16 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”:Mars continues to add luster to Taurus the Bull this week. And this evening, the Red Planet passes north of the constellation’s brightest star, Aldebaran. Mars appears slightly fainter than Aldebaran, above the western horizon an hour after sundown & doesn’t set until after Midnight.
Mars by Gray Crawford
The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 5:05 pm CDT.
According
to Dr. Steiner TODAY is the birthday of Aaron = mountain of strength, illuminator –
born in Egypt three years before his brother Moses, & after his sister
Miriam.
When the time for the Exodus out of Egypt came, Aaron was the “mouth” or “prophet” of Moses, because he was gifted speaker.
When
Moses ascended the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, Aaron was
permitted to accompany him part of the way, & to behold the manifestation
in the burning bush.
Later
the chiefs of the tribes were each required to bring Moses a rod bearing the
name of his tribe. These were laid overnight in the tabernacle, & in the
morning it was found that Aaron’s rod “for the house of Levi” budded,
blossomed, & yielded almonds. Aaron was able to turn that rod into a snake
to try & persuade the Pharaoh to ‘Let the people go’.
Aaron was considered a type of Christ figure in his official character as the 1st high priest, & was intended to lead the people of Israel to look forward to the time when “another priest” would arise “after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:20).
1889- Birthday of Charlie Chaplin, English actor, director, producer, screenwriter, & composer
1828
– Death-day of the painter Francisco de Goya
In
1944, during World War II, the allied forces start bombing for the 1st time in
Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. It was Orthodox Easter.
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Today I am Earth reborn in the hands of the potter Who gathered me, who molded me In Fire & Air with the waters of life… ~hag
***
And so we continue during this the Ecclesiastical Holy Week with the synopsis I created of the lectures Rudolf Steiner gave during the Easter Paradox of 1924. It is very telling to actually investigate the specific topics he chose to relate. Today we look at the 1st lecture in the series given to the Anthroposophical Society during the ‘Easter Paradox’ of 1924:
The Easter Festival in relation to
the Mysteries 19-22 April 1924, Dornach
The Adonis Mystery. The Easter
Thought: 19 April 1924: To understand the Easter festival, we must recognize
the many customs & sacred ceremonies associated with this mystery, which has
spoken for centuries to the heart of human beings, in the course of historic
evolution.
In the ancient Mysteries, the festival of Death, the lying in the Grave &
the Resurrection was enacted at the Autumn season, an initiation into the rites
of Adonis.
In the course of evolution the human being became less able to penetrate
into spiritual, losing the inner understanding which once told them that when
outer Nature appears to die, the life of the Spirit can then truly be seen as a
resurrection.
So it was no longer possible for Autumn to be the time of the Resurrection
Festival. The human being now needs the support of material things, needs the
support of what springs forth again in Nature. The human being needs to connect
the Resurrection Festival with the force of the seed which is resurrected in
outer Nature – needs the support of external Nature- needs to see how the
plants spring out of the Earth, how the Sun increases in strength, how light
& warmth increase in strength once more. Humanity needs the Resurrection in
Nature in order to celebrate the thought of the Resurrection.
Our modern festival of Michaelmas can be a bridge from the past to the
future.
“Anthroposophy itself must become like an inner festival of Resurrection for the human soul. It must bring an Easter mood into humanity’s world-conception. This will indeed be possible if it is understood how the thought of the ancient Mysteries can live on in the true Easter thought. “
Tomorrow we will continue to examine this telling series, which clearly shows that Steiner is speaking about the Southern Mysteries of the Shepherds to the Magi, those folks primarily of the Northern system that occupied the Anthroposophical Society of that time.
Irene Olid Gonzalez.
Blessings on this Holy Tuesday where we experience in the life of Christ the conflict with his opponents & the bending of the Mars spirit to His purposes, where an Apocalyptic future is revealed.
15 April 2019 – “Speaking with the stars”: The annual Lyrid meteor shower ramps up this week. Although the shower won’t peak until the morning of April 23, you should see a few meteors in the predawn hours before then despite the presence of a bright Moon. Lyrids appear to come from the constellation Lyra the Harp.
1452 – The Birthday of Leonardo da Vinci – According to the spiritual scientific research of Rudolf Steiner this individuality incarnated before as Augustine, Judas Maccabee & then as Judas Iscariot .
“What is inscribed in the Akasha
Chronicle between the earth and the moon is of special importance because it is
there that among other things all imperfections are recorded. It should be
realized that the inscribing of these imperfections is governed by the view
that every record there is of significance for the individual’s own evolution,
either furthering or hindering his progress. Because it is there inscribed in
the Akasha Chronicle between earth and moon, it also becomes significant for
the evolution of the earth as a whole. The imperfections of really great men
are also recorded in that sphere. One example of tremendous interest for
clairvoyant observation is Leonardo da Vinci. He is a spirit of greatness and
universality equaled by few others on earth, but compared with what he intended,
his actual achievements in the external world in many respects remained
incomplete. As a matter of fact, no man of similar eminence left as much
uncompleted as Leonardo da Vinci. The consequence of this was that a colossal
amount was inscribed by him in the Moon sphere, so much indeed that one is
often bound to exclaim, “How could all that is inscribed there possibly have
reached perfection on the earth!”
At this point I want to tell you of something that seemed to me quite significant when I was studying Leonardo da Vinci. I was to give a lecture about him in Berlin and a particular observation made in connection with him seemed to be extremely important. It fills one with sadness today to see on the wall of the Church of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan the rapidly disappearing colors that now convey no more than a faint shadow of what the picture once was. If we remember that Leonardo took sixteen years to paint this picture, and think of how he painted it, we gain a definite impression. It is known that he would often go away for a long time. Then he would return to the picture, sit in front of it or many hours, make a few strokes with the brush and go off again. It is also known that many times he felt unable to express what he wished in the painting and suffered terrible fits of depression on this account. Now it happened that a new prior was appointed to the monastery at a time when Leonardo had already been working at the picture for many years. This prior was a pedantic and strict disciplinarian with little understanding of art. He asked impatiently why the painter could not finish the picture, reproached him for it and also complained to Duke Ludovico. The Duke repeated the complaint to Leonardo and he answered, “I do not know whether I shall ever be able to complete this picture. I have prototypes in life for all the figures except those of Judas and Christ. For them I have no models, although in the case of Judas, if no model turns up I can always take the prior. But for the Christ I have no prototype.” That, however, is digressing.
What I want to say is that when one
looks today at the figure of Judas in the picture that has almost completely
faded, a shadow is to be seen on this figure, a shadow that cannot be explained
in any way, either by the instreaming light or by anything else. Occult
investigation finds that the painting was never as Leonardo da Vinci really
wanted it to be. With the exception of the figures of Judas and the Christ he
wanted to portray everything through light and shadow, but Judas was to be
portrayed in such a way as to give the impression that darkness dominated the
countenance from within. This was not intended to be conveyed by external
contrasts of light and shadows. In the figure of Christ the impression was to be
that the light on His countenance was shining from within, radiating outwards
from within. But at this point disharmony beset Leonardo’s inner life, and the
effect he desired was never produced. This affords a clue when one is observing
the many remaining inscriptions made by Leonardo in the Moon sphere. It is an
example of something that could not be brought to fulfillment in the earth
sphere.
When the period following that of
Leonardo da Vinci is investigated, it is found that Leonardo continued to work
through a number of those who lived after him. Even externally there can be
found in Leonardo’s writings things that later on were demonstrated by
scientists and also by artists. In fact, the whole subsequent period was under
his influence. It is then discovered that the inscribed imperfections worked as
inspirations into the souls of Leonardo’s successors, into the souls of men who
lived after him.
The imperfections of an earlier epoch
are still more important for the following epoch than its perfections. The
perfections are there to be studied, but what has been elaborated to a certain
degree of perfection on the earth has, as it were, reached an end, has come to
a conclusion in evolution. What has not been perfected is the seed of the
following divine evolutionary process. Here we come to a remarkable,
magnificent paradox. The greatest blessing for a subsequent period is the
fruitful imperfection, the fruitful, justifiable imperfection of an earlier
period. What has been perfected in an earlier epoch is there to be enjoyed.
Imperfection, however, imperfection originating in great men whose influences
have remained for posterity, helps to promote creative activity in the
following period. Hence, there is obviously tremendous wisdom in the fact that
imperfections remain in the neighborhood of the earth, inscribed in the records
of the Akasha Chronicle between earth and moon.
This brings us to the point where we can begin to understand the principle that perfection signifies for the different epochs the end of a stream of evolution, and imperfection, the beginning of an evolutionary stream. For imperfection in this sense men should actually be thankful to the gods.” ~Rudolf Steiner Life Between Death and Rebirth Man’s Journey through the Cosmic Spheres after Death
“Among the five sons of Mattathias is one who is already called Judas in the Old Testament. He was the one who at that time fought more bravely than all the others for his own people. In his whole soul he was dedicated to his people, and it was he who was successful in forming an alliance with the Romans against King Antiochus of Syria (I Maccabees, Chap. 8). This Judas (Maccabeus =The Hammer) is the same who later had to undergo the test of the betrayal, because he who was most intimately bound up with the old specifically Hebrew element, could not at once find the transition into the Christian element, needing the severe testing of the betrayal. Again, if we look at the purely artistic aspect, how wonderfully do the two figures stand out: the grand figure of the Judas in the last chapters of the Old Testament and the Judas of the New Testament. It is remarkable that in this symptomatic process, the Judas of the Old Testament concluded an alliance with the Romans, prefiguring all that happened later, namely the path that Christianity took through the Roman Empire, so that it could enter into the world. If I could add to this something that can also be known but that cannot be given in a lecture to an audience as large as this, you would see that it was precisely through a later reincarnation of Judas that the fusion of the Roman with the Christian element occurred. The reincarnated Judas was the first who, as we might say, had the great success of spreading Romanized Christianity in the world. The treaty concluded by the Judas of the Old Testament with the Romans was the prophetic foreshadowing of what was later accomplished by another man, who is recognized by occultists as the reincarnation of that Judas who had to go through the severe soul-testing of the betrayal. What through his later influence appears as Christianity within Romanism and Romanism within Christianity is like a renewal of the alliance concluded between the Old Testament Judas and the Romans, but transferred into the spiritual.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of Mark: Lecture 2
“If we let his “Last Supper” work on
us, we find two things of which we can say that they do not altogether agree
with Leonardo’s view of the principles of painting. One is the figure of Judas.
From the reproductions and also to a certain extent from the shadowy painting
in Milan, one gets the impression that Judas is quite covered in shadow — he is
quite dark. Now when we study how the light falls from the different sides, and
how with regard to the other eleven disciples the lighting conditions are represented
in the most wonderful manner in accordance with reality, nothing really
explains the darkness on the face of Judas. Art can give us no answer as to the
wherefore of this darkness. This is fairly clear as regards the Judas figure.
If we now turn to the Christ Figure, approaching it not according to Spiritual
Science but according to the external view, it only produces, as it were,
something like a suggestion. Just as little as the blackness, the darkness of
the Judas figure seems justifiable, just as little does the “sunniness” of the
Christ Figure, standing out as it does from the other figures, seem to be
justified, in this sense. We can understand the lighting of all the other
countenances but not that of Judas nor that of Christ Jesus. Then, as if of
itself, the idea comes into one’s mind: surely the painter has striven to make
evident that in these two opposites, Jesus and Judas, light and darkness
proceed not from outside but from within. He probably wished to make us realize
that the light on the face of the Christ cannot be explained by the outer
conditions of light, and yet we can believe that the Soul behind this
Countenance is itself a light force, so that It can shine of Itself, in spite
of the lighting conditions. In the same way the impression with respect to
Judas, is, that this form itself conjures up a shadow which is not explained by
the shadows around it.
This is, as already said, a
hypothesis of Spiritual Science, but one that has developed in me in the course
of many years and we may believe that the more we considered the problem the
more we would find it substantiated. According to this hypothesis one can
understand how Leonardo, who strove to be true to nature in all his work and
study, worked with trembling brush to present a problem that could only be
justified with respect to this one figure. We can then understand that he might
well be bitterly disappointed, indubitably so, because it was impossible by
means of the then existing art to bring this problem to expression with complete
truthfulness and probability. Because he could not yet do what he wanted, he
finally despaired of the possibility of its execution and had to leave a
picture behind him which still did not satisfy him, and the question as to the
feelings with which Leonardo left his picture can be answered in full accord
with the whole figure and spiritual greatness of Leonardo. He left it with a
feeling of bitterness, realizing that in his most important work he had set
himself a task, the execution of which could never be satisfactory with the
means available to man. If in the centuries to come no eye will see the picture
Leonardo had conjured on to the wall at Milan — that, in any case, was
certainly not what lived in his soul. If we picture him thus before his most important
creation, we are indeed tempted to ask: What secret really lay behind this
figure?”
“…We see very little of
Leonardo by looking at his external creations; we get the idea that this soul
has still to carry out something in a super-sensible existence and we say to
ourselves: Oh! We understand! In order that this soul, in the whole course of
its collective existence, which runs through many earth lives, could always
reveal something to mankind, it had in its Leonardo existence to pass through a
life in which it was only able to bring to expression the very smallest part of
what lived within it. Such souls as Leonardo are world riddles and life riddles
— world riddles incarnate… Leonardo’s greatness only becomes evident to us when
we get an inkling of what he could NOT accomplish. ~RS, Leonardo da Vinci – His
Spiritual and Intellectual Greatness At the Turning Point of the New Age
“When we ourselves penetrate into the
spiritual worlds and come to know something about the life there, we encounter
conditions altogether different from those prevailing in physical life on
earth. That is why it is so very difficult to describe these conditions in
terms of human words and human thoughts. Any attempt to speak concretely about
them often seems paradoxical.
To take one example only, I am able
to tell you of a human soul after death together with whom it was possible —
because of his special knowledge — to make certain discoveries in the spiritual
world about the great painter Leonardo da Vinci, particularly about his famous
picture of the Last Supper, in Milan. When one investigates a spiritual fact in
association with such a soul, this soul is able to indicate many things which
ordinary clairvoyance might not otherwise have found in the Akasha Chronicle.
The soul in the spiritual world is able to point them out, but can do so only
if there is some understanding of what this soul is trying to convey. Something
very noteworthy then comes to light.
Suppose that in company with such a
soul one is investigating how Leonardo da Vinci created his famous picture.
Today the picture is hardly more than a few patches of colour. But in the
Akasha Chronicle one can watch Leonardo as he painted, one can see what the
picture was once like — although this is not an easy thing to do. When the
investigation is carried on in company with a soul who is not incarnate but has
some connection with Leonardo da Vinci and his painting, one perceives that
this soul is showing one certain things — for example, the faces of Christ and
of Judas as they actually were in the picture. But one perceives, too, that the
soul could not reveal this unless at the moment when it is being revealed there
is understanding in the soul of the living investigator. This is a sine qua
non. And only at the moment when the soul of the living investigator is
receptive to what is being disclosed does the discarnate soul itself learn to
understand what is otherwise merely vision. To speak figuratively. — After
something has been experienced together with such a soul — something that can
be experienced only in the way described — this soul says to one: You have
brought me to the picture and I feel the urge to look at it with you. (The soul
of the dead says this to the living investigator because of the latter’s desire
to investigate the picture.) Numerous experiences then arise. But a moment
comes when the discarnate soul is either suddenly absent or says that it must
depart. In the case of which I have just told you, the discarnate soul said: Up
to now the soul of Leonardo da Vinci regarded with approval what was being
done, but does not now desire the investigation to continue.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Links Between the
Living and the Dead
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~This skin I wear is luminous imagination… Light slanting in & out Thru the clerestory windows of my eyes, Curling like incense thru my words… …In purest love I strive To outpour the god-hood of my soul… ~hag
***
Dear Friends for the rest of the Ecclesiastical Holy Week I will post the synopsis I created of the lectures Rudolf Steiner gave during the Easter Paradox of 1924. I will start today with the one he gave to the workers at the Goetheanum at the time of the Esoteric Easter. I believe that if we take the time to actually investigate what he said to each group we will find a powerful message that applies to us today.
Star Wisdom, Moon Religion, Sun Religion, Given to workers at the Goetheanum in Dornach March 13, 1924, here Steiner tells us: In Roman times the Star Wisdom had been lost. Julian the “Apostate” tried to reintroduce it, but he was murdered. The advent of Christ brought the ancient Star Religion to life again — but in a new form — teaching that the Sun God must now have his place upon the Earth, accessible to all of humanity, not just the initiates. But those in power denounced this as superstition — & not only as superstition but as a creed of the devil. People were expected to believe only in the external, historical event of the presence of Christ Jesus in Palestine — in the form in which the Church proclaimed it. Consequently the Church became the supreme authority in the matter of how & what people should think, which ignored the whole cosmic setting of the Easter event.
“Julian ‘the Apostate’ maintained that in Christianity men should be taught: Christ came from the Sun and then, as Sun Being, entered into the man Jesus.Now the Churches did not wish this knowledge to be in the possession of men. The Churches did not want the real facts about Christ Jesus to come to light, but only such knowledge as was authorised by them”. ~Rudolf Steiner, Star Wisdom, Moon Religion, Sun Religion
Today is the Moonday of Holy Week, when Christ cursed the fig
tree, remnant of the old clairvoyance, & went on to cleanse the Temple. May
our Moon-forces must be renewed, as we strive to develop the new sight in
freedom.
14 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The gibbous Moon shines upper right of Regulus this evening. The huge, bright Winter Hexagon still fills the sky to the southwest at the end of twilight. Start with brilliant Sirius in the Hexagon’s lower left corner. High above Sirius is Procyon. From there look even higher for Pollux & Castor, then to Menkalinan & bright Capella, lower left from there to Aldebaran, lower left to Rigel way down at the bottom of Orion, & back to Sirius.
“Everybody should be reminded by the Easter festival, that there will be the resurrection of the spirit out of the present darkened nature of the human being”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Riddles of the World and Anthroposophy
215 – Birthday of Mani the prophet & founder of Manichaeism – see Rudolf Steiner’s lectures GA 104 & 113
1126 – Birthday of Averroes, a medieval Spanish polymath. He wrote on logic, Aristotelian & Islamic philosophy, theology, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, psychology, political & Andalusian classical music theory, geography, mathematics, & the medieval sciences of medicine, astronomy, physics, & celestial mechanics. Averroes was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against Ash’ari theologians led by Al-Ghazali.
On this day in 1561 it was Good Friday – Around
dawn there was a mass sighting of celestial phenomena over Nuremberg, residents of Nuremberg saw what they
described as an aerial battle, followed by the appearance of a large black
triangular object & then a large crash outside of the city. According to
witnesses, there were hundreds of spheres, cylinders & other odd-shaped
objects that moved erratically overhead.
