Perseus Verlag Basel was founded in 1990 by Thomas H. Meyer.

The founding of the publishing house developed from two impulses.
On the one hand, from Meyer’s contemplation of the life of D. N. Dunlop (1868-1935). Dunlop, a friend of W. B. Yeats and the poet-painter “AE”, was one of the first admirers of the works of H.P. Blavatsky and Mabel Collins (1851-1927). He became an outstanding economist and brilliant organizer, founded the World Power Conference in 1924 and planned to establish a World Economic Conference in order to pave the way for the realization of the idea of the threefold nature of the social organism. He had met Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in 1922, organized the first anthroposophical summer schools and became General Secretary of the English National Society of the Anthroposophical Society, a post he held until his expulsion in 1935. Dunlop wrote several books and published various journals; his publishing activities encompassed both practical and spiritual aspects and it was precisely this connection that inspired the founding of the publishing house.

The other impulse that led to the founding of the publishing house was the need for a truly independent forum for concrete, free intellectual life, which emerged from a purely individual initiative and is in no way connected to or dependent on any current political, economic or intellectual institution.

The name Perseus harks back to Greek mythology, to the eponymous conqueror of Medusa, whose gaze kills anyone who looks directly into her face. Medusa represents ancient, pre-rational forces that Perseus can only defeat by using his intellect and looking at them reflected in the mirror of his shield.
Objective

In the spirit of the publisher’s name, the products of Perseus Verlag are intended to help overcome all kinds of irrationalisms of our time – nationalism, racism, the identification of science with natural science, fearful anti-spiritualism, etc. In the field of history and contemporary history, such irrationalisms also underlie many views on Germany today, on Germany’s role in the outbreak of the First World War, on the unification of Europe or on American foreign policy. The reflections of Andreas Bracher (born 1960) and the biography of Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz (1869-1945), among others, aim to shed light on the questions associated with such keywords. There is also a still little recognized connection between the non-adoption of spiritual worldview elements such as the ideas of reincarnation and karma or the rational category of the “demonic” and the possibility of the Holocaust and subsequent catastrophes. Introducing a category such as the demonic into all historical observation was already the demand of the important historian Friedrich Meinecke. It was most concretely fulfilled in Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science.

The fact that Steiner’s attempt to supplement natural science with a science of the spiritual elements of existence has still not been taken up enough by the cultural public has led not only Germany but the whole world into a new kind of abyss. This abyss is much deeper than the one that opened up in the fabric of contemporary human life as a result of the terrible events of September 11, 2001. Several of the publisher’s publications are therefore committed in one way or another to a better understanding of R. Steiner’s spiritual science, which is entirely accessible to common sense, but also to ensuring that it is not confused with all kinds of irrational or religiously bound spiritual worldviews. The life and work of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (1899-1961) can also be used to illustrate the extent to which Steiner’s spiritual science references can also lead to the development of a new technique based on an understanding of the etheric.

However, in line with the two founding impulses, the program is not only aimed at those interested in the humanities, but at every thinking contemporary. Perseus publications aim to awaken a greater understanding of the fact that behind all material, political and religious differences and catastrophes ultimately lies a crisis of consciousness in modern man. The latter is on the threshold of new insights into the fundamental spiritual character of the world, including the material world.

The difficulty of learning to cross this threshold courageously and prudently can be seen as the basic difficulty of modern man. The strength of young people’s need to really cross this threshold in terms of experience can be seen, for example, in the youthful works of Barbro Karlén (born 1954).