“…Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth… The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.” — Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey
Dear Friends – I am looking thru the kaleidoscope – of reality – to read the story we all share. I am watching the blocking on the world stage – listening for anecdotes underneath the monologues & slogans – to decode the archetype of the players – in our karmic Mystery Drama – unfolding as the unifing Myth of our time.
What is whispering in the heart? What is springing up as a new oral tradition – & written in the Book of Life?
We can, we must, we are, co-creating a Modern Myth – which can be: a living repository of collective wisdom, social practice, spiritual transformation, ecological awareness, & psychological insight.
Myth is deep psyche dressed in imaginative cultural garb – a bridge or fabric of story that connects us to the blueprint of our destiny & through it to Heaven & Earth’s innermost workings, which in the end are the same as our own.
Joseph Campbell often pointed out “Myths are metaphors,” ; that symbolize the perennial, archetypal aspects of human experience. But although the underlying themes are eternal, the images that story them are constantly in motion.
Deep rumblings sound below the level of collective consciousness, where vibrantly alive mythic images challenge & evolve us like the qualities of existence they image.
Edward Burne-Jones
But mythic beings won’t stay locked out or confined to a grid. In a rationalist, de-sacralized world run by money, force, & hardware, they creep in from the margins & ruptures & edges disguised as symptoms, nightmares, epidemics, political upheavals, works of art, moods of enchantment, & disturbing dreams.
Missy Crane
An education in mythology fills a gap in the hungering soul with nourishing visions, inspiring narratives, & timeless motifs. When properly digested they become food for the heart & therapy for the imagination. They summon us back to the natural terrains from which they originally sprang & to which all things return…
Friends we are called to be the New Myth Makers – the Modern Bard – Singing the story of Love & Freedom to life.
899 – Death day of Alfred the Great – King of the West Saxons. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in English, rather than Latin, and improving the legal system and military structure and his people’s quality of life. He was given the epithet “the Great” in the 16th century and is only one of two English monarchs, to be labelled as such.
1923 – Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz& Mana Brabinek made a vow togther on this day in the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague to work for a future of German-Slavic harmony, according to The Present Age Calendar.
Polzer-Hoditz was one of Rudolf Steiner’s most valued, independently-minded colleagues. Leaving behind his Royal traditions, he became a key player in Steiner’s regenerative threefold social impulses, working tirelessly for a genuinely unified, free Europe. He also fought to protect Rudolf Steiner’s esoteric legacy and the integrity of the Anthroposophical Society. Following Steiner’s untimely death, Polzer-Hoditz fostered a broad range of friendships and alliances with key figures such as D.N. Dunlop, Walter Johannes Stein, and Ita Wegman. In a bid to avoid further division and conflict, he made significant interventions to alter the tragic course of events that consumed the Anthroposophical Society, although he was unable to stop the major split within the membership that followed. In the final decade of his life, he concentrated his energies on world issues and on influencing events, especially in Europe, while lecturing widely and writing books. In contrast to the destructive special interests of the national and religious groups that craved dominion and power, Polzer-Hoditz sought to build a true understanding between Central and Eastern Europe and to cultivate a spiritual connection with the West.
1983 – Death day of Ilona Schubert-Polzer – Eurthmist & wife of L.Polzer-Hoditz
TINA YU
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Today I AM: Light behind mist From the dark vortex of primal fire Where the 1st light was born Which made the maker of gods & human-kind Pressing the black world like a blinking eye Into wakefulness… Today: What are YOU? ~hag
partial eclipse of the sun Photo taken by Rex Kramer using camera obscura like projection of the eclipse on a oil painting on October 25, 2022 -Munich, Germany
After receiving a pleasant and astute whisper from Mercury in sidereal Virgo, Luna moves on to trine Mars giving us grace to gently take right action, tidying up a bit to make the most of this grand alchemical opportunity we are getting TODAY Tuesday October 25 with this solar eclipse. Humans, as Sun, or Christ indwelt beings (hopefully) are tasked with stepping in with this Divine solar light to with care and gentleness tame the inner and outer dragon as he moves to devour the Sun.
