The Mystery of the Earth: Essays in the Time of Coronavirus

"Rudolf Steiner himself did not just comment critically about the out-of-hand 'fear of bacilli' or the 'obsession with hygiene' as 'modern superstition, ' but also warned about the dangerous reality of 'pathogens of the worst kind' that could become 'destroyers of human life' and bring with 'dreadful epidemics.'"

This volume gathers a collection of essays on the medical, sociopolitical, and spiritual dimensions of the Covid crisis, written by Peter Selg between Easter and Pentecost 2020. He offers these essays as a means of orientation and of "explorations" (in Paul Celan's meaning). The author emphasizes in his preface, however, that representatives of Anthroposophy nevertheless have an obligation to speak out on the subject:

"If they silence or censor themselves because they do not want to seem in any way negative as a result of their critical reflections, or because even 'before corona' they quickly became the target of various accusations, they lose nothing less than the justification for their existence, their inner identity and credibility, as well as their 'historical conscience'--the crucial meaning of which Rudolf Steiner pointed to time and again and not without reason."

C O N T E N T S:

Foreword

The Mystery of the Earth
Where Are the Sources of Life to Be Found?
No Standing Still
Perspectives on Epidemic Infectious Diseases in the Work of Rudolf Steiner
A Medicalized Society?
The Difficult Way to the "Whitsun Path"

Appendices
Paris and the Fifth Gospel (2019)
"The Mystery of the Earth" (1929), by Ita Wegman

Notes

This book was originally published in German as Mysterium der Erde. Aufsätze zur Corona-Zeit (Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts, Arlesheim, Switzerland, 2020). An earlier English translation of the essay "A Medicalized Society?" (translated by Thomas O'Keefe and Charles Gunn) first appeared in Deepening Anthroposophy, no. 9.1. In this volume, that translation has been revised.

Author: Peter Selg
Publisher: Steiner Books
Published: 07/06/2021
Pages: 152
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.30d
ISBN: 9781621482567

About the Author
Selg, Peter: -

Born 1963, Stuttgart.

1986-1993 Study of human medicine at the University of Witten/Herdecke, in Berlin and Zurich. Doctoral thesis: Attempt to systematize Rudolf Steiner's human physiological ideas. An analysis of the entire lecture and written work (Witten/Herdecke 1995).

1993-2000 Further training as a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. Senior physician in the psychiatric department for adolescents and young adults at the Herdecke Community Hospital.

2000-2002 Research associate at the Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology (Freiburg).

2002-2006 Head physician at the Ita Wegman Clinic Arlesheim (adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy); since 2006 establishment and management of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Anthroposophical Research

Since 2007 professorship for medical anthropology and ethics at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Alfter near Bonn); teaching in the Studium fundamentale and in the accompanying studies in anthroposophic medicine at the University/Witten-Herdecke

Since 2020, co-leader of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Section of the School of Spiritual Science (Goetheanum)