Category Archives: Biography

The Founding of The Circle

Biography, Community, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote
Gerald Wagner

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 future we 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.

~hag

The Circle Eternal

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Community, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Dearly Beloved – It is an occult truth that after 100 years an esoteric initiative has an opportunity to be renewed. I often refer to the Rosicrucian impulse that puts forth the imagination of ‘the opening of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz’ – a way of signifying the evolution of human consciousness.  

But with the opportunity to lift the veil comes a great moral obligation, for as Spiritual Science points out, there are dangers – great perils – if we are not prepared thru a conscious working, to build a foundation of ethical uprightness, that allows us to selflessly Cross the Threshold to enter & effectively work in the Spiritual World, not only for the individual, but for all those karmicly connected to the same esoteric initiative. For as Steiner tells us: It is the mutual taking on of karma that is created in such a community. (The Circle)

And so, in discerning whether or not we are meant to take up the Circle work, which demands, not only making a sacred vow to the spiritual world; we must also be consciously willing to take on this karma, bearing the joys & suffering of every member, living & dead, now, & for lifetimes to come. No small thing.

This makes our personal commitment to consistently & earnestly work with the Circle meditations of vital importance! Our integrity, or lack thereof, has a ripple effect that touches every member of the Circle, the Spiritual World, & the evolution of, not only humankind, but of the Earth which is destined to become a new Sun – the New Jerusalem.

One of the original Circle Members Herbert Hahn tells us: “While, on the one side, the meditations are for the individual & the community an organ of higher spiritual development, they also serve, on the other side, the whole Earth. Steiner explained that the moral forces of the Earth today are so threatened with corruption, ruination, that this meditative activity has an immensely significant healing effect for the Earth. This is especially true when, as happens in a spiritual community, the meditative forces potentize in their effect.”

And so you can imagine that whatever is put into, or not put into, the meditative practice, is potentized, & written into the ethers, for good or ill – affecting all realms.

Hahn goes on: “In this connection Rudolf Steiner also mentioned The Christian Community that was starting. It is to be thanked as a helper in this service for the preservation of the moral forces of the Earth…

Steiner went on to say that when we do this community-meditation, it will bring about a deeper connection of the core our being with our sheaths. This can however, because it is a birth process, be connected with feelings of suffering & pain…

Rudolf Steiner said all this with especially great earnestness. One had the impression of looking at great dangers that are coming toward us out of a time that is striding on into one-sidedness.

As he gave us the meditations in an unforgettable spirit-mood…he said something deeply stimulating: These meditations, when used correctly, could become something like windows into the spiritual world. The words & pictures give form to only half of what was to be entrusted to us. The other half we were to find ourselves through spiritual activity..

In the moment in which the meditations were given…Steiner said: “You can consider this thusly, that I was given the charge to bring this to you.”

For the writer of these lines, this was the highest impression that I ever received of the person of Rudolf Steiner. More & more I was allowed to experience how the suprasensible world revealed its full power in the work & appearance of Rudolf Steiner himself, as a high spiritual individuality.

In this moment of the giving of the meditations however, as if through a bolt of lightning, a spiritual background – which one can only divine – behind the bearer of the modern initiation, was torn open. In this experience, there was an indescribable spirit-aroma that remains connected with these meditations forever.”

As I mentioned in the last 2 articles around the origins & The Circle Jubilee, the giving of the meditation took place on Friday the 13th of October. The actual Founding – when the 12 Circle members took the solemn vow; came on Monday 16 October 1922. (Interesting to remember that the inital arrest of the Templars was on Friday, October 13, 1307)

Lehrs tells us: “Before the founding is described, an incident that took place in the meantime must be reported, because this caused Dr. Steiner to begin the Foundation in a specific way & to indicate an incumbent task for the whole of the Anthroposophical Movement.

Here is reported that a few of those founding the Youth Group had the intention-with the agreement of Dr. Rittelmeyer & Dr. Steiner-to participate in the first Act of Consecration of Man, at which others in addition to just the Priests could be present, on Sunday 15 October. This was the preparation by the inner circle of Priests for the first public celebration to be held at Advent in the wider communities.

In the conversation beforehand, in which the details of the service were made known, Emil Bock called for all, through their participation in the service, to commit themselves to building up The Christian Community. As a result of this, the Youth Group founders withdrew their intention to participate.”

I imagine that Emil Bock’s ill placed enthusiasm for his work made the young people feel unfree, so perhaps an opportunity for them, out of themselves, to bring: an incumbent task for the whole of the Anthroposophical Movement, to bear in the world at that time was missed.