An eclipse is like a release valve, and an opportunity for transformation. Some Karma is now ripe to be healed. May we be courageous and determined to see the potential for beauty in all we are called to heal. This eclipse occurs in conjunction with Venus, the goddess of love and beauty gifting us with creativity to wisely use as Children of God. ~Hermes Work
25 October 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun & the Earth, covering part of the solar disk. This happens when the New Moon – the conjunction of the Sun & Moon – occurs near one of the Moon Nodes.
Partial solar eclipse is when the Moon covers the disk of the Sun part way. The influence of the solar eclipse actively manifests itself two weeks before the eclipse, & two weeks after – a perfect opportunity to pour positive thought forms out to the Universe.
The eclipse is happening right now here in Chicago but it opens a corridor for 18.5 years ahead.
This partial solar eclipse is visible from Europe, the Middle East, parts of Asia & Africa. Almost all of Europe is in the eclipse zone with the deepest eclipse in the Scandinavian countries – Maximum eclipse occurs at 11:00 UT in northwest Russia where 86% of the solar disk is covered.
Louise Francke
In considering karma and disease, both of the individual and whole populations, we have seen that what has been prepared during earlier times spiritually asserts itself later in physical life. Therefore, if we ensure that humanity has good education and habits, we will promote health too! Not only is the moral element promoted by good habits, but also health, since bad habits create disease in the next incarnation. Nervousness, one of the most typical illnesses today, results from a particular state of mind in an earlier life. It would never have occurred if the materialistic worldview with its habits of thought had not become so prevalent. Should this mindset persist, it would devastate public health and drive humankind to madness. ~ Rudolf Steiner – GA 97 – Das christliche Mysterium – Stuttgart, March 14, 1906 (page 255)
1180 – Deathday of John of Salisbury, an English author, philosopher, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres.
1400 – Detahday of Geoffrey Chaucer, English philosopher, poet, & author best known for The Canterbury Tales.
sketch by Friedrich Engels
1806 – Birthday of Max Stirner, a German post-Hegelian philosopher, dealing mainly the notion of social alienation & self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism & individualist anarchism. In his book ‘The Ego And Its Own’, Stirner launches a radical anti-authoritarian critique of contemporary western society.
“In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies – an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, e. g. God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them back into mine, and say: “I alone am corporeal.” And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself.”
1881 – Birthday of Pablo Picasso, a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most-influential artists of the 20th century & one of the creators of Cubism.
~~~Lightening lives in the marrow of my bones It pours out from my eyes Throbbing like a disco ball my skull A blue speckled egg cracks open Allowing the flaming sun to roll out In a fine dust settling on the world… ~hag
Every morning the Sun rises a little later, & every evening our Sol sets ever earlier. Darkness takes the light, slowly into its somber realm. As we move from Virgo the Virgin, who helps us with our spiritual harvest, into the sign of the scales, Libra, we can think how it is the only constellation that is not a living creature; it owes its origin to the realm of created things, of mechanics. According to Rudolf Steiner it was only incorporated into the imagery of the Zodiac later in order to delineate the world of light in the upper signs more clearly from the 5 lower “nightly” signs. It is entirely dependent on the outer world, best expressed in its function of “deliberation”.
Benta Muuken
In ancient Greece the descent of the Sun into the Autumn region of the dark zodiac signs was seen in the image of the abduction of Persephone, stole away from her mother Demeter, by Pluto, lord of the underworld (who is active in a challenging aspect with Venus now see yesterday’s post) The Greeks hid their faces in fear from the powers of darkness & waited longingly for the return of Persephone who would awaken to new life in the Spring.
But since the descent of Christ into the shadow realm of death, in order to reconquer it for the realm of light, human beings can look at the descent into the realm of darkness in a different way – thru the image of the mighty Archangel Michael standing next to the Virgin, with her staff of life, & in former times, bearing the balance of the world in his hands – carrying the resurrection into the dark in order to realize our true human potential in the confrontation with the forces of evil.
