June 8, 2016

632 – Deathday of the prophet Muhammad in Medina.

793 – 1^st Viking raid in England, sack of the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria – the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.

1042 – Edward the Confessor becomes King of England, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England.

1191 – Richard the Lionheart (also known in Occitan as Oc e No (Yes and No), arrives in Palestine beginning his crusade

1768 – Death day of Johann Joachim Winckelmann a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman & Roman art. “The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology”, Winckelmann was the father of the discipline of art history. His writings influenced: Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, George, & Spengler. Winckelmann was homosexual, & open homoeroticism informed his writings on aesthetics. This was recognized by his contemporaries, such as Goethe

1783 – Laki, a volcano in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people & starts a seven-year famine

“…Now there are occasions when the very substance of the passions of the Fire-Earth begins to rebel. Aroused by men’s passions, it penetrates through the Fruit-Earth, forces its way through the channels in the upper layers and even flows up into and violently shakes the solid Earth: the result is an earthquake. If this passion from the Fire-Earth thrusts up some of the Earth’s substance, a volcano erupts. All this is closely connected with man. In Lemurian times, the upper layer was still very soft and the Fire-layer was near the surface. Human passions and the “passion-substance” of this layer are related; when men give rein to evil passions they strengthen its passions, and that is what happened at the end of Lemurian times. Through their passions the Lemurians made the Fire-Earth rebellious, and in this way they brought the whole Lemurian continent to destruction. No other cause for this destruction could be found except in what they had themselves drawn forth from the Earth. Today the layers are thicker and firmer, but there is still this connection between human passions and the passion-layer in the interior of the Earth; and it is still an accumulation of evil passions and forces that gives rise to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

How man’s destiny and will are related to happenings in the Earth can be seen from two examples which have been occultly investigated. It has been found that persons who have been killed in an earthquake appear in their next incarnation as men of high spiritual quality and faith. They had progressed far enough to be convinced by that final stroke of the transitoriness of earthly things. The effect of this in Devachan was that they learnt a lesson for their next lives: that matter is perishable but spirit prevails. They did not all come to realise that, but many of them are now living as people who belong to some spiritual-theosophical movement.

In the other example, the births which occurred during a time of frequent earthquakes were investigated. It was found that all those born at about the time of an earthquake, though not exactly in its area, were, surprisingly enough, men of a very materialistic cast of mind. The earthquakes were not the cause of this; rather it was these strongly materialistic souls, ripe for birth, who worked their way down into the physical world by means of their astral will and let loose the forces of the Fire-Earth layer, which proceeded to shake the Earth at the time of their birth.

Man transforms his dwelling-place and himself at the same time, and when he spiritualises himself, he spiritualises the Earth also. One day, at a later planetary stage, he will have ennobled the Earth by his own creative power. Every moment when we think and feel, we are working on the great structure of the Earth. The Leaders of mankind have insight into such relationships and seek to impart to men the forces which will work in the true direction of evolution”. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA095/English/RSPAP1986/19060904p01.html

“The following is an example of the relationship that exists between the human will and telluric cataclysms: in human beings who perish as a result of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions one notices, during their next incarnation, inner qualities which are quite different. They bring from birth great spiritual pre-dispositions because, through their death, they were brought in touch with forces which showed them the true nature of reality and the illusion of material life.

One has also noticed a relationship between certain births and seismic and volcanic catastrophes.

During such catastrophes materialistic souls incarnate, drawn sympathetically by volcanic phenomena — by the convulsions of the evil soul of the earth. And these births can in their turn bring about new cataclysms because reciprocally the evil souls exert an exciting influence on the terrestrial fire. The evolution of our planet is intimately connected with the evolution of the forces of humanity and civilizations.