This incumbent task, which I see as a calling for Christology to be more visible in Anthroposophy; acknowledged perhaps as one of the Sections in the Movement, is calling to be taken up now as part of the renewal forces available at this Centennial milestone – a chance to resurrect what lay dormant in the tomb.  

 Tomorrow we follow up with details the Founding of The Circle

Until soon

~hag

19 October 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Vega is the brightest star very high toward the west these evenings. To Vega’s right look for Eltanin, the nose of Draco the Dragon. The rest of Draco’s fainter, lozenge-shaped head is a little farther behind. Draco always eyes Vega as they wheel around the sky. The main stars of Vega’s own constellation, Lyra, extend to Vega’s left by half as far as the distance from Vega to Eltanin.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
MICHAELMAS 111
Soul Sunpower’s Awakening
v28
I can, revived within,
now feel my own wide breadth of being,
my strength of sun-empowered soul
whose radiance of thinking solves life’s riddles
and lifts the wish-fulfilling wings
left lame by hope.

The COTS verses can also be imagined in a 24 hour rhythm.
The summer is soul’s sleeptime in the drowsiness of senses.
This verse, the first mention of active human thought,
can be a meditation every morning on awakening,
and the opposite verse (the Southern Hemisphere one now),
with an alteration of its first line,
‘Arising into senses’ all-enwoven outwardness’,
and its third line changed from a present to a coming tense,
can be a meditation every evening as one prepares to sleep
for which one must release one’s thoughts.

EASTER II (revised as a meditation into sleep)
Spirit World Participation
v2
To sleep in all-enwoven outwardness
thought’s power sheds its separate strand;
the spirit worlds will find again
their human offspring,
whose soul must find her seed in them
but in herself the fruit.

At Ascensiontide, v7 (28/4), the Tenor calls for foresight
(“Ahnung”, that I alays translate with an ah, a sound for the future):
…now you, my foresight, dawn in me your star
and my divining, firmly as of right,
replace the power of thought
that in the senses’ glory leaves me.

In v8 at Whitsun (Pentecost):
…the senses’ power grows;
it presses thinking down
to dimness of a dream.

As the second quarter of the year begins in v14 (28/2)
the Baritone receives cosmic thought:
…there comes in all the senses’ glory cosmic thought’.

And now in v28, the 2nd verse of the COTS’ 2nd half of the year,
the daytime’s sun-empowered thought awakens in the Soprano’s voice.

Support Velsum purchase their new EP on bandcamp – Velsum is an Anthroposophical musical initiative formed through Ultra-Violet Archer and Lucien Dante Lazar. A true vocal presence is the union of past and future. Through harmony, generous creativity, and uplifting social transformation, Velsum invites the universal human being into the individual.

Origins of The Circle

Biography, Community, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote
Pablo Picasso, La Ronde de la Jeunesse (The Youth Circle)

Dear friends – a few young people have written in asking me to share more background around the ‘Wandervogel’ Youth Movement & how it was manifesting in the Anthroposophical Movement of Steiner’s day to bring forth “der Jugendkreis” (the Youth Circle) You can read about the Circle Jubilee here.

The best source is in “Esoteric Lessons Vol. 3 – 1913-1923, (CW 266/3) from the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner” giving a moving account of the origins & development of the Esoteric Youth Group. Friends, I wholeheartedly recommend reading these recollections, notes & testimonies from the young people who were part of this revolutionary time. It seems especially important for those who are members of The Circle now to review this material, since as Lehrs related, Steiner gave the advice that members “should reflect again & again upon the foundational impulse of the Group”

I will highlight a few details to help bring some perspective of what was living in the souls of these young people 100 years ago; who may be seeking to work with us from the spiritual world today.

The catastrophe of the World War proved that the old societal conditions were decadent, no longer serving the striving human being. Young people especially yearned for a new social practice. In 1919 the Movement for the Threefold Social Organism arose out of Rudolf Steiner, which really called to these young people.  From this came many Anthroposophical Student Groups. In 1920 the Association for Anthroposophical Collage Studies was founded. This led to the East-West Congress in Vienna in June 1922, where a group of young people set up a meeting with Rudolf Steiner.

Steiner described the youth as Wondervogel = Migratory birds – “a movement arising internationally out of elemental forces”, to announce the end of the Kali Yuga, in a series of lectures called ‘Youth and the Etheric Heart’ given especially for the young people who were grappling with many hardships & questions of their destiny following the disaster of World War I.