Kristina West
This individuation process can only be fulfilled in the realm of earth & death – Here the human being of the present time is threatened with the danger of giving in to the lower driving forces which powerfully press in from our unconscious sense perceptions.
Here the scales, must be stepped into, to become the sign of the ‘Representative of Humanity’, appearing before our soul, pointing the way forward, to balance us between levity & gravity.
In the Zodiac it is between the grain-bearing Virgin & the death-dealing Scorpion. There is a separation of the “wheat from the chaff’ – the weighing, in the “Scales of Judgement.”
Will the being of Michael which we must enliven within ourselves, be able to maintain the balance of the world? That is the most earnest question which is spoken by his gaze. In the realm of the spirit his victory is assured, But on earth???
This question touches on our human contribution to the Michael Imagination – it has to do with the crisis of the “I”, which exists for everyone today. Is the average human being awake to this aspect? -Ready & able to work to overcome this crisis of humankind on earth?
If we take this into our soul-life we can take up this challenge, knowing that the outcome depends on our behavior, with even the smallest matters, as well as the great tests of our times.Thru this commitment we can rise to become a spiritual comrade, a co-shaper & co-creator of the divine earthly world. We are called in the Age of Michael to rise from being a ‘servant of God’ to being a ‘friend & brother/sister of Christ’ as promised in the Gospel of St. John 15:15.
Charlene Cowden
In looking up to this world destiny of the human being in the dark time of the year which is now setting in, we must find the inner emphasis that is so easily lost today, because we lose our balance to the swings of the pendulum in our soul-life. The approaching winter can invoke (in some) the hum-bug that is possessed by greed, like an old man seeking to dispel the fear of death thru selfish pleasure or grabby possession. The balance of the soul swings back & forth between melancholy & self-satisfied control, until it can find its center in the true “I”.
The image of the scales can become for us the means to orient our soul & spirit at this turning point in the year.
Sea Cooke
October: “Satisfaction Becomes Serenity” or Contentment becomes Self-composure. This Virtue suggests a call to balance, not a settling in to mendacity, or a false sense of security. But a serenity in recognizing that we are just where we are meant to be in our striving.
~hag
Susan Seddon-Boulet
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler MICHAELMAS IV Michaelic Hope v29 To have the inner fire to kindle thinking’s radiance and draw the meaning of experience from worldwide spirit’s well of power is now for me the summer’s heritage, is autumn’s peace… and winter’s hope.
The spirit of the world has now activated the soul with Michaelic will-power, the fruit created from the soul’s darkness in the mirror verse, and now as the outer world becomes gloomier, an inner light shines, the autumn spirit presence becoming radiant with thought, the gift of the summer’s heritage.
AUTUMN PRELUDE IV The Fruit Of Will v24 In constant self-creation the soul grows self-aware; the spirit of the world strives onward in new self-knowledge re-enlivened, creating from the darkness of the soul the conscious harvest of the will.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY – You tell me…What happened in history today, that YOU think made an impact on world karma?
1901 – Deathday of Adalbert Graf von Keyserlingk, son of Count Karl & Countess Joanna Keyserlingk, who wrote ‘Birth of a New Agriculture : Koberwitz 1924 and the Introduction of Biodynamics’ which describes the 12 day ‘agriculture course’ at Whitsun 1924 on the Koberwitz estate. They turned the castle belonging to the estate into a hospitable place with a cosmopolitan touch, which also accommodated, among others, the founding priest of the Breslau congregation of the Christian Community Rudolf Meyer for 3 years. The first Act of Consecration in Silesia was celebrated in Koberwitz.
1956 – Secret police shoot several anti-communist protesters, igniting the Hungarian October Revolution.
