“All we can do is try to gain a clear picture of the situation and really live with that knowledge. We must remember that thoughts are actual, dynamic forces. All we can do now is think matters through clearly. Living with these true thoughts for just two days before being drawn in again by the black magic of journalism will make a difference. And the time might come when we can use this to bring something about or get someone else to do something.” —Rudolf Steiner, Jan. 13, 1917
In volume 4, Peter Selg’s exploration into Rudolf Steiner’s life and work focuses on the period of World War I. Steiner saw that dark time as largely the result of mounting economic tensions between England and Germany, marked by unsustainable materialistic and nationalistic thinking. In his view, the prevalent social concepts resisted evolution toward a form of society that would enable a long-term future peace; he would soon propose his alternative in the form of the “threefold nature of the social organism” to maintain societal health, sovereign and mutually interdependent relations among the three principal domains of social life: the political, economic, and cultural–spiritual realms.
This volume describes a dramatic period during which Rudolf Steiner showed competence and devotion in his attempts to communicate and implement a long-term path to peaceful relations in Europe. His lectures during this time focused heavily on themes of inwardly accompanying those who have died; caring for the wounded; the importance of selflessly experiencing the full tragic reality of world events; and the vital importance of truthfulness in journalism. He regarded the deficiency of truthful reporting to be so dire that he considered founding a news organization in Switzerland.
Steiner’s deep concern for the tragedy that had befallen Europe, for the many lives violently cut short, and for the political exploitation attempted in the aftermath of the war led him to imbue his anthroposophic activity with a fundamentally new gesture, focusing on practical contributions to society in a way never before attempted in the anthroposophical movement.
Rudolf Steiner, Life and Work, Seven Volumes
Vol. 1. (1861–1890): Childhood, Youth, and Study Years
(ISBN: 9781621480822 Pbk – ISBN: 9781621480839 Hbk)
Vol. 2. (1890–1900): Weimar and Berlin
(ISBN: 9781621480853 Pbk – ISBN: 9781621480860 Hbk)
Vol. 3. (1900–1914): Spiritual Science and Spiritual Community
(ISBN: 9781621480884 Pbk – ISBN: 9781621480891 Hbk)
Vol. 4. (1914–1918): The Years of World War I
(ISBN: 9781621481577 Pbk – ISBN: 9781621481584 Hbk)
Vol. 5. (1919–1922): Social Threefolding and the Waldorf School
(ISBN: 9781621481935 Pbk – ISBN: 9781621481942 Hbk)
Vol. 6. (1923): The Burning of the Goetheanum
(ISBN: 9781621482192 Pbk – ISBN: 9781621482208 Hbk)
Vol. 7. (1924–1925): The Anthroposophical Society and the School for Spiritual Science
(ISBN: 9781621482321 Pbk – ISBN: 9781621482338 Hbk)
was born in 1963 in Stuttgart and studied medicine in Witten-Herdecke, Zurich, and Berlin. Until 2000, he worked as the head physician of the juvenile psychiatry department of Herdecke hospital in Germany. Dr. Selg is now director of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy (Arlesheim, Switzerland) and professor of medicine at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Germany). He lectures extensively and is the author of numerous books, including Seeing Christ in Sickness and Healing
(2005); The Therapeutic Eye
(2008); A Grand Metamorphosis;
(2008); The Figure of Christ
(2009); Rudolf Steiner as a Spiritual Teacher
(2010); and Rudolf Steiner and the Fifth Gospel
(2010). He is married with five children.
Margot M. Saar studied at the Universität des Saarlandes, at Open University, UK, and at Institut für Waldorfpädagogik Witten Annen, Germany. She is an experienced translator and interpreter in specialty fields (education, medicine, philosophy, anthroposophy, homeopathy, anthroposophic medicine, general science). She has been a foreign language teacher at Michael House School Derbyshire, UK, a teacher of foreign languages and philosophy, exam officer, and upper school mentor at Michael Hall School, East Sussex, and translator of technical manuals and legal contracts, international correspondence, office management at Hüls Troisdorf AG Witten Germany. Margot has translated numerous books for SteinerBooks, including Peter Selg's 7-volume biography of Rudolf Steiner.