The young people responded by getting together & writing ‘circulars’ which were popular at that time, to try to explain what was living in them. These reports were often read at various Anthroposophical General Meetings. One such circular by Otto Palmer, Jr. spoke about the origins of the Youth Movement: “…we must see it above all as a protest that came to life in the youth against the old branch life that has up until now been customary in the Anthroposophical Society. Indeed, there actually does live in the youth something that feels the need to have Anthroposophy not be just something we do on Sunday afternoons (not like wearing it as jewelry or decoration on Sunday), but rather to bring everything that is given in Anthroposophy into life and to make it into practice…instead of a lecturer speaking from a podium, with the audience just listening, now people have joined together who want to work together on a theme…”

Another circular by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer said: “…If we ourselves add ability to our willing, then the fight against the old thinking can be taken up everywhere…”

After Steiner gave the lectures called: Mystics after Modernism to the Berlin Youth Group, Ernst Lehrs, Wilhelm Rath, Karin & Wilhelm Selling, & Kurt Walther, became inspired by the “Friend of God from Oberland” & his ‘circle of 12 Friends of God’. This enkindled in them & others the ideal of building a similar circle of Anthroposophical youth to meet the modern age. They hoped to create this ideal thru the newly formed “Bund fur freies Geistesleben (Association for Independent Spiritual Life)

Rath wrote to Lehrs: “…The request is that, since we want for all the future to come to an intensive, living working-together, that Rudolf Steiner give us the possibility of uniting meditatively at a specific time in rhythmic sequence – even though we are separated in space – by giving us a unifying meditation into which we can immerse ourselves in the morning or evening. This idea seems important to me.”

Other young people were more concerned with asking Steiner about practical career advice. So, as Rath wrote in his book “Mein Weg zum Kreis” (My way to the circle): “…the result was a long wrestling with the formation of the question to be put to Dr. Steiner”.

Over 80 young people, from the ages of 18-25, & about 20 older folks came to Stuttgart for the Youth Course, 3-5 October 1922, in what came to be called “Becoming the Archangel Michael’s Companion”. Steiner understood that the young people saw “fixed programs as something for which the time is past”, so Herr Doctor suggested they meet together to discuss what they wanted the 1st lecture to be about, & then they could go from there. The Official local Society reps were offended that they weren’t included, although Steiner did invite the Vorstand & the college of teachers from the Waldorf School.

According to “Enstehungsgeschichte des Jugendkreises” (The history of the origin of the youth group by Ernst Lehrs) the young people were split, ‘one group wanted to bring a question about building an esoteric community, the other group rejected this flatly & demanded that only a question that concerns the pedagogical realm should be brought. Finally, they agreed on a neutrally formulated question. When it was presented to Rudolf Steiner, he appeared to be disappointed by it, so Wilhelm Rath felt compelled to bring the idea forward about the esoteric community, which Dr. Steiner was immediately willing to do.’ He suggested that the large group consult once more & that only those who wanted to take up the esoteric idea should come to the next meeting.

After much debate the majority separated off, & the Youth Course, called today THE YOUNGER GENERATION, GA 217, itself addressed their career questions; while a group of 12 went on to meet with Dr. Steiner on Friday the 13th October 1922. (Interesting to think back on that Friday the 13th October in 1307, when King Philip IV of France, in league with Pope Clement V, ordered all the Knights Templars to be rounded up & thrown into prison)

From Herbert Hahn we hear: “We gathered in a festive, expectant mood. Dr. Steiner entered together with Frau Dr. Steiner, with a noticeably earnest bearing. He held in his hand a violet leather-bound book, out of which later he read the meditations & let them be copied. Upon entering the room, he paused a moment in the doorway & counted us as he pointed a finger at each of us. Thereby, we ourselves became aware for the first time that there were twelve of us. Then he opened the book & said with a deep, calm voice: “I have the task of communicating the following to you”.

More tomorrow

~hag

The Circle Jubilee

Biography, Community, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul

Dear friends – I was especially looking forward to attending our Christian Community Church this morning since Rev. Jeana Lee & several members of our congregation have just returned from the celebration of the founding of the Christian Community, which occurred on 16 September 1922.  

And today on 16 October 2022 we are honoring the Anniversary of the Founding of the Esoteric Youth Circle, an independent, self-directed community of meditants – a path of inner striving as a service – ‘a social working in the suprasensible‘ – established thru Rudolf Steiner in 1922.