~hag
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~I festoon the grey day With laser eyes & fierce cackles that call the wind to deliver me Like a seed blown home To fertile caverns… I smell change a-coming Shapes turning leaves into souls Sheathed in paper hats torn from the mundane head Born anew into the eternal flesh Of freedoms reign ~hag
An excerpt from the last lecture in the series THE YOUNGER GENERATION, (also called Becoming the Companions of Michael) GA 217, Lecture XIII, 15 October 1922 (Thanks to Steve Hale for suggesting I look at this lecture)
“…The human being can have, if he will, Spiritual Science; that is to say, Michael actually penetrates from spiritual realms into our earthly realm. He does not force himself upon us. Today everything must spring out of man’s freedom. The dragon pushes himself forward, demanding the highest authority. The authority of science is the most powerful that has ever been exercised in the world. Compare the authority of the Pope; it is almost as powerful. Just think — however stupid a man may be yet he can say: “But science has established that.” People are struck dumb by science, even if one has a truth to utter. There is no more overwhelming power of authority in the whole of man’s evolution than that of modern science. Everywhere the dragon rears up to meet one.
The young are running away from the old because they want to escape from the region of the dragon. That also is an aspect of the Youth Movement. The young wanted to flee from the dragon because they saw no possibility of conquering the dragon. They wanted to go where the dragon was not.
But here there is a mystery and it consists in the fact that the dragon can exercise his power everywhere, even where he is not spatially present. And when he does not succeed in killing man directly through ideas and intellectualism, he succeeds by so rarefying the air everywhere in the world that one can no longer breathe.
And this will certainly be the case — young people who ran from the dragon so as not to be injured, and who came into such rarefied air that they could not breathe the future, felt intensely the nightmare of the past because the air had become unwholesome where it was formerly possible to escape the immediate influence of the dragon. The nightmare that comes from within is, as regards human experience, not very different from the pressure that comes from without, from the dragon.
In the last third of the nineteenth century, the older generation felt direct exposure to the dragon. The young people then experienced the nightmare of the air corrupted by the dragon — air that could not be breathed. Here, the only help is to find Michael who conquers the dragon.
Gustave Moreau
But it is this above all that we must set going if we want to become true leaders of the young. For Michael needs, as it were, a chariot by means of which to enter our civilization. And this chariot reveals itself to the true educator as coming forth from the young, growing human being, yes, even from the child. Here the power of the pre-earthly life is still working. Here we find, if we nurture it, what becomes the chariot by means of which Michael will enter our civilization. By educating in the right way we are preparing Michael’s chariot for his entrance into our civilization.
We must no longer nurture the dragon by cultivating a science with thoughts unconcerned with penetrating into the human soul, into man, so as to develop him. We must build the chariot, the vehicle for Michael.
The spiritual is like the blood. And the blood needs vessels in which to flow. What we recognize as spiritual needs vessels. These vessels are growing human beings. Into these vessels we must pour the spiritual in order that it may hold together. Otherwise we shall have the spirit so alive that it immediately flows away. We must so preserve our knowledge that it can flow into the developing human being.
Then we shall make the chariot for Michael, then we shall be able to become Michael’s companions.
It was not for the sake of mere symbolism that Goethe sought everywhere for things that suggest a breathing — outbreathing, inbreathing; outbreathing, inbreathing — Goethe saw the whole of life as a picture of receiving and giving. Everyone receives, everyone gives. Every giver becomes a receiver. But for the receiving and the giving to find a true rhythm it is necessary that we enter the Michael Age.
So I want to conclude with this picture for you to see how the preceding lectures were actually meant. Their aim was that you should not merely carry away in your heads what I have said here, and ponder over it. What I should prefer is for you to have something in your hearts and then to transform what you carry in your hearts into activity.
Thus we shall find association in the Spirit, even though we work apart in different spheres of life. The chief thing will be that in our hearts we have found each other; then the spiritual, all that belongs to Michael, will also flow into our hearts. ~Rudolf Steiner
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~A feeling of simply finding The driving force present in my soul depths… When I look within, I find a strong yearning A powerful force living as a seed Gestating future worlds As we press on into the Autumn… ~hag
21 October 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Some thoughts on a Venus Sun conjunction in Virgo and its relation to Pluto this weekend by Astrosopher Jonathan Hilton.