Behind the objective laws of Nature there are in reality always spiritual laws; and a clairvoyant cannot, for instance, cross a dry piece of meadow land, or a flooded region, or perceive a volcanic eruption, without realising that spiritual powers, spiritual beings, are behind all phenomena in Nature. A volcanic eruption is for him also a moral deed, although the moral element may perhaps lie on an entirely different plane than we may, at first, imagine. Those who always confuse the physical and the higher worlds will say: — “If innocent people perish through a volcanic eruption, how can we suppose this to be a moral deed.” But at first, we need not consider this opinion; for it would be just as cruelly narrow-minded as the opposite one — namely, to consider this eruption as a punishment inflicted by God upon the people who live near the volcano. Both opinions are only the result of the narrow-minded mentality here on the physical plane. But this is not the point in question; far more universal things must be taken into consideration. Those people who live on the slopes of a volcano and whose possessions are destroyed through an eruption, are perhaps without any guilt in this life. But this will find its balance later on, and does not imply a merciless attitude on our part (to consider it as such would again be a narrow-minded interpretation of the facts). In the case of volcanic eruptions, for instance, we find that in the course of the evolution of the earth human beings cause to certain things; and because these things occur, the entire evolution of humanity is held up. For this very reason, good Gods must work in a certain way in order to establish the balance — and such phenomena in Nature sometimes bring about such a balance. Very often, this connection can be seen only by penetrating into occult depths. Thus, adjustments occur in the case of things brought about by human beings — things which are in opposition to the spiritual course of mankind’s true development. All events, even if they are mere phenomena of Nature, have something moral in their depths, and the bearers of this moral element; which lie behind the physical facts, are spiritual beings. Thus, if we imagine a world where it is impossible to speak of a division between the laws of Nature and spiritual laws — in other words, a world where justice rules as a law of Nature — then this world would be Devachan. And in Devachan we need not think that actions which deserve punishment are punished arbitrarily; for there, the immoral element destroys itself and the moral one progresses, with the same necessity with which a flame sets fire to combustible material”. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19120225p01.html

1794 – Robespierre inaugurates the French Revolution’s new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France

1876 – Deathday of Georges Sand born Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin

1867 – Birthday of Frank Lloyd Wright

1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value

1921 – Opening of the Ita Wegman Clinic in Arlesheim

1949 – The celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.

1949 – George Orwell’s book 1984 is published

1953  – Flint-Beecher Tornado ranks as one of the top ten single deadliest tornadoes in United States history. Rated as an F5 on the Fujita Scale, the tornado touched down in Genesee County, Michigan & continued on a 27 mile path causing 116 fatalities, 844 injuries & an estimated $19 million in damage on the northern edge of the city of Flint, Michigan. It was also part of the larger Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak of severe weather that began over Nebraska & Iowa, before moving east across the upper Great Lakes states & Ontario, & on to New York & New England causing more deadly tornadoes.

1953 – The United States Supreme Court rules that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons

1965 – Deathday of Eurythmist of Nora Stein-von Baditz, wife of Walter Johannes Stein, an Austrian philosopher, Waldorf school teacher, Grail researcher, & one of the pioneers of anthroposophy.

1966 – Topeka, Kansas, is devastated by a tornado that registers as an “F5” on the Fujita scale: The first to exceed US$100 million in damages

1967 – Israeli airplanes attacked the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean during the 6-Day War between Israel & its Arab neighbors. 34 U.S. Navy crewmen were killed. Israel later called the incident a tragic mistake due to the mis-identification of the ship. The U.S. has never publicly investigated the incident

2001 – Marc Chagall’s painting “Study for ‘Over Vitebsk” was stolen from the Jewish Museum in New York City. The 8×10 painting was valued at about $1 million. A group called the International Committee for Art & Peace later announced that they would return the painting after the Israelis & Palestinians made peace

2004 – The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882

~   ~   ~

~Even now

In the long pause of possibility

Quiet beneath its shell

There arises a wild song –

Oblong eggs waiting

To be cracked open…

~hag

~   ~   ~

Tomorrow I may begin a study of the Mysteries of Mid-Summer  & St. John’s Tide

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg