When my friend Robert posted these pictures of the Gargoyles of Notre Dame, my 1^st thought was that now, upon the burning of the Cathedral, these gruesome protector beings are inscribed on the ethers. But then I woke up this morning thinking, what does it mean that at the same time the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem also had a fire, & wondering what was being inscribed there?

My friends, it seems to me that these burnings, are the antithesis of what occurred with the burning of the Temple of Ephesus – sacred to the Goddess Diana, along with the future image seen in the burning of the Goetheanum, the Johannasbau inspired by the Templars thru Goethe. These burnings inscribed into the ethers the potent powers of the ancient & the new mysteries, enriching the starry script, furthering & potentizing our true human evolution.

We need to remember that what is now occurring is happening during the Ecclesiastical Holy Week – between Holy Moon-day, with its cursing of the fig tree, symbol of the old clairvoyance, & the cleansing of the Temple, & Holy Mars-day, Christ’s conflict with the High Priests , & his telling of the ‘Little Apocalypse’ to his disciples (Luke 21)

Could it be that this Holy Week burning , on the 1 hand, of an important seat of the Catholic Church, during the time when a Jesuit Pope sits on the Vatican throne, & on the other hand,  the 3^rd holiest site in Islam – central to the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, is a signal of the materialistic etherization of the spirit? – A fall of something spiritual – leading to the rise of the spirits of darkness…?

May we be awake to the signs of the times; ever striving to participate in the appearance of the Christ in the etheric realm.

Blessings dear ones & peace ~hag

***

As you can see dear Friends, I have diverged from my usual format -the History connected to the Calendar of the Soul is at the bottom of this missive- so as to continue with the synopsis of the lectures Rudolf Steiner gave during the Easter Paradox of 1924:

Ecclesiastical Easter Sunday 20 April, 1924:  Moon-birth & Sun-birth. Necessity and Freedom. Stages of the ancient Easter Initiation: The original idea of any sacred festival is to make the human being look upward from his dependence on earthly things to those things that transcend the Earth.

During the last centuries humanity has undergone an evolution which has lead farther & farther away from the connection with Cosmic powers & Cosmic forces. Humanity became more restricted to the Earthly powers & forces.

Humanity today does not conceive the forces spiritually connected with the Sun or what these forces are doing within the human being.

Julian the Apostate, the last of the pagan Caesars, still received instruction in what was left of the ancient Mysteries, concerning these forces of the Sun. He wished once more to make this knowledge an influence in the world, & for this very reason was murdered on his campaign into Persia. The powers in the first Christian centuries which intended that all knowledge of such things should disappear was all prevailing. No wonder this knowledge is so hard to conceive of

Steiner goes on to describe the various degrees in the ancient mystery schools;

and concludes with the statement that to become aware of the content of the Easter Festival we must call this ancient sacred history to life again, in a new way.

Then we can understand why even today we must look upward to the Sun & Moon which determines from their mutual constellation, the time of the Easter Festival. For this truth must still remain. We calculate Easter as the first Sunday after the first full Moon after the Spring Equinox. The Easter Festival is something that must be determined from above, out of the Cosmos. This must be regained. And it can only be regained by looking back to the ancient Mysteries, where the human being was made aware by seeing the cosmos within themselves. The ancient practices receded in the age when the free development of humanity had to take place. But now the time is come when these mysteries must be found again. Of this, my dear friends, we must be fully conscious. Institutions must be created today to find the Mysteries once more.

Steiner goes on to say it is Out of this consciousness which we held our Christmas Foundation Meeting. For it is an urgent necessity that there should be a place on Earth where the Mysteries can once more be founded. The Anthroposophical Society in its further progress must become the path to the Mysteries renewed.

And so it is that with these thoughts we remember that today in 2019 we are experiencing the Ecclesiastical Holy Wednesday, revealing the 2 sides of Mercury: Healer /Thief – on the 1 hand: Mary Magdalene’s pre-burial anointing, & on the other: Judas’s betrayal.

Which will we choose?

Xox~hag

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

485 – Death-Day of Proclus – dubbed ‘The Successor’ – a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher. He studyed mathematics & the works of Aristotle under Olympiodorus the Elder. As a gifted student, he eventually became dissatisfied with the level of philosophical instruction available in Alexandria, & went to Athens, the pre-eminent philosophical center of the day, to study at the Neoplatonic successor of the famous Academy founded 800 years earlier (in 387 BC) by Plato; there he was taught by Plutarch of Athens, Syrianus, & Asclepigenia; he succeeded Syrianus as head of the Academy, & would in turn be succeeded on his death by Marinus of Neapolis.

He lived in Athens as a vegetarian bachelor, prosperous & generous to his friends, until the end of his life. He was not appreciated by the Christian rulers; he spent time traveling & being initiated into various mystery cults. He was also instructed in the “theurgic” Neoplatonism, as derived from the Orphic & Chaldean Oracles.

His house has been discovered recently in Athens, under the pavement of Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, south of Acropolis, opposite the theater of Dionysus. He had a great devotion to the Goddess Athena, whom he believed guided him at key moments in his life. Marinus reports that when Christians removed the statue of the Goddess from the Parthenon, a beautiful woman appeared to Proclus in a dream & announced that the “Athenian Lady” wished to stay at his home. Proclus died aged 73, & was buried near Mount Lycabettus in a tomb. It is reported that he was writing 700 lines each day.