“On October 21st, Venus will conjunct the Sun in one of these pentagram points. A significant added element is that this conjunction will be in a square (90 degree) relationship to Pluto, which continues as it has for the past few years in the lower animal body region of the Archer…
Now this Venus conjunction point engages with Pluto in a “martian” relationship. It engages also with the history of Pluto in world karma over the past few years. It is my conviction that the activity of Pluto in relation to Saturn and Jupiter throughout 2020 culminating in their conjunction during the Holy Nights of 2020 is integral to the emergent problems, including Covid 19.
As I live with following the stars, I find that relations of the other planets with the outer planets is telling a story now, a story of revolution, of destruction and transformation, a Pluto story. With these outer planets we truly are tested to raise our spiritual perspective out of newfound inner development to meet their challenges.
If they are not taken up consciously, they are in service of the forces of opposition to our evolution.
Pluto carries the highest and lowest, true revolutionary change and breakthrough to the new, or harsh destruction, even down into the physical body and the ego. It is that sphere which wants to become Spirit Man, the transformation even of the physical…but also is the sphere of activity of the Asuras.
I would include as partners with the Asuras, the activity of Mammon. Mammon is often used in relation to the forces of money in the world, and one can see more and more the role of world economic forces and the subjugation of human value to the value of money. But Rudolf Steiner expands its meaning: The restraining forces are called Mammon, and only in a secondary sense has money been given this name; Mammon is the god of the restraint of progress. (GA 91) He goes on to elaborate on Mammon in GA104a in Pictures of the Apocalypse: Looking over the development of our earth, it has been shown to us that the earth is again spiritualizing itself, that men can take part in this development and that they will again be able to return to the sun…
All those beings who are too much stuck in their materialization cannot take part in this spiritual earth. But the gross material elements of humanity and the bad substances in the lower realms enter with the human beings into a kind of lower astral world, which one could call the sub physical astral world. This lower astral world is also the one that opposes our development today. It is ruled by the spirit Mammon, that is, the spirit of obstacles. It is a power of the lower astral world.
In other places Steiner even describes Mammon as the “god of bacilli”. Mammon, the spirit of obstacles and darkness, has innumerable helpers, much embodied in the bacteria and bacilli. The fear of bacilli and their combating by physicians is something quite real. (Esoteric Lessons notes, Oct. 18, 1907)
In the collapse and breaking apart of so much in our world today, as well as in the efforts being used to control humanity by powerful forces in this time of fear and chaos, I see the ongoing effects of Pluto’s encounters with Saturn and Jupiter all in the “lower body” or one could even say the “lower astral” region of the Archer.
So, now we have this Venus/Sun pentagram point in a square (a challenging martian relationship) to Pluto.
A few days after this star event, on October 25th, there will be a partial solar eclipse which means that the Sun is in the region of the Lunar node and its light blocked.
There is much to ponder during these days of this conjunction.
So, the question is, how can we meet this conjunction consciously out of a new relationship to the stars? Here, one must try to hold in a living imagination the threads of these relationships and the cosmic themes expressed. We have Sun/Venus in Virgo at the star of the “bread” for humanity, leading to the question of what is our “bread”, our life, in relation to the economic realm and the economic issues facing us today.
This then comes into square relation to Pluto in the lower astral region of the Archer and the activity of Mammon in the economic life and the dark forces behind the scenes in this activity. All of this is remembered in the context of the recent historical activity of Pluto with Saturn and Jupiter and the Great Conjunction question to humanity. That question out of this activity was the question of the Archer: What is the human being?
The Great Conjunction was calling for a new annunciation, a new birth into the world, for humans to give birth to a new definition of what it means to be a human being to counter the overwhelming materialism defining who we are and the animalization of our humanity out of a lower astrality. This is the overarching theme for the coming years.