The task of the Circle member is an inner contemplation of mantras to be done 3 X’s a day, morning, noon & evening, using the spiritual content that came thru Dr. Steiner, to create an etheric relationship with others working with the mantras here on earth, as well as those across the Threshold, in collaboration with Powerful Spiritual Beings, (Steiner explained: What you seek is to find a friend in the spiritual world) to foster the Christic progress in the evolution of humanity.

Steiner told the original members that this: meditation is a fulfilling of the Spiritual Will that the Time Spirit bears within itself. When such meditation is practiced, a spiritual force is able to work into the earthly events. Spiritual worlds want to work into earthly events today, but they can do this only when, through human meditation, space is created for it…the power of meditating such a meditation in common increases by potentization. 

To be clear – the members of The Circle do not constitute some spiritual or social elite, but join together because an inner urge, stemming perhaps from karma, compels them to search for an inner, meditative relationship to Anthroposophy that prepares them 1st thru an individual inner development, which then benefits the wider society as a whole, to receive the Michaelic stream of spiritual working that is seeking to enter the evolution of Humanity.

At the Founding, Steiner tells us: It is the mutual taking on of karma that is created in such a community.

Like in The Mystery Dramas, Steiner tells us must realize that: what we ourselves do within the community bears no fruit for us ourselves, but for others, & that the fruits for us come from others.

After the Founding, Steiner annouced: What has taken place now is a first in the post-Christian era: human beings themselves chose, out of freedom before the spiritual world, to join together esoterically’.

Dear freinds – The Circle did not start out to be, & was never intended as a ‘Secret Society’; but unfortunately, as can be the case with the School of Spiritual Science & its First Class, or in the ‘Sections’, some people have fed into this false notion.

The Circle is not an institution in the world. It should have no hierarchy, no guru’s, it is not an organization or a separate society. The Circle has never had, nor should it have, any ‘leaders’ or select representatives. (but again unfortunately some people do aggrandize their ‘seniority’, so beware) There is no constitution or code of conduct, or enforced bylaws. No papers are signed, no proof of membership. No financial transactions of any kind occur.

The Circle grows by word of mouth, mostly thru conversations between people. It’s been interesting to see how this impulse, living as it does in the etheric & astral worlds, & in the “I” of many striving souls, has been called to become so much more present these days, as we come to this Centennial milestone.

Meetings, (in many cases these days on zoom) occur as a way of sharing research, personal experience with The Circle Meditation as seen thru the seasonal round, or working with the esoteric lessons which Steiner specificly gave them – And as the Good Doctor emphasized to the original members “To get to know each other well” thru biography work, as way of building a ‘new kind of community‘ of equal peers.

Unlike other communities, where a person’s actions & judgments can be subject to censure or sanctions, The Circle is meant to leave each person completely free, never exerting any kind of pressure or influence on other members. There is no ‘acting on behalf of the Circle’.

The many quotations here & below, from the initial conversations with Rudolf Steiner, clarifies the relationship of the members to each other:

To unite together through a mutual promise in striving for a common spiritual purpose, and in doing so to nevertheless leave each one completely free in their actions and their judgments – a community founded upon such precepts is something quite new in the development of humanity and something which is needed today as a matter of utmost necessity.

The Circle was never an official part of the Anthroposophical Society, it is independent in the same sense as the Christian Community. But the history shows that Rudolf Steiner was asked by the Circle members during the Christmas Conference whether they were meant to continue in light of the new impulse from the refounding of the Anthroposophical Society. In response, he gave them a 2nd Esoteric Lesson on the morning of 30 December 1923 – before Continuing the Foundation Meeting – deepening their insights to further their work on into the future.  

Also interesting is that among the other mantras that make up that Christmas Conference lesson, Steiner spoke the 3 so-called “Tablets” asking the Cirlce members to write them down, & use them in their daily work. This was before Steiner had established the First Class.

Rudolf Steiner never intended that the Circle should stop its work or be dissolved, which he confirmed to Maria Röschl when she asked him about it.

Steiner also told the members: The community will never die out. With the 1st community members who reincarnate, the community returns to Earth.

Therefore The Circle will continue to exist, according to Steiner, beyond death, as long as there are people that find its task meaningful, are prepared to carry thru with the daily meditations, & are called to pass it on to others.

When, after much deliberation one determines that The Circle work is part of their destiny, the person makes ‘the pledge’ – to serve the spiritual world.  

Steiner affirmed: By persevering with the exercises we have a chance to stand up to Ahrimanic powers that no one person can withstand alone.

Below is a letter from Ernst Lehrs, one of the founding members of the Esoteric Youth Circle, where he answers a question posed to Alan Howard, one of the editors of the Autumn 1979 newsletter of the Anthroposophical Society in America. This was written a few weeks before his death.