1622 – Birthday of Thomas Vaughn, a Welsh philosopher, famous for his writings in the area of natural magic, with his book Anthroposophia Theomagica, a magico-mystical work.  (Some say Rudolf Steiner got his idea for to name the AS from this treatise)

Although he did not practice medicine, Vaughan sought to apply his chemical skills to preparing medicines in the manner recommended by Paracelsus. Vaughan was also the author of tracts published under the pseudonym Eugenius Philalethes.

Vaughan was unusual amongst alchemists of the time in that he worked closely with his wife Rebecca Vaughan. He was a self-described member of the “Society of Unknown Philosophers”, & was responsible for translating into English in 1652 the Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis, an anonymous Rosicrucian manifesto first published in 1614 in Kassel.

He placed himself in the tradition of the Rosicrucian reformers of education, &of Johannes Trithemius, his teacher Libanius Gallus, and Pelagius of Majorca.

1787 – Goethe’s experience of the archetypal plant in Palermo – “Goethe narrates a conversation that once ensued between Schiller and himself after they had both attended a meeting of the Society for Nature Research in Jena. Schiller was dissatisfied with the results of the meeting. He had found there a most disintegrating method for the study of Nature and he remarked that such a method could never appeal to a layman. Goethe replied that “possibly this method was cumbersome for the initiated also and that there might well exist yet another way of portraying Nature active and living, struggling from the whole into the parts, and not severed and isolated.” And then Goethe evolved the great ideas which had arisen within him concerning the nature of plants. He drew “with many characteristic strokes, a symbolic plant” before Schiller’s eyes. This symbolic plant was intended to give expression to the essential being lying in every single plant, whatever particular form it assumes. It was intended to demonstrate the successive development of the single portions of the plant, their emergence from each other and their mutual relationship. In Palermo, 17th April, 1787, Goethe wrote these words in reference to this symbolic plant form: “There must be such a thing; if not, how could I recognise this or that structure to be a plant if all were not moulded after one pattern?” Goethe had evolved in himself the conception of a plastic, ideal form that was revealed to his spirit when he surveyed the diversity of the plant forms and observed the element common to them all.” Rudolf Steiner Goethe’s Conception of the World: Chapter I: Goethe and Schiller

1790 – Death-Day of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a renowned polymath & a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, & diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment & the history of physics for his discoveries & theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, & the Franklin stove, among other inventions. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphia’s fire department & the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League institution.

Benjamin Franklin, then 21, created the Junto, a group of “like minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community.” The Junto was a discussion group for issues of the day; it was modeled after English coffeehouses that Franklin knew well, & which became the center of the spread of Enlightenment ideas in Britain.

Franklin became Grand Master of the Freemasons & published the first Masonic book in the Americas, a reprint of James Anderson’s Constitutions of the Free-Masons. Franklin remained a Freemason for the rest of his life

Franklin earned the title of “The First American” for his early & indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author & spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, & opposition to authoritarianism both political & religious, with the scientific & tolerant values of the Enlightenment

Franklin became a successful newspaper editor & printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this & Poor Richard’s Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym “Richard Saunders”. After 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments & criticisms of the British policies.

He pioneered & was 1^st president of The Academy & College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 & later became the University of Pennsylvania. He organized & was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society & was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a national hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris & was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France.

He was promoted to deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753, having been Philadelphia postmaster for many years,& this enabled him to set up the first national communications network. During the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs & colonial & state politics, as well as national & international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He argued against slavery from an economic perspective & became one of the most prominent abolitionists.

His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, & his status as one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers have seen Franklin honored more than two centuries after his death the $100 bill.

1907 – The Ellis Island immigration center processes 11,747 people, more than on any other day.

1912 – Russian troops open fire on striking goldfield workers in northeast Siberia, killing at least 150

1961 – Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed & trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

1969 – Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.

***

Ecclesiastical Holy Week Kaspar Hauser Study 14 – 18 April 2019, Special Event for GOOD FRIDAY 19 April 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm ‘O Man (or Woman) Know YourSelf: A Glimpse at the Human Double’

We have found this Study of Kaspar Hauser so intriguing that we wish to continue it for our Ecclesiastical Holy Week.

The work is such that you can jump in anytime. I recommend this powerful book: ‘Kaspar Hauser: The Struggle for the Spirit’ byAnthroposophical researcher Peter Tradowsky

Join us: 14 April Palm Sunday 2 – 4 pm, then Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. of Holy Week 15-18 April 7 – 9 pm

Special Event for GOOD FRIDAY 19 April 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm- ‘O Man (or Woman) Know YourSelf: A Glimpse at the Human Double’ a workshop with biography worker Paulette Arnold

(1st Class is on Holy Saturday 20 April 2019)

$10 – 20 or pay what you can + Snacks to Share Encouraged 

for more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

 A Cosmic Wake Up Call: the Easter Paradox of 2019

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.

The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 5:05 pm CDT.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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 1^st 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 1^st 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.

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.

Until Soon

~hag

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.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The Day of Archangel Raphael

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.

Until tomorrow

Blessings & peace

~hag

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

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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

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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

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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 – 1^st 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 1^st to the Shepherds & then to the Magi…

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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 19^th 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

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

for more info. contact hag@rschicago.org

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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.

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“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

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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.

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.”

Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in his various incarnations, in ‘The Last Address’ – The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis. Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924, GA 238

1472 –Birthday of Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German Renaissance painter & printmaker

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

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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

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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

Love comes when the soul recollects the world, inside itself.

Freedom comes when the soul forgets itself, inside the world.

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

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?

xox

~hag

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‘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.

For more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

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“The Poisoning of America.” with John Beck.

Monday 8 April 2019:  7 pm – 9 pm

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

 Suggested donations $15.

For more information contact aonegin@rschicago.org

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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