Books by Peter Selg

"History does not repeat, but it does instruct."-- Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny)Since 2009, Peter Selg, along with Polish historians, has led seminars on medical ethics at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial for students at Witten / Herdecke University, Germany. This book was created following a public event in 2019 that investigated the "lessons of Auschwitz" for the practice of medicine in society today and in the future.As well as commemorating the individual victims, the Auschwitz event focused on the role of German physicians in the Nazi regime. In this book, Dr. Selg's discussions go far beyond the historical events of the 1930s and '40s. Countering the legacy of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the inhumane medical practices of that time, he presents us with ways to advance forms of medicine today that encourage the most compassionate treatment of one another as human beings."Today, as always in times of crisis, there are symptoms of a return, if not to Nazism, then to a right-wing regime that is strong, with a firm, streamlined order." -- Primo LeviOriginally published in German as Nach Auschwitz. Auseinandersetzungen um die Zukunft der Medizin by Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts, Stuttgart, 2020.

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.

"Their complete understanding of each other and those two great spirits passing into each other created an atmosphere, perceptible to all, that had bearing force and radiated hope for the future." --Marie Steiner-von SiversPeter Selg wrote this remarkable book on the formation of spiritual community and mutual assistance to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of Christian Morgenstern's death on March 31, 1914. Rudolf Steiner was, for Christian Morgenstern, the decisive spiritual teacher and facilitator of the future, both historically and to him as an individual, which is why Morgenstern wished to recommend Steiner for the Nobel Peace Prize. Rudolf Steiner felt great warmth of heart and gratitude toward Christian Morgenstern, his poetic work, and especially his groundbreaking way of working with anthroposophical Spiritual Science. "It is often said that to understand the poet we must go to his home country and understand that Christian Morgenstern is a poet of the spirit. And to understand this poet of the spirit, we must go into the land of spirit, to spirit regions." --Rudolf Steiner

Explores the complex and often misunderstood relationship between The Christian Community and the wider anthroposophical world.

The initial period of childhood is essentially about adapting to and incarnating on Earth and establishing a provisional balance between the "spiritual" and the "physical," between the prenatal cosmic and the earthly factors. During this time, according to Rudolf Steiner, "all the forces of a child's organization emanate from the neurosensory system. . . . By bringing respiration into harmony with neurosensory activity, we draw the spirit-soul element into the child's physical life." Peter Selg investigates how children's early experience of the world begins as an undifferentiated sensory relationship to their phenomenological environment. This aspect of a child's incarnation leads to learning through imitation and to the process of recognizing "the Other" as a separate entity with which to interact. In this cogent work, Peter Selg describes the early stages of childhood from the perspectives of conventional scientific and spiritual-scientific-- anthropological and anthroposophic--research with the purpose of encouraging a new educational attitude in working with young children. In his numerous references to early childhood development, this was Rudolf Steiner's most important and urgent purpose. ∞ ∞ ∞"Steiner directed attention to the special character of the senses in childhood, particularly in the first few years of life. Through their senses, children are fully exposed to (and to some extent at the mercy of) objects and people around them.... In many of his lectures, especially those dealing with education and developmental physiology, Rudolf Steiner emphasized that the anthropology of early childhood must not only recognize the child as a 'comprehensive' or 'universal' sense organ, but must also give that recognition top priority in any consideration of what is involved in the child's life and experiences. 'Children are completely like sense organs in how they take in the contents of their surroundings'" (from chapter 2).

"Then he gave her the Warmth Meditation and said that she was allowed to give it to all future participants. He wanted to give it to Dr. Wegman himself. It is a chain-meditation, not a circle-meditation. Then he described it as the way for medical practitioners to behold the etheric Christ." --Madeleine van DeventerRudolf Steiner wrote the text of the "Warmth Meditation" on two sheets of A4 paper in neat handwriting and without revisions or corrections, complete with two small, sketch-like drawings. He gave the meditation to the medical student Helene von Grunelius in early 1923 and "described it as the way for medical practitioners to behold the etheric Christ." It was intended for use by her and her circle of friends in their medical studies. The warmth meditation became their central esoteric medical meditation and has been maintained and practiced by countless individuals during the past eight decades, becoming for many the existential core of their therapeutic practice and perspective. Peter Selg's insightful book describes the historical context of meditation and some of its spiritual implications. Included are reproductions of the original meditation as written down by Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman."You detect at this point what life, which has poured into the world, actually is. Where can the source of this life be found? It can be found in what stirs the moral ideals and prompts us to say that if we allow ourselves to be filled by the light of moral ideals today, they will bear life, matter, and light and create worlds. We carry that world-creating element, and the moral ideal is the source of all that creates worlds."--Rudolf Steiner