“I am writing in response to your inquiry in the Autumn ’79 issue of the American Newsletter concerning what seems to you to be a “secret Society” within the general Anthroposophical Movement.

As an original member of this “Circle”, which came into being with the help of Rudolf Steiner 56 years ago, I feel obliged to convey as far as possible a picture fitting its true nature. At the time of the so-called Youth Course (available in English under the title “The Younger Generation,”) held by Rudolf Steiner in 1922, some of us who had carried the initiative for this course out of impulses shared and agreed by us during a preparatory period, approached Rudolf Steiner in all modesty about the possibility of receiving common material for inner work.

Our question had been prompted by realizing the rapid crumbling of human society in its different spheres. This was at the same time that the inevitable failure of the Threefold Commonwealth Movement became apparent. We felt that something quite definite ought to be undertaken which would ensure the continuity of the anthroposophical substance regardless of external conditions. For this purpose, purely individual meditations carried out for one’s own spiritual progress – indispensable though these are – could not suffice. What we were striving for, or so we put it, was a Schulung als Dienst (a path of inner striving as a service), whereby one wishes to serve the Spirit of the Time, i.e. Michael.

After a number of preparatory conversations between Rudolf Steiner and those of us who had requested them, a meditative content was passed on to us which Rudolf Steiner said was given im Auftrag der geistigen Welt (on behalf of the spiritual world). At the same time, the manner of its use as well as indications of how to pass on this meditative work to others striving in a similar direction was explained to us by Rudolf Steiner. He then further helped the birth of this community and said that we should regard it as having been gestiftet by the spiritual world itself. (Rudolf Steiner distinguished clearly between begründen – to found, and stiften – to institute, to endow; the former refers to an impulse originating in the physical world, the latter to one coming directly out of the spiritual world working down into the physical.)

This took place in a solemn act. Rudolf Steiner also handed down to the initial group a pledge which, by being read in the presence of the others who already belong to the Circle, constitutes a commitment purely to the spiritual world. We were the first to do so on Rudolf Steiner’s advice by reading these words to one another.

Subsequently, Rudolf Steiner met twice with the members of this community endowing them with two esoteric lessons, (the 1st was in Stuttgart on 13 July 1923, which BTW Steiner also gave to the Priests) the second of which was held on December 30, 1923, this is during the Weihnachtstagung (the Christmas Foundation Meeting). It took place in a room of the Glashaus; and on this occasion, Frau Ita Wegman and Frau Marie Steiner accompanied him as guests. From what Rudolf Steiner said with regard to Dr Wegman’s presence, we realized that this work was in a way linked to the newly formed Hochschule (School for Spiritual Science).

In subsequent months, Rudolf Steiner made himself available to us whenever required either personally until his illness, or in writing until shortly before his death. The Vorstand in Dornach was thoroughly informed about these matters to their complete satisfaction.

The connection between the members of this community is established solely through the same mantric words meditated by each individually. No earthly initiative is ever undertaken by its members by virtue of belonging to this community. In some places, friends foster meetings from time to time of those locally in reach. Here again, they do so following the advice by Rudolf Steiner to engage in conversations and Gespräch about spiritual matters, e.g. based on the content of the two esoteric lessons, if they wish to do so.

The community has no name of its own and Rudolf Steiner recommended that we should keep it so. However, in the opening part of the second lesson, he said, “I am addressing myself today to the youth in you. For you are after all the esoteric youth circle.” This has prompted some friends to refer to it as “der Jugendkreis” but usually when it is mentioned it is spoken of as “der Kreis” (The Circle).

I hope that through my description it has become clear that this community is in no way an institution on earth and that there is no secrecy about its work. Friends find this work who feel within themselves questions arising of a nature similar to those which have led to the original formation of this community. Experience has shown that individuals earnestly seeking answers to vital inner questions are often led by personal encounters to situations where this work may become known to them. It is then a matter of whether one is able, prepared and willing to undertake responsibly the specific meditative work described above. ~Ernst Lehrs, Advent 1979”

The history of ‘The Circle’ can be found in “Esoteric Lessons Vol. 3 – 1913-1923”. Other documents are at the Archives at the Goetheanum or the Rudolf Steiner Archives in Dornach.

Here are a few notes from the various preparatory discussions for the founding of the Group:

‘If I am to go into what I understand with the term “esoteric group” then let me say that if you want to take the esoteric earnestly, you must say to yourself that it is an action out of the impulses from the spiritual world. One can strive toward this. Anthroposophy is a path to this end. To build such a community would constitute a decision to set upon this path.