A broadsheet news article was printed later that month,
describes objects of various shapes including crosses, globes, two lunar
crescents, a black spear & tubular objects from which several smaller,
round objects emerged & darted around the sky at dawn.
“In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women. At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter. And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color. Likewise there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone. In between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips, becoming thicker to the rear and in the front malleable like the rods of reed-grass, which were intermingled, among them two big rods, one on the right, the other to the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four and more globes. These all started to fight among themselves, so that the globes, which were first in the sun, flew out to the ones standing on both sides, thereafter, the globes standing outside the sun, in the small and large rods, flew into the sun. Besides the globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour. And when the conflict in and again out of the sun was most intense, they became fatigued to such an extent that they all, as said above, fell from the sun down upon the earth ‘as if they all burned’ and they then wasted away on the earth with immense smoke. After all this there was something like a black spear, very long and thick, sighted; the shaft pointed to the east, the point pointed west. Whatever such signs mean, God alone knows. Although we have seen, shortly one after another, many kinds of signs on the heaven, which are sent to us by the almighty God, to bring us to repentance, we still are, unfortunately, so ungrateful that we despise such high signs and miracles of God. Or we speak of them with ridicule and discard them to the wind, in order that God may send us a frightening punishment on account of our ungratefulness. After all, the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that He may avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may temporarily here and perpetually there, live as his children. For it, may God grant us his help, Amen”. Art by Hanns Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg
1759 – Deathday of G.F. Handel – composer
1865 – Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln died the next day
1900 – The Exposition Universelle – a world’s fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century & to accelerate development into the next. The fair, visited by nearly 50 million, displayed many machines, inventions, & architecture that are now nearly universally known, including the Grande Roue de Paris Ferris wheel, Russian nesting dolls, diesel engines, talking films, escalators, & the telegraphone (the first magnetic audio recorder)
1912 – The sinking of the Titanic
1935 – Exclusion from the General Anthroposophical Society of Ita Wegman, Elisabeth Vreed & other members also 2 national societies
1939 – The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck is first published
2010 – Over 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in the Yushu Tibetan
2014 – 276 schoolgirls are abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria
***
Agostino Arrivabene
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~The combustion Becomes ash & the seed is cooked in salt As our bones grow roots In the Earth-Womb… ~hag
***
Sandro Parise
My continued observations on the Easter Paradox of 2019: Interesting to note that on this Ecclesiastical Palm Sunday that it is snowing here in Chicago; but also there is thunder & lightning! And looking above at the things that happened on this day in history, it is easy to feel their imprint in the etheric realm reverberating on this day.
See this updated link to read a compilation of my Spiritual Scientific Research on the Easter Paradox. Scroll down to read the synopsis I created of the lectures Rudolf Steiner gave on both the Esoteric & Ecclesiastical Easter of 1924 – 1st to the Workers on 13 March, & then to the members of the Society 19-22 April 1924 – very illuminating to hear what he choose to say; speaking 1st to the Shepherds & then to the Magi…
***
Dear Friends – Between 1905 & 1925, Rudolf
Steiner made a number of remarks about Kaspar Hauser to the effect that he was
“a higher being who had a special mission on earth,” a being charged
with building “a new grail castle for the Fighters of the Spirit” in
central Germany. Of his origin, Steiner called Kaspar Hauser “a stray
Atlantean”, a carrier of the “Christ Impulse,” a kind of 19th
century messiah whose “sacrificial death” was central to the history
of Europe.
Rudolf Steiner says that had he lived & not
been kidnapped, & then murdered, he would have united Europe; overcoming
the forces of darkness to allow the birthing a higher Christianity. The
conspirators were able to keep him prisoner so that he was neither fully alive,
nor dead, for many years. This kept Kaspar from crossing the threshold where he
could not be bound by them.
If the powers of darkness had not prevented
Kaspar Hauser from assuming his historical & spiritual role, then, for
example, the German Third Reich might never have happened. Hauser’s death in
1833 is connected with the beginning of the Nazi rule in 1933, & with the
appearance of The Christ in the Etheric.
Steiner says: “It became apparent for the first time in its true dimensions what has been caused through Kaspar Hauser’s murder by those who commit the sin against the Spirit”. But, as Steiner makes clear, Kaspar Hauser’s death is not just of historical importance; it is truly of cosmic significance: “If Kaspar Hauser had not lived and died as he did, contact between the earth and the spiritual world would have been completely interrupted”. Kaspar Hauser profoundly affected the world; & in Europe everyone knows his name.
Come join us at the Branch during this
Ecclesiastical Holy Week as we continue to explore the mystery of Kaspar
Hauser:
TODAY: 14 April – Palm Sunday 2 – 4 pm, at
the Branch
then Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. of Holy Week 15-18 April 7 – 9 pm
Duncan Regehr
Special Event for GOOD FRIDAY 19 April 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm- “O Man (or Woman), Know Thyself: A
Glimpse at the Human Double’ an experiential workshop with Paulette Arnold
$10 – or pay what you can + Snacks to Share Encouraged
(1st Class is on Holy Saturday 20 April 2019)
Easter Sunday at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson Ave
9:30AM – Story & Song
10:00AM – Sunday Service for the Children
10:30AM – Act of Consecration of Man
11:45AM – Easter
Rudolf Steiner Branch of the
Anthroposophical Society of America, 4249 North Lincoln
Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site!
Calendar of Events
6 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Look for Bella Luna as a slender crescent visible in the early evening sky. New was yesterday morning, so tonight we will see her starting to emerge from the underworld showing us only 3 percent of her disk just after sunset.(Tomorrow evening, a 7-percent-lit lunar crescent hangs noticeably higher in the sky.) Notice her tender ashen light faintly illuminating the Moon’s dark side. This is “Earthshine,” sunlight reflected by Earth that reaches the Moon & then reflects back to our waiting eyes.
***
“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917
582- Death & Feast Day of Eutychius of Constantinople, Toward the end of his life, Eutychius maintained an opinion that after the resurrection the body will be “more subtle than air” & no longer a tangible thing. This was considered heretical, because it was taken as a denial of the doctrine of physical, corporeal resurrection.
Henry Nelson O’Neil
1483 – Good Friday –
Birthday of Raphael, an Italian painter & architect
of the High Renaissance. Raphael was enormously productive, running an
unusually large workshop &, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body
of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace. From 1517 until his death, Raphael lived in the Palazzo
Caprini in the Borgo, in rather grand style in a palace designed by Bramante.
He never married, & was thought to be bi-sexual. He is said to have had
many affairs, but a permanent fixture in his life in Rome was “La
Fornarina”, Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker (fornaro) named
Francesco Luti from Siena.
Raphael’s premature death on Good Friday (April 6,
1520), which was also his 37th birthday, was caused by a night of excessive sex
with Luti, after which he fell into a fever &, not telling his doctors that
this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him. At his request,
Raphael was buried in the Pantheon.
His funeral was extremely grand, attended by large crowds. The inscription in his marble sarcophagus, an elegiac distich written by Pietro Bembo, reads: “Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori”, meaning: “Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared herself to die.”
1472 –Birthday of Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German Renaissance painter & printmaker
Franz and Christian von Hausen Riepe
1520 – Good Friday – Deathday of Raphael
1869 – Celluloid is patented
1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I
1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire,” beginning the Salt Satyagraha
1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit
1971 – Deathday of Igor Stravinsky, Russian-American pianist, composer, & conductor
1992 – Deathday of Isaac Asimov, American science fiction writer
2008 – The 2008 Egyptian general strike starts led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movement & Egyptian activists
2015
– Deathday of Ray Charles
***
Becka Renolds
POD (Poem Of theDay)
O Tree of Life Now is not your Winter The red-rose-vine will entwine The ever greening bough In a slow motion rapture ~hag
***
Allan Beck
I awoke with these thoughts to ponder today:
“Since Anthroposophy cannot really be grasped except by the power of love, it is love-engendering when human beings take it in a way true to its own nature” -Rudolf Steiner
Joe Magown
Love comes when the soul recollects the world, inside itself.
Freedom comes when the soul forgets itself, inside the world.
Doug Von Houghton
In the Human Soul:
Life = ‘I’ Warmth = Expression of the life of the ‘I’ Light = Manifestation of the Expression of the Life of the ‘I’
I = Christ. AM = Human Soul
I AM = The life warmth and light of Christ – the manifestation of the expression of the life of Christ in the human soul
Beth Lanton
In
the Spiritual World:
Life = Physical Sun Warmth = Sun Soul Light = Sun Spirit
Manifestation = Nathan Soul Expression = Sophia Life = Christ
I Am = Christ in The Soul of the World
hmmmmm
What are you thinking about today?
Kateřina Machytková
xox
~hag
***
‘ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: WHAT AILS
THEE! with APO founder Fred Janney
Saturday 6 April 2019,from
7-9 pm: Personality and spiritual biographies
of the original Vorstand members and group healing meditation.
Sunday 7 April 2019,from
1 pm – 4 pm: Identifying your spiritual stream and
recognizing its opposite stream with directions for bringing cohesion and direction
for members on both sides of the threshold.
In 1999 Fred Janney
joined with six other members of the Anthroposophical Society from around the
country to start what soon became known as Anthroposophical Prison Outreach.
We are celebrating twenty years of service to incarcerated individuals based on
the good will and donations of our member.
Contribution $25-$50 or pay what you can
afford, ALL proceeds donated to APO.
In 1936 President Franklin Roosevelt
asserted that “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”
Five years later he spoke of four freedoms—“everywhere in the world”—that were
“no vision of a distant millennium” but “a definite basis for a kind of world
attainable in our own time…” But when the end of the world war left the USA as
the richest and most powerful nation in the world’s history, two Americas
emerged, an inner one where the respect for the individual continued to grow,
and an outer one where a full-scale war on the Spirit of Truth, the Holy
Spirit, has been unleashed, even as the technological basis is extended for the
rulership of Satan, Ahriman, the “father of lies.” Now individuals must wake up
to this challenging reality.
John Beck is editor of being
human magazine and director of communications for the Anthroposophical
Society in America (USA). He was general manager of the New York Open Center, a
technology and communications officer at Chase Bank, and director of public
broadcasting stations in Boston and New York City. Family history has led him
to be aware of political life in the USA since childhood
Rudolf Steiner Branch of the
Anthroposophical Society of America,4249 North Lincoln
Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)Check out our Web site!
Calendar of Events
3 April 33 – According to the spiritual scientific research of Rudolf Steiner, Today is the Death Day of Christ Jesus…
& at the same time in Mexico Vitzliputzli crucified a powerful black magician. “Now at a certain time a being was born in Central America who set himself a definite task within this culture. The old, original inhabitants of Mexico linked the existence of this being with a definite idea or picture. They said he had entered the world as the son of a virgin who had conceived him through super earthly powers, inasmuch as it was a feathered being from the heavens who impregnated her. When one makes researches with the occult powers at one’s disposal, one finds that the being to whom the ancient Mexicans ascribed a virgin birth was born in the year 1 A.D. and lived to be thirty-three years old. These facts emerge when, as stated, one examines the matter with occult means. This being set himself a quite specific task.
At this same time in Central America another man was born who was
destined by birth to become a high initiate of Taotl. This man had in his
previous earthly incarnations been initiated as described above and through the
fact that he had many, many times repeated the procedure involving the excision
of the stomach, which has been described to you and which there is no need to
recapitulate, he had been gradually equipped with a lofty earthly and super-earthly
knowledge. This was one of the greatest black magicians, if not the greatest
ever to tread the earth; he possessed the greatest secrets that are to be
acquired on this path. He was faced directly with a momentous decision as the
year 30 A.D. approached, namely whether or not, as a single human individual,
to become so powerful through continuous initiation that he would come to know
a certain basic secret. Through knowledge of this secret he would have then
been able to give such a shock and impetus to the coming evolution of man on
earth that humanity in the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean epochs would have
been thrown into terrible darkness, with the result that what the ahrimanic
powers had striven for in these epochs could have come into existence.
Then a conflict began between this super-magician and the being to whom a virgin birth was ascribed, and one finds from one’s research that it lasted for three years. The being of the virgin birth bore a name that, when we try to transpose it into our speech approximates Vitzliputzli. He is a human person who, among all these beings who otherwise only moved about in spirit form and could only be perceived through atavistic clairvoyance, in actual fact became man, so the story goes, through his virgin birth. The three year conflict ended when Vitzliputzli was able to have the great magician crucified, and not only through the crucifixion to annihilate his body but also to place his soul under a ban, by this means rendering its activities powerless as well as its knowledge. Thus the knowledge assimilated by the great magician of Taotl was killed. In this way Vitzliputzli was able to win again for earthly life all those souls who, as indicated, had already received the urge to follow Lucifer and leave the earth. Through the mighty victory he had gained over the powerful black magician, Vitzliputzli was able to imbue men again with the desire for earthly existence and successive incarnations.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Mexican Mysteries and the Knights Templar Inner Impulses of Evolution lecture 3
Feast Day of Mary of Egypt. also known as Maria
Aegyptica. In Goethe’s Faust
Mary of Egypt is one of the 3 penitent saints who pray to the Virgin Mary for
forgiveness for Faust. Her words are set by Mahler in his 8th Symphony, as the
final saint’s appeal to the Mater Gloriosa. Her Story: At the age of twelve she
ran away from her parents to the city of Alexandria. Here she lived an
extremely dissolute life. In her Vita it states that she often refused the
money offered for her sexual favors, as she was driven “by an insatiable
& an irrepressible passion,” and that she mainly lived by begging,
supplemented by spinning flax.
After seventeen years of this
lifestyle, she traveled to Jerusalem for the Great Feasts of the Exaltation of
the Holy Cross. She undertook the journey as a sort of
“anti-pilgrimage,” stating that she hoped to find in the pilgrim
crowds at Jerusalem even more partners in her lust. She paid for her passage by
offering sexual favors to other pilgrims, & she continued her habitual
lifestyle for a short time in Jerusalem. Her Vita relates that when she tried
to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the celebration, she was barred from
doing so by an unseen force. Realizing that this was because of her impurity,
she was struck with remorse, & upon seeing an icon of the Theotokos (the
Virgin Mary) outside the church, she prayed for forgiveness & promised to
give up the world (i.e., become an ascetic). Then she attempted again to enter
the church, & this time was permitted in. After venerating the relic of the
true cross, she returned to the icon to give thanks, & heard a voice
telling her, “If you cross the Jordan, you will find glorious rest.”
She immediately went to the monastery of Saint John the Baptist on the bank of
the River Jordan, where she received absolution & afterwards Holy
Communion. The next morning, she crossed the Jordan & retired to the desert
to live the rest of her life as a hermit in penitence. She took with her only
three loaves of bread, & once they were gone, lived only on what she could
find in the wilderness.
Approximately one year before her death, she recounted her life to Saint Zosimas of Palestine, who encountered her in the desert. When he unexpectedly met her in the desert, she was completely naked & almost unrecognizable as human. She asked Zosimas to toss her his mantle to cover herself with, & then she narrated her life’s story to him, manifesting marvellous clairvoyance. She asked him to meet her at the banks of the Jordan, on Holy Thursday of the following year, & bring her Holy Communion. When he fulfilled her wish, she crossed the river to get to him by walking on the surface of the water, & received Holy Communion, telling him to meet her again in the desert the following Lent. The next year, Zosimas travelled to the same spot where he first met her, some twenty days’ journey from his monastery, & found her lying there dead. According to an inscription written in the sand next to her head, she had died on the very night he had given her Communion & had been somehow miraculously transported to the place he found her, & her body was preserved incorrupt. He buried her body with the assistance of a passing lion. On returning to the monastery he related her life story to the brethren, & it was preserved among them as oral tradition until it was written down by St. Sophronius.
In Italy, this Mary became associated with the patronage of fallen women much like Mary Magdalene, to whom similar traits were associated.
Feast Day of Saints Agape, Chionia, & Irene (Greek: Αγάπη, Χιονία και Ειρήνη meaning Love, Purity, & Peace, born in Thessaloniki) 3 virgin sisters who, were martyred for their faith in the year 304 AD. The story of their martyrdom is the subject of Dulcitius, a 10th-century medieval Latin drama by the secular canoness, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, the first known female playwright.
1682 – Deathday of Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus – There is a play by Helmina von Chézy, with music which Franz Schubert composed for it. The story concerns the attempt of Rosamunde, who was brought up incognito as a shepherdess by the mariner’s widow Axa, to reclaim her throne. The long-established governor Fulgentius , who already has Rosamunde’s parents on his conscience, attempts to thwart Rosamunde, initially by intrigue, then by a marriage proposal & finally by an attempt at poisoning. Rosamunde, whose claim is backed by a deed in her father’s hand, enjoys the support of Cypriots & the Cretan Prince Alfonso, her intended husband. Finally, all the attempts of Fulgentius fail; he dies by his own poison, & Rosamunde ascends the throne.
1895 – The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality
1897 – Death day of Johannes Brahms, German pianist & composer
1922 – Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
*1925 – The Cremation of Rudolf Steiner at the Horburg cemetery in Basel
1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I’ve Been to the
Mountaintop” speech. He was assassinated the next day
~I re-member The perfume of morning Sharp as I carry the egg of light home A simple flower unfurling Slowly after a night of anguish I sway under a fragmented sky thinking how Star patterns & Moon-magic pulse within me… & how Unseen music follows… ~hag
***
Shared by Patricia Kaminski. Compiled
by Eva Lohmann-Heck
*The following moving descriptions of
experiences and observations from the time of Rudolf Steiner’s taking leave of
the earth are taken from an article by Werner
Schäfer, whose selections we reprint here with his kind permission. They
may speak for themselves without further commentary and serve to create a
unifying mood for all those who would like to commemorate Rudolf Steiner’s
being and work on the 94th anniversary of his death.
Ilona Schubert
summarized in the following words what certainly corresponded to the experience
of many people at that time when they said goodbye to Rudolf Steiner, whose
body was laid out in the studio:
“Silence
weaved in the room. In deep sorrow, but also with infinite gratitude and love
in their hearts, those present raised their thoughts to their great leader and
teacher. The next morning – on the 3rd
of April, the historical Good Friday – was the cremation, which was celebrated
by Dr. Rittelmeyer with the ritual of the Christian Community, in the old
crematorium in Basel. An immense crowd had arrived, and the small abdication
hall could not accommodate them all. So the majority stood outside in the open
air. I, too, was among them and could only follow the celebration from a
distance. But it was no less a deep experience. Bright blue skies and bright
sunshine, singing birds in the newly awakened world of spring – it was a
magical Good Friday atmosphere like in Wagner’s “Parzival,” which united all of
the people, inside and outside, and unified them in the consciousness that they
have now given the final guiding direction to the one who is among the greatest
spirits of mankind and whose work on earth they had been allowed to witness.”