On 1 June 1914, Rudolf Steiner spoke in Basel for the last time before the outbreak of World War I, and for the last time ever in all his lectures and writings about the Nathan soul and its relationship with the Mystery of Golgotha. This internal lecture, given only for members of the Anthroposophical Society, concluded a series of profound Christological reflections begun on September 20, 1913, at the laying of the foundation stone for the St. John's building (the first Goetheanum) in nearby Dornach and culminating (four weeks before the Sarajevo assassination that sparked the Great War) in the motif of "selflessness," whose importance for the future Steiner stressed with great and unmistakable emphasis. This study by Peter Selg-appearing on the centennial of the beginning of that war-focuses on the development of key motifs in Steiner's lectures in the immediate prewar period: the "Fifth Gospel," the Nathan soul, and Christ's act of sacrifice. Also contained here is the entire text of Rudolf Steiner's lecture in Basel on June 1, 1914, whose important words of introduction have appeared only once before, in the Goetheanum newsletter in 1936. This book was originally published in German as Die Leiden der nathanischen Seele: Anthroposophische Christologie am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkriegs (Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts, Arlesheim, Switzerland, 2014).

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 Überwindung. Ita Wegman 1933-1935 by Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, 2005.

The first time all of Steiner's comments on the Lord's Prayer have been presented together.

"Originally published in German by Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts 2011 as Ich bin anders als du. Vom Selbst- und Welterleben des Kindes in der Mitte der Kindheit"--T.p. verso.

Maria Krehbiel-Darmstdter (18921943), 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 Pyrnes 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 historys 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-Darmstdter as Mre 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.

"Originally published in German 2009 by Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts as Der geistige Kern der Waldorfschule"--Title page verso.

The author describes the context in which Rudolf Steiner expressed his idea of "the fundamental social law" and how much it meant to him, and how, when his ideas fell on barren ground, he selflessly laid them aside, while holding them in his heart in hope of a more opportune moment. He goes on to show how this moment came after World War I, when Steiner dedicated himself tirelessly to his proposed idea of the Threefold Social Organism, lecturing extensively on economics and social policy. Finally, in the final, extraordinarily moving chapter, Selg shows the essential Christ- (and Gospel-) inspired nature of Steiners ideas.

Originally published in German as: "Ich bin fur Fortschreiten": Ita Wegman und die Medizinische Sektion. Natur Verlag im Verlag am Goetheanum. c2002.

Rudolf Steiner said that one could hear the words of the meditation sounding in ones heart. This process of hearing will acquire even more significance and reality in future, and can be of enormous help to anyone who opens themselves to it. It is against this background that Selg has written this introductory book: to promote awareness of the meditation, understanding of its historic place in the catastrophic twentieth century, and its critical but latent contribution to the future.

"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 SteinerRudolf 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."All those interested in the esoteric foundations of Anthroposophy or in the true meaning of Rosicrucianism will be find this book of great value.

"Following Rudolf Steiner's death, the mysteries cannot be revealed further at the present time, but we must continue to cultivate a living, not only rational but also ritual, continuity of the mystery contents he has given, passing them to people who did not know Rudolf Steiner and yet seek to connect with him esoterically and not just intellectually." -- Ludwig Count Polzer-HoditzSince Rudolf Steiner's death in 1925, little has been written about the "First Class" of the School for Spiritual Science in Dornach. The Class continues as an esoteric institution in the hearts of its disciples and in the mantras and meditations. This meditative work is hidden from view, yet, behind the scenes, it lives on in the inner striving for development of soul and spirit that is part of any mystery school. Rudolf Steiner himself guarded the content of the Class Lessons strictly, only intimating to members of the General Society that his esoteric school existed and how it worked.In this book, Peter Selg provides a context for the "reading" of the Class Lessons, the School for Spiritual Science itself, as well as for Rudolf Steiner's intentions for such an esoteric undertaking. The School for Spiritual Science was the work of an initiate, and through the esoteric collaboration of Rudolf Steiner and those who worked with him a Christian mystery center began to unfold. But Steiner's aim has not yet been achieved. Intense work is still needed for its realization--unwavering efforts with awareness of the foundations Rudolf Steiner laid down and consciousness of the mystery dimension of the endeavor.As an aspect of that wider mystery dimension, Peter Selg also looks back to Ita Wegman as Rudolf Steiner's "helper" in the First Class. He seeks to leave behind the conflicts of the 1920s and 1930s as Ita Wegman herself left them behind her. As Ita Wegman said, "For me the matter is settled. There are so many misunderstandings that I consider it better to leave things well alone. We all thought we were doing the right thing. Looking forward is more important now than looking back."In its exploration of the First Class, Rudolf Steiner and the School for Spiritual Science provides a much-needed perspective on what ought to be at the very heart of Anthroposophy and the movement for Spiritual Science that Rudolf Steiner brought into the world.

"Originally published in German by Verlag am Goetheanum 2003 as Mysterium cordis: Von der Mysterienst'atte des Menschenherzens Studien zur sakramentalen Physiologie des Herzorgans, Aristoleles, Thomas von Aquin, Rudolf Steiner. Second edition in German, Verlag am Goetheanum 2006, Dornach, Switzerland"--T.p verso.

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 wars end with the full intensity of her being. This book contributes to documenting the final phase of Ita Wegmans 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.