The spiritual is a living element & so such a group must not be something dead. The group must be a force-group. The health of each part is the health of the whole. It is the mutual taking on of karma that is created in such a community. There is then mutual suffering to live through, but also mutual joy. People must be treated like fellow human beings, with all their imperfections.

What you seek is to find a friend in the spiritual world. The important thing is to remain spiritually true to the friend once found. Therefore, the 1st requirement is that you learn quite precisely what spiritual loyalty is.

Your community will have in it something of the primordial mystery of all human community. This mystery is that, what we ourselves do within the community bears no fruit for us ourselves, but for others, & that the fruits for us come from others.

We must work for the progress of humanity – Just as the physical social life consists of deeds done together, so too we strive for common deeds in the spirit – thus actually, for a social working in the suprasensible.

We must endeavor to carry spirit into the furthest consequences of our actions. This alone – that we bring spirit & love into our will – can make it possible to stand firmly against being overrun by the cultural machine. Too few people today develop real initiative. There is a lot of willfulness, but little will.

The true meditation is a fulfilling of the spiritual will that the Time Spirit bears with itself. Where such meditation is practiced, a spiritual force is able to work into the earthly events. Spiritual worlds want to work in to earthly events today, but they can do this only when, through human meditation, space is created for it. Through meditation, something like an empty space comes about. Into this space, the spiritual beings can enter with their effects. And the power of meditating such a meditation in common increases by potentization.

When we do this community-meditation, it will bring about a deeper connection of the core of our being with our sheaths.

These meditations, when used correctly, could become something like windows into the spiritual world. The words & pictures given, form only half of what is to be entrusted to us. The other half we are to find ourselves through spiritual activity.

Each of you must feel joy for the success of the other. You must avoid every feeling of rivalry & have the awareness that what each of you accomplishes, you accomplish through the power of all of the others.

Uniting yourself through a mutual promise to strive toward a common spiritual goal – & leaving one another completely free in actions & judgements in life – such a community based on this is something completely new in the evolution of humanity. And it is what is most necessary today.

For someone who comes to specific results on the esoteric path, there is always the danger of delusions of grandeur. Such a community as yours can be a protection against this. For in it, you strive together to cross the threshold of the spiritual world. And there each of you has to say that you have the efforts of all the others to thank for what you have achieved personally.

Effects will arise in the destiny between human beings who are connected with us in the community physically & spiritually. The community will never die out. With the 1st community members who reincarnate, the community returns to Earth.

By persevering with the exercises we have a chance to stand up to Ahrimanic powers that no one person can withstand.

Through the reading of the oath given by Rudolf Steiner on 16 October 1922, in the presence of the others, the admittance into the community was effected.

And now consider your community as having been founded by the spiritual world itself…Now get to know each other well.

This gave us the idea to tell each other our biography at the mutual acceptance into membership.

What has taken place now is a 1st in the post-Christian era: human beings themselves chose, out of freedom before the spiritual world, to join together esoterically’.

The 12 founding members:

Daniel van Bemmelen, co-founder of the 1st Dutch Waldorf School

Georg Groot MD, 3-fold social order, co-worker in the Berlin Group of the College Association

Herbert Hahn, called by Steiner to teach at the Independent Waldorf School in Stuttgart

Ernst Lehrs, teacher at the Waldorf school in Stuttgart, served on the committee for the Independent Anthroposophical Society founded for the youth. Later taught in The Hague, London, & Aberdeen. Also taught with his wife Maria Roeschl in the Rudolf Steiner Seminar.

Rene Maikowski, business manager of the Association for Anthroposophical College Studies, also a Waldorf teacher.

Wilhelm Rath, bookseller, man of letters, farmer, was on the committee of the Independent Anthroposophical Society.

Wilhelm Selling, mechanical engineer, colonial officer in Africa, in charge of the Theosophical library, mentor of the youth work in Berlin

Karin Selling, part of the Scandinavian Theosophical Society, teacher at the Waldorf School in Stockholm

Emma Smit, teacher & organizer of the Independent school in The Hague

Maria Spira, came from the Zionist Youth Movement, married Wilhelm Rath

Albrecht Strohschein,Walter Johannes Stein, Karl König

Albrecht Strohschein, business man, 1st co-worker in the Der Kommenden (The Coming Day) in Stuttgart, student of psychology in Jena, co-founder of the therapeutic pedagogical movement

Kurt Walther, postal officer, lecturer, & leader of many courses, the successor of Marie Steiner in the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Socety, married Wilhelm Selling’s sister Clara Selling, who was part of Steiner’s household

Blessings as we take this impulse into the next Century & beyond…

~hag

Only Death is Dead

Biography, History, Quote

Only Death is Dead

“…Walking in a garden at the break of day,
Mary asked the gardener where the body lay;
But he turned towards her, spoke her name and said:
‘Mary, Spring is here to stay, only death is dead…”
~Hilary Greenwood

Fra Angelico

To expound on yesterday’s essay, I was thinking how many sacred traditions, like Sufism for instance, tell us that we must ‘die before we die’, meaning we must be dead to our sense-bound thinking before our physical death occurs.