The following report by Dr. Heinrich Hardt comes from the
cremation of Rudolf Steiner’s body in Basel on April 3, 1925 (from
“Mitteilungen aus der anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland,” Easter 1950):
“It
was a cloudless, radiant spring sky under which the immense crowd gathered
around the Basel Crematorium, which was full of people inside. Stuten’s music
had faded away, and Albert Steffen’s
speech was audible in fragments to us who were standing in the open air. Deep
sorrow ran through me over the decease of the beloved teacher, and still
another particular sorrow over the imminent departure of his precious earthly
form, his spirit-imbued head, his grace-filled starry brow. All this was now to
be handed over to the elements. – Warm memories of his indications and revelations,
which are intimately connected to all of nature – the plants, the animals, the
elemental beings – pervaded my soul, and despite all the dignity and beauty
which had been bestowed upon the whole happening by human hearts and hands, I
somehow felt: it could not be otherwise than that Nature herself, who is not
compliant to us human beings, expressed her own participation in this hour. The
nature beings themselves, who are fraternally familiar to our spiritual teacher
– yes, they must, they will show their participation, simply their visible
presence; otherwise, this unique, at the same time so painful and yet so
sublime hour would remain incomplete. – At the gable of the grey crematorium
one could see the shape of a large antique vase, and I looked toward it with a
searching, expectant gaze: When and where does the large, beautiful bird come
from, which sits on it, ignoring the closeness of so many people and thus
proving that its presence is not accidental? – But the vase remained as it was.
– There – it may have been two or three minutes later – quiet seagull cries and
a very gentle roar caused me to look up at the sky. What did I see? – Exactly
vertically above the crematorium, at a height of about 40 meters, stood a
structure like a living crown. It was comprised of about 22 to 24 seagulls.
Their flight was cheerful and lively. In front of the bright blue sky, their
plumage sparkled silver and, on their breasts, gold. An indescribable triad of
colours! From time to time, individual birds swung through the circle in
half-lemniscate form and arranged themselves in a new order. The whole crowning
wreath, this crown crowning everything as if held by the hands of gods,
remained in exactly the same place for minutes. I nudged my friend on the
right, and we looked up for a long time, deeply moved. A look at the others
standing nearby showed us that, unfortunately, probably no one but us looked
up. One felt impelled to call out, to nudge others, to draw their attention –
we were, after all, still so young! – but the thought of creating a disturbance
through such actions made us remain silent. – Only very gradually did the
wedding flight – as the ornithologists call such an event – slowly float away,
preserving its circle, backwards to the right as seen from our perspective. But
just then, the open sun flashed forth! Our eyes were forced to close as the
feathered, livingly moving high crown approached all too near with its radiant
attire. – Most inwardly shaken by the beauty of this freely given, deeply touching
event, we then left the site with the others, looked into the silently flowing
Rhine, and thanked those birds as if out of secret solidarity for their
indescribable encircling round.”
The following is taken from “Astronomy and Anthroposophy” (1930) by
Elisabeth Vreede. It describes a
newly shining star on star atlases and globes, called “Nova 1925.” (See also
Rudolf Steiner’s lectures of June 4, 1924 [GA 236] and July 6, 1924 [GA 237].)
“Most
strange was the developmental process of [a Nova], which was illuminated to a
strongly visible brightness, and which was first seen on May 25, 1925. It
appeared in a constellation of the southern hemisphere, which bears the name
“the easel of the painter.” (The star is therefore called: Nova Pictoris.) It
thus has a position that is entirely unique in the chronicle of the Novae,
because these usually appear in or near the Milky Way, while this star is
rather near the southern ecliptic pole. Since the star-rich southern sky is not
observed as continuously as the northern one, the appearance of the star could
go unnoticed for a long time. In any case, one later discovered that it figured
on older photo plates as a star of size 13, and that it was already a star of
size 3 on April 13th, 1925 – in other words, it had already become clearly
visible, such that, in contrast to the aforementioned stars, it had a very slow
increase and perhaps entered into the range of visibility at the beginning of
April. On June 9th of the same year, it was almost a star of size 1; then it
slowly decreased again to a star of size 9.” (The new star may therefore have appeared
immediately, or three days after, Rudolf Steiner’s death…
“In January 1926, it was seen surrounded by a strongly reddish
aureole, like a solar protuberance. In March 1928, it suddenly appeared as a
double star; it had split – a phenomenon unknown to new stars up until now,
such that even astronomers of the northern hemisphere at first did not at all
want to believe their colleagues from the southern hemisphere who had observed
it. Then, one spoke much of unexpected world catastrophes and reminded of the
fable of the frog, which wanted to inflate itself to the ox and then burst – by
assuming, on the basis of the spectrum, that the star had not actually become hot,
and that its enormous increase in brightness (50,000 times, after a
calculation) could be attributed only to an actual surface enlargement, which
had become the undoing of the star. But we do not need to be confused by these
materialistic explanations. – At the same time, the star surrounded itself with
nebulae, as also occurs otherwise, so that for a while it offered the spectacle
of two red stars, surrounded by a veil of nebulae. Soon thereafter, it even
split again, and there were four stars, one brighter in the middle, three
smaller ones all around, all of whitish color and immersed in a rosy nebula.
According to the relatively few astronomers who could observe it, it was a
wonderful spectacle. Then rings formed around the individual stars. Over time, the
individual parts moved even further apart.” (Does this apparition not bring to
mind the scene arrangement in the Mystery Dramas for the three soul forces,
where the central forms of “Maria, Philia, Astrid, Luna appear in a glowing
cloud of light”?
The following observation by Annemarie Dubach-Donath, one of the first Eurythmists, comes
from nature during springtime. She later calls to mind Rudolf Steiner’s
“Butterfly Cycle” (1923, GA 230), as she brings together Rudolf Steiner’s death
with the content of these lectures:
“They
were unspeakably beautiful, blooming spring days in which this holy death was
received by the earth. And in the following summer months, white butterflies
flew in flocks such as I had never seen during any summer before or after in
the Dornach meadows and grounds. This sight reminded us again and again of the
glorious words Rudolf Steiner had spoken a year-and-a-half earlier in the 1923
autumn lectures about butterflies, the colourfully shimmering messengers of the
spiritual world. With nostalgic wonder, we looked at the delicate miracle; at
times, a distant, spiritual smile seemed to shine out from it.”