Now with this pentagram point in Virgo in square to Pluto in the Archer body, we can see the clear battle between those forces working towards the pointing down pentagram and those for the pointing up pentagram.” ~Jonathan Hilton
For the Anthroposophical Society, 1922 was a year of great challenge. Rudolf Steiner responded to it by traveling & lecturing unceasingly – from the ‘East-West Congress’ in Vienna to his visits to England, & sometimes to huge crowds in Berlin, & Munich. When Steiner came to Stuttgart, where the Christian Community Priests were working after their founding on 16 Sept., he meet with nearly 100 young people who wanted to carry the new Waldorf educational impulse into contemporary culture. The series of lectures given from 3-15 October 1922 came to be called The Youth Course or The Younger Generation.
Seeing what lived in the youth movement of the time, he endeavored to guide them toward an understanding of themselves within the aftermath of the World War, & in respect to the dawning the new Michael age. In these lectures Steiner shows the spiritual reality behind the generation gap in which the older & younger generations speak “entirely different soul languages.” He saw how young people longed to find spirit, in nature, warm community life, & thru a living wisdom in their teachers. They flatly rejected the dead intellectualism, impersonal social routine & rampant egotism in the older generation. Steiner explained that while their antipathetic opposition may at first generate the fires of enthusiasm, only the will for positive creation can provide the long term working strength that can bring real change & growth.
To become teachers, Steiner emphasized the need first for inner development – “self-education”– as the foundation to all other education.
The young listeners were called to develop an inner hearing to perceive the dawning of new Spirit powers. From their desire to become a new breed of educators, Steiner said that in order to bestow true nourishment, they must recognize that the growth of such spiritual food demands that the plough must first be turned inward & the seeds of Spirit sown within. Trusting that eventually, in good time, according to the rhythms of healthy development – with the power of the Sun & the Moon & Stars – a good harvest will ripen within them, which will yield living bread, not stones, in the relationship of human being to human being.
This universal Michaelic harvest provides a greater pathway of purpose, & the certainty of spirit-companionship transcending all generations.
As we have seen in the previous installments The Circle Jubilee – The Origins of the Circle & The Eternal Circle – in the midst of this lecture series Steiner met with the 12 founding members of what came to be called The Esoteric Youth Group or The Circle.
Here is the report from Ernst Lehrs about the Founding of The Circle on Monday 16 October 1922: “Because of Dr. Steiner’s early-scheduled departure for Dornach, the gathering took place at 7 am. We waited for him on the landing of the staircase outside the room to which we were called. He met us there with Frau Dr. Steiner & Dr. Ita Wegman, & asked with interested anticipation before entering the room, if we had participated in the Act of Consecration of Man the day before. We told him we had not, because of a difficulty that came from the one of the Priests. About this he stressed several times that he would not have had anything against our participating. “Come in. We want to discuss this right now. You must tell me what stood in your way”.
Thus, the meeting that was dedicated to the festive founding of The Group began with our report of what we experienced the evening before with the pronouncement that we felt was imposed on us. This was followed by Dr. Steiner’s presentation of his relationship to The Christian Community &, in comparison, his position in the Anthroposophical Movement. He made it clear that he had a thoroughly different opinion that held no conditions for participation in the ritual…
Then he went onto something else. We remember he took the opportunity to speak of H.P. Blavatsky, in connection with a description of the esoteric movement of recent years that proceeded Anthroposophy…
Next he explained some things about being in the world as members of our community or group. From now on, it will be for every human group in the outer world – thus, for instance, for students in a teacher training institute, at which one of us studies – of karmic significance that at one time a member of this Group was part of it. Also, effects would arise in the destiny between us & human beings who are connected with us physically or spiritually. These effects would be of a good or bad nature, according to whether we were good or bad in our affairs. Yet, he warned us that this is not so easy to judge. For that, we would need a capacity that one can better express as esoteric discernment.
He said in view of future growth: “Consider yourselves as the root of the Group. About the accepting of future members, he said only that we should not take anyone who is younger than 21, as they are minors legally, & you could have conflict with parents & because of that, with the law. The Group must at all costs, however, avoid any contact with public officials. Further, he advised us not to take, when possible, a married woman whose husband is not joining, or whom you might expect that he will not find a relationship with or access to The Group.