The “The Voice of the Silence” informs us that: “The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real. Let the Disciple slay the Slayer. “

It is our materialistic thinking which creates the illusion of separateness, including the illusion of death. If we ‘slay’ this lower mind we also slay death.

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin writes in “The Ministry of the Human-Spirit” that: “A way of discerning at least the index of our immortality is to realise how, in every respect, man here below walks daily on the edge of his grave, and it can only be by some instinct of his immortality that he seeks to rise superior to this menace, living as if it did not exist.”

These are “intimations of our immortality” to use the words of the poet Wordsworth, who had this ‘instinct’ it seems.

Anton Shakov

There are 2 ways of looking at the idea of living as if death does not exist. The first is the most common illusion – living out of fear, as if the material world is all there is, shutting the idea of death completely out of their minds until some event like sickness, the death of a loved one, or the advent of old age for example, forces them to face up to their mortality. But even these events may cause many to retreat even further into a denial of the spirit.

In the 2nd instance there are those who have taken an interest in the Spiritual side of life & have become aware that they ‘walk daily on the edge of their graves’ which they come to see as a veil between the worlds. This begins a conscious effort to live as if death did not exist by becoming intuitively aware that their higher “I” can never die – allowing a living into the Light of this eternal truth.

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin goes on to say: “Death is merely the quitting of an appearance, that is to say of the body, or rather it is relinquishing of separateness – one less illusion between man and truth…”

The physical body, because of its many limitations, can be a barrier to true perception, restraining us to sense bound appearances. We have to awaken our imagination, inspiration & intuition to become aware of the essence beyond the physical. It is only when we are freed from the confines of our personal self that we can begin to do that.

Thru study & meditation we must put an end to the theory of death as an ending, & come to realize that there are only various phases of Life. Spiritual Science gives us an understanding of the life after the death, which hands us the key to unlocking the illusion of death – so that we can cultivate our immortality as Spiritual Beings.

Our true Self lives beyond the dominion of the body alone, in a state of total freedom, so that before us lives an infinity of experiences in many dimensions, & an ever increasing awareness of the Light that illumines us inwardly on all levels – opening us to the Love that permeates the whole Universe.

We can also remember the words of the Bhagavad Gita: “Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was a time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams, Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems.”

My thoughts on this cold dark morning.

~hag

15 October 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

70 BC – Birthday of Virgil, an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, & the epic Aeneid, considered the national epic of ancient Rome. Modeled after Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny & arrive on the shores of Italy—in Roman mythology the founding act of Rome. Virgil’s work has had wide & deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dante’s guide through hell & purgatory

St. Teresa of Avila Receives the Veil and Necklace from the Virgin and St. Joseph | Carmel, Garden of God

Feast Day of Saint Teresa of Ávila, who lived in the 16th century, an age of exploration as well as political, social & religious upheaval. She was a woman; she was a contemplative; she was an active reformer.

As a woman, Teresa stood on her own two feet, even in the man’s world of her time. She was “her own woman,” entering the Carmelites despite strong opposition from her father. She is a person wrapped not so much in silence as in mystery. Beautiful, talented, outgoing, adaptable, affectionate, courageous, enthusiastic, she was totally human. Like Jesus, she was a mystery of paradoxes: wise, yet practical; intelligent, yet much in tune with her experience; a mystic, yet an energetic reformer. A holy woman, a womanly woman.

Teresa was a woman “for Christ,” a woman of prayer, discipline & compassion. Her heart belonged to God. Her ongoing conversion was an arduous lifelong struggle, involving ongoing purification & suffering. She was misunderstood, misjudged, opposed in her efforts at reform. Yet she struggled on, courageous & faithful; she struggled with her own mediocrity, her illness, her opposition. And in the midst of all this she clung to God in life & in prayer. Her writings on prayer & contemplation are drawn from her experience: powerful, practical & graceful. A woman of prayer; a woman for God.

