid catastrophic conditions, it describes her existential efforts to summon powers of concentration, meditation, and dedication to others, showing how these continued to inform her outlook and actions to the very end. Polish Jews in Drancy referred to Maria Krehbiel-Darmstadter as Mere Maria. They experienced her distinctive spirituality and personal qualities and a profound religiosity that retained an inner connection with the Christian sacramental world, even in the most desolate circumstances. From Gurs to Auschwitwitz adds an important voice to literature on the Holocost and shines a light on the nature of spiritual, inner resistance during the dark years of World War II in Europe.

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.

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

From 2009 to 2010, Sergei Prokofiev and Peter Selg-two leading authorities and spiritual researchers into the life and work of Rudolf Steiner-gave a series of conferences on the Christological foundations of Anthroposophy. Their aim was to show the power of anthroposophic Christology. Consequently, they focused on key turning points in Rudolf Steiner's exposition: his major work, An Outline of Esoteric Science; the first Goetheanum; the Reappearance of Christ in the etheric realm and the relationship of this event to Rudolf Steiner's lectures on the Fifth Gospel; and the Christmas Conference (1923-24) and the founding of the New Mysteries. The lectures from the conferences (published as four booklets in German) are collected here in a single volume. The Creative Power of Anthroposophical Christology is essential reading for all those who are interested in the true meaning and depth of Rudolf Steiner's experience and understanding of Christ's deed on Golgotha and his continuing presence among us and within Anthroposophy.

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.