Christ and the Disciples: The Destiny of an Inner Community

Rudolf Steiner has said that we must learn to 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. To do this, it is essential to understand what took place between Christ and his disciples. In numerous lecture courses, Rudolf Steiner spoke about the inner community of the disciples, opening up perspectives that help us see how the disciples accompanied Christ Jesus during the three years of his earthly life and after the Resurrection. Especially in his lectures on the Fifth Gospel, Steiner shed light on the community of the disciples from the viewpoint of the processes of human consciousness that were intimately involved in the events at the beginning of the new era and were inscribed in the chronicle of evolution, the akashic record.

Dr. Peter Selg presents the most illuminating details of Rudolf Steiner’s research into the hidden events that took place between Christ and his disciples. For three years the disciples were close to Christ. They shared his life; they were there when he performed healings, and even when he prayed. These events and the instructions they received from Christ, often within their own intimate circle, away from public view, form a significant part not only of the four Gospels but also of the Mystery of Golgotha itself.

In view of the challenges to consciousness that we are facing now in our times, it seems urgently important that we study this inner community revealed by Rudolf Steiner’s research which found “the great new dawn that showed them the way after Pentecost.”

This volume is a translation from German of Christus und die Jünger: Vom Schicksal der inneren Gemeinschaft (Ita Wegman Institut 2009).

Peter Selg studied medicine in Witten-Herdecke, Zurich, and Berlin and, until 2000, worked as the head physician of the juvenile psychiatry department of Herdecke Hospital in Germany. Dr. Selg is director of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy (Arlesheim, Switzerland), professor of medicine at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Germany), and co-leader of the General Anthroposophical Section at the Goetheanum. He is the author of numerous books on Rudolf Steiner, anthroposophy, medical ethics, and the development of culture and consciousness.