Teresa was a woman “for others.” Though a contemplative, she spent much of her time & energy seeking to reform herself & the Carmelites, to lead them back to the full observance of the primitive Rule. She founded over a half-dozen new monasteries. She traveled, wrote, fought—always to renew, to reform. In her self, in her prayer, in her life, in her efforts to reform, in all the people she touched, she was a woman for others, a woman who inspired & gave life.

Her writings, especially the Way of Perfection & The Interior Castle, have helped generations of believers.

In 1970, the Church gave her the title she had long held in the popular mind: Doctor of the Church. She & St. Catherine of Siena were the first women so honored.

Ours is a time of turmoil, a time of reform & a time of liberation. Modern women have in Teresa a challenging example. Promoters of renewal, promoters of prayer, all have in Teresa a woman to reckon with, one whom they can admire & imitate.

Amazon.com: Friedrich Nietzsche - Edvard Munch hand-painted oil painting reproduction,German philosopher,cultural critic, poet,philologist,great man art: Handmade
Edvard Munch

1844 – Birthday of Friedrich Nietzsche, German composer, poet, & philosopher. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom written by Rudolf Steiner. Nietzsche was seen by Steiner, but was lying in a coma near death. Rudolf Steiner brought out an edition of some of Nietzsche’s writings. In seeing that Nietzsche’s ideas received a public exposure, Steiner was not identifying himself as one of Nietzsche’s disciples, but rather assuring philosophical readers that this important link in the spiritual development of occidental thought should not be ignored.

WHEN I BECAME acquainted with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche six years ago, ideas had already formed within me which were similar to his. Independently, and from completely different directions, I came to concepts which were in harmony with those Nietzsche expressed in his writings: Zarathustra, Jenseits von Gut and Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogie der Moral, Genealogy of Morals, and Götzendämmerung, Twilight of Idols. In my little book which appeared in 1886, Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, The Theory of Knowledge in Goethe’s World Conception, this same way of implicit thinking is expressed as one finds in the works of Nietzsche mentioned above.

This is why I feel myself impelled to draw a picture of Nietzsche’s life of reflection and feeling. I believe that such a picture will be most like Nietzsche when it is created according to his last writings. This I have done. The earlier writings of Nietzsche show him as a searcher. He presents himself to us as a restless striver toward the heights. In his last writings we see him when he has reached the summit, and at a height commensurate with his very own spiritual quality. In most of the writings which have appeared about Nietzsche up to now, this development is represented as if in the various periods of his writing he had more or less contradictory opinions. I have tried to show that there is no question of a change of opinion in Nietzsche, but rather of a movement upward, of a development of a personality in a manner fitting to it, which had not yet found a form of expression in accord with his innate points of view in those first works.

The final goal of Nietzsche’s creativity is the description of the “superman.” I considered my chief task in this writing to be the characterization of this type. My characterization of the superman is exactly the opposite of the caricature developed in the currently popular book about Nietzsche by Frau Lou Andreas Salomé. One cannot put into the world anything more contrary to Nietzsche’s spirit than the mystical monster she has made out of the superman. My book shows that in Nietzsche’s ideas nowhere is the least trace of mysticism to be found. I did not allow myself to be drawn into the refutation of Frau Salomé’s opinion that Nietzsche’s thoughts in Menschliches, All-zumenschliches, Human, All Too Human, were influenced by the works of Paul Rée, the editor of Psychological Observations, and The Origin of Moral Feelings, etc. Such an average brain as that of Paul Rée could make no important impression on Nietzsche. Even now I would not touch upon these things at all if the book of Frau Salomé had not contributed so much toward the spreading of downright disagreeable judgments about Nietzsche. Fritz Koegel, the excellent publisher of Nietzsche’s works, bestowed upon this bungled piece of work its deserved treatment in the Magazine for Literature.

I cannot conclude this short preface without giving hearty thanks to Nietzsche’s sister, Frau Foerster-Nietzsche, for the many friendly deeds I experienced from her during the period in which this book developed. I owe to her the hours spent in the Nietzsche Archives, and the mood out of which the following thoughts were written. ~RUDOLF STEINER, Weimar, April 1895.

‘Velsum’ is now resounding! Support the release of their first EP. CLICK HERE

This musical initiative by Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer, is a celebration of harmony, rhythm, prayer, and the human voice. These three songs are inspired by the spiritual teachings of Anthroposophy. Each song is permeated with a sincere interest in the other, the Self, the world, and the cosmos. “Velsum’s music is a product of listening.” We hope that by listening to these songs, you feel heard. ~Velsum