Dr. Steiner closed this part of the conversation when, with a noticeable change of his breathing, he said that he now wanted to give us a formulation of an oath. Through the reading of this oath in the presence of the others, the admittance into the community would be effected. Thus, we were first to accept one another mutually through each of us reading the oath aloud to the others. From then on, the oath should serve to expand the Group through our own responsibility. He asked that someone write down what he then dictated freely by speaking the oath word-for-word, as if bringing it out of the Spiritual world in the moment. All the while, he held his gaze meditatively before him. Then he paused briefly, laid his hands & arms quietly in front of him, & said with deep earnestness in a voice in which cosmic firmness & humble quiet appeared to be paired: “And now consider your community as having been founded by the Spiritual world itself”.
Amanda sage
At that he got up & we did also. He then came to each of us, stood quietly before each, took our right hand in both of his, & looked us briefly in the eyes with a gaze that cannot be described in words. Perhaps we may say, thinking of a term used later in one of his Rosicrucian lectures of January 1924, that his was a ‘star-gaze’. Here we were allowed to look into eyes from which no personal gaze proceeded, but rather through which starry worlds looked & rayed forth.
Before he left he asked us to please report it to him should anyone decide in the end not to join the Group. This surprised us, because we all thought such a thing unimaginable. Later, looking back at emerging difficulties led us to understand his precaution. Nonetheless, it told us that in the futurewe should give those seeking admittance the opportunity for a last examination of their decision, after they have come to know what is involved with our Group…
How surprised we were when Dr. Steiner turned back to us as he was leaving & said warmly: “And now get to know one another well!” This gave us the idea to tell each other our biography that same evening at our mutual acceptance into the membership. This then became a permanent practice with admittance to membership.
During the rest of the time before his departure, Dr. Steiner allowed us to ask him any kind of questions of a more or less personal nature…
One question was about Dr. Steiner’s position in relation to both the School that was a kind of Esoteric Section that existed in the Society until 1914 & to what has been newly formed here. About this he said: “As I began teaching, I had to connect my work with the thread of the old tradition. What came thusly into being had to be broken off due to outer circumstances. What has taken place now is a first in the post-Christian age; human beings themselves chose, out of freedom before the Spiritual World, to join together esoterically.”
Here is added something that we understod only later. As at the end of World War 1, some of the older Esoteric School members asked Dr. Steiner about the possibility of taking up what had been interrupted by the war, he said that ‘the old could no longer be taken up; Though, it could come to ‘a new Esoteric form’ within the Society. However, that would depend first upon people coming to him out of freedom & asking for an esotericism in common with one another.He said such could only happen from those belonging to the younger generation.’
We then understood his so surprisingly positive demeanor as Rath spoke the question in the committee discussion before the first lecture of the course! (see Origins of The Circle)
As Rudolf Steiner finally left the room in order to travel to Dornach, with the car that was already waiting for him, he turned several times at the door & waved warmly with both hands.
Herbert Hahn added a few more details in his report: “Among other things, Rudolf Steiner spoke about being young & growing old. He said for instance: “It is unavoidable that you will one day get grey hair here & a wrinkle there as the physical body shall & must grow old. For every grey hair that appears & for every wrinkle that imprints itself, the soul can add a fresh, young ‘something’. Only then does aging proceed the way it is willed by the Spirit”.
In connection with this, he said that we should again & again enliven the impulse that led us to the founding of our community, so that it lives as it did on the first day.
He said: “You see, in the day to day world, the old adage. ‘New brooms sweep well’ holds true. It means that the bristles of the broom gradually wear, even though in the beginning they were ever so good. That must not be the case with you! Your ‘broom’ must receive new Bristles every day”.
When mentioning how Rudolf Steiner gave the Youth Group an esoteric lesson during the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society, Herbert Hahn considered the Founding of The Youth Circle to be “one of the Preparatory steps for the Christmas Conference of 1923. This community is given an inner obligation for carrying through the great impulse of the Christmas Conference.”
Dear friends – Thank you for your earnest interest in this initiative. It has been a potent experience to share these founding impulses with you. May we all take up the deed, in our own ways, during this powerful Centennial time, to enliven Anthroposophy.