Epilogue by Marie Steiner in “The Course of my Life” by Rudolf Steiner:
“His life, consecrated wholly to the sacrificial service of humanity, was requited with unspeakable hostility; his path of knowledge was transformed into a path of thorns. But he walked the whole way, and mastered it for all humanity. He broke through the limits of knowledge; they are no longer there. Before us lies this path of knowledge in the crystal clarity of thoughts of which this book itself affords evidence. He raised the human intellect up to the spirit, permeated and united it with the spiritual Being of the cosmos. In this he achieved the greatest human deed. The greatest divine deed he taught us to understand; the greatest human deed he achieved. How could he escape being hated with all the demonic power of which Hell is capable? But he repaid with love the lack of understanding with which he was confronted.
He died – a Sufferer, a Leader, an Achiever – In such a world as trod him under foot, Yet which to raise aloft his strength sufficed. He lifted men; they hurled themselves against him, They spewed forth hatred, blocked his forward way. His work they shattered even as he wrought it. They raged with venom and with flame, And now with joy defile his memory: — “So he is dead who led you into freedom, To light, to consciousness, to comprehension Of what is Godlike in the human soul, To your own Ego, to the Christ. Was this not criminal, this undertaking? He did what once Prometheus expiated, What gave to Socrates the poisoned cup – The crime Barabbas wrought was not so vile – A deed whose expiation is the cross: He lived, himself, the future there before you. “We demons cannot suffer such a thing. We harry, hunt, pursue who dares such deeds, With all those souls who give themselves to us, With all those forces which obey our will. For ours is the turning point of time And ours this humanity which sickens, Without its God, in weakness, vice, and error. We never yield the booty we have won, But tear to pieces him who dares such deeds. ” He dared – and, daring, he endured his fate— In love, long-suffering, and tolerance Of weak, incapable humanity, Which ever all his work in peril set, Which ever misconstrued his uttered word, Which misinterpreted his kind forbearance, And in their littleness knew not themselves, Because his greatness was beyond their compass. ’Twas thus he bore us – we were out of breath In following his stride, his very flight Which ravished us away. ’Twas our weakness That was the hindrance ever to his flight, The lead that weighted down his forward footsteps…. Now he is free, an aid to Those on High, ‘Who take whatever hath been wrung from Earth As safeguard of Their goal. So now They greet The son of man who his creative power, Unfolded thus to serve the Gods’ high will; Who, for the age of hardened intellect, And for the time of dead machinery, Stamped clear the Spirit, called die Spirit forth…. They hindered him. The Earth in shadow moves, n cosmic space now see the shaping figures; The Leader waits; the heavens part and open; In joy and reverence stand the rangéd hosts. But Earth is wrapped in gray enshrouding night.”
Dear Friends, May the veil between the worlds part to unite us in our thinking, feeling & willing with the spirit of Rudolf Steiner, a true initiate, & beloved teacher.
***
Dear friends – We
have some exciting programs coming to our Branch starting this weekend:
Sat. 6 April, 7 pm
– 9 pm
&
Sun. 7 April, 1 pm – 4 pm
‘ANTHROPOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY: WHAT AILS THEE!
with APO founder Fred
Janney
Monday 8 April
2019: 7 pm – 9 pm
“The Poisoning of
America.” with John Beck.
Details:
Saturday 6 April 2019,from 7-9 pm:
Personality and
spiritual biographies of the original Vorstand members and group healing
meditation.
Sunday 7 April 2019, from
1 pm – 4 pm:
Identifying your
spiritual stream and recognizing its opposite stream with directions for
bringing cohesion and direction for members on both sides of the threshold.
Contribution $25-$50 or pay what you can afford, ALL proceeds donated to
APO.
2019 marks
the reinstatement of Ita Wegman and Elisabeth Vreede back into the General
Anthroposophical Society after 84 years. This 12×7 combination is a very
important number combination in microcosmic and macrocosmic dynamics.
Their return from banishment is only a first step in healing the karma of
our organization and embracing the ongoing leadership of Rudolf Steiner into
the future. Long standing and exacerbating problems have ensued since the
ouster of these two leading lights chosen esoterically by Rudolf Steiner.
It is essential and
imperative in our time to reconcile and forge harmony with these and other
members on both sides of the threshold so that anthroposophy can
flourish.
Sergei Prokofieff
through his research tells us that all the original Executive Council members
were chosen representatives and archetypes of the different and divergent
karmic streams that came together under the direction of Rudolf Steiner for the
esoteric tasks required well into the future.
The birth and development
of the New Mysteries that was initiated at the Christmas Conference at the end
of 1923 called on the free and active participation of these individuals.
On many occasions Rudolf
Steiner called on each member of the Anthroposophical Society to uncover and
research the spirituals stream for which he/she came to earth. Then, in
order to heal the individual and group karma of the General Anthroposophical
Society, members were urged to reach out to members of conflicting spiritual
streams, so as to find ways to harmonize the conflicts.
In our time, these steps
in self and social development are essential as we seek future work together
for the development of humanity.
References: May Human
Beings Hear It (2004) by Sergei Prokofieff. Chapter Five: The Esoteric
Archetype of the Original Council. https://www.rudolfsteiner.org/articles. Anthroposophical
Society: What Ails Thee (2017) by Fred Janney
Fred Janney in 1999 joined with six other members of the
Anthroposophical Society from around the country to start what soon became
known as Anthroposophical Prison Outreach. We are
celebrating twenty years of service to incarcerated individuals based on the
good will and donations of our member.
***
Monday
8 April 2019: 7 pm – 9
pm
“The Poisoning of
America.” Presentation by John Beck.
In 1936 President
Franklin Roosevelt asserted that “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous
with destiny.” Five years later he spoke of four freedoms—“everywhere in the
world”—that were “no vision of a distant millennium” but “a definite basis for
a kind of world attainable in our own time…” But when the end of the world war
left the USA as the richest and most powerful nation in the world’s history,
two Americas emerged, an inner one where the respect for the individual
continued to grow, and an outer one where a full-scale war on the Spirit of
Truth, the Holy Spirit, has been unleashed, even as the technological basis is
extended for the rulership of Satan, Ahriman, the “father of lies.” Now
individuals must wake up to this challenging reality.
John Beck is
editor of being human magazine and director of communications for the
Anthroposophical Society in America (USA). He was general manager of the New
York Open Center, a technology and communications officer at Chase Bank, and
director of public broadcasting stations in Boston and New York City. Family
history has led him to be aware of political life in the USA since childhood.
***
Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society
of America, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site!
Calendar of Events
