Category Archives: Insight

Identity

August 8, 2023Calendar of the Soul, Chicago Event, Community, Festival, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Event~hag

Greetings friends – I am just now coming back – with the 4^thQuarter Moon & the building up of the Perseid Meteor showers – fresh from Seminar 4 of the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology (AAP) where the theme was dealing with the 3^rd Septennial – age 14-21 asking: Who Am I ? – The Search for Identity & Authenticity.

And Hallelujah – Because the border restrictions imposed by the Corona crisis finally loosened in May, Dr. James Dyson, Simon Kuttner, & Zheni Nasi were able to join us in person for the 1^st time! – Bringing a distinctly glorious soul-shift in the state of our communion this go-round.

I will no doubt be unpacking our deep dive into the polarities that get sparked during the teenage years, on the micro & macro levels – with all its astral dynamics, as the digestion proceeds.

For now, I’ll just share this echo: Having gathered at Camphill Kimberton on the Full Thunder-Buck Moon during the Cross-Quarter Time of the 2^nd Harvest, between the Summer Solstice & The Autumn Equinox – with the local biodynamic sweet corn plumb & golden, I could sense the ‘Spirit of Place’ standing strongly with the guiding Spirit behind AAP, vibrating thru us all.

And as we contemplated together the essence of adolescence – it seemed to me that in looking at the macro level of human evolution, that perhaps society at large is stuck in those teenage years – a reactive raging
turmoil – the result of a lack of identity – of not yet being able to fully achieve a connection to the Higher “I”…

James Dyson painted a gripping picture of the Youth Movement he was part of – How in 1970, over 400 young people came together for a conference in Spring Valley. Michael Babitch, the long time Camphiller I was staying with was also at this seminal gathering, fresh from the Peace Corp.

Sparked by the success & growing interest within the Youth Movement at that time, James then went on to work with a team of young people to bring a conference to the Goetheanum in 1973. He spoke about the rigidity of the Elders there, & the many obstacles they faced. And yet over 1000 young people from all over the world came together in the light of Anthroposophy!

Was this the longed for ‘Culmination’ that Steiner spoke about?

James & so many others in that volatile time were helped to find their star by finding each other. Many of those earnest young people went on to become practitioners of Anthroposophical Initiates in the world.

It reminded me of what Steiner said at the end of the Christmas Conference – 8:30 pm on 1 January, 1924 in The Responsibility Incumbent on Us: “And so, my dear friends, bear out with you into the world your warm hearts in whose soil you have laid the Foundation Stone for the Anthroposophical Society, bear out with you your warm hearts in order to do work in the world that is strong in healing. Help will come to you because your heads will be enlightened by what you all now want to be able to direct in conscious willing. Let us today make this resolve with all our strength. And we shall see that if we show ourselves to be worthy, then a good star will shine over that which is willed from here. My dear friends, follow this good star. We shall see whither the gods shall lead us through the light of this star.

Light Divine
Christ-Sun,
Warm thou
Our hearts,
Enlighten
thou
Our heads!“

Many questions arose about whether this Responsibility Incumbent on Us was heeded. Has Dornach become simply a place holder, a memorial – at worst a mausoleum…? –

Or is it perhaps a sheath – an inverted chalice over the etheric essence of the 1^st Goetheanum – a protective Michaelic Sheild – a concrete cradle, like the moon, holding the host of the etheric substance of ‘The Word’ released by the sacrificial fire to flow into & permeate the cosmic ethers..?

Are we willing & able to do the hard work of not only reading the Cosmic Script, but actually putting what has been inscribed in the ethers into practice in our lives, thru the purifying of our soul forces, for the highest human evolution…?

The years of biodynamic farming on the Dornach hill gives the land a spiritual glow; & the ancient Hermitage still seems to have some juice – At best – can the Goetheanum become a guiding light to the future…?

It’s up to us – & yes, ‘the Ordering of Space & the Course of Time’ will tell –

What I do know is – that it’s 100 years since the re-founding – And these are the kind of questions we must be asking.

And of course, as we have discussed many times here on RR – it is a Rosicrucian law that after 100 years ‘the Tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz is opened’. This imagination reveals a deep occult truth – The seeds that were planted by the great Christian Initiates that were not able to bear fruit in the last century, can now rise from the grave to become not only a Resurrection, but a furthering, & a Renewal – an opportunity to meet “I” to “I” to enact the New Mysteries of Love & Freedom.

And what became clear to me sitting in our circle of 50 earnest souls, is that the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology is a true guiding light, a practical, experientially based Mystery School for our time – chalk full of all the pushes & pullings that are the key notes of initiation – The not so beautiful karmic realtionships, that so sorely test us, & the intense trials that inner development brings…

Dear friends, together we can stand with the ‘Representative of Humanity’ spared by the flames of jealousy, to unveil the New Isis = to live into the truth that: “Love is the result of Wisdom that has been reborn in the I” – ever cultivating Anthroposophia within ourselves as we ‘Awaken to Community’ – To fulfill ‘the Mystery of the “I” giving back to the Gods’, in the co-creation of a New Golden Civilization – “I” into it”.

~hag

8 August 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Early tomorrow morning, the waning crescent moon will pass the dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster, aka the Seven Sisters. And on Thursday, the even thinner moon will be close to bright orange star Aldebaran, fiery Eye of the Bull in the constellation Taurus.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The vision of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from the Virgin by Bernardo Cavallino

1170 – Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominicans

1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe’s Uraniborg observatory is laid on the island of Hven.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1879 – Deathday of Immanuel Hermann Fichte, German philosopher and academic

1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers’ first public flight.

1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight.

1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36, the world’s first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft, with the longest wingspan of any military aircraft, and the first bomber with intercontinental range.

1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
LAMMASTIDE II
Can I Imagine My Soul’s Need?
v18
Can I make wide my soul
that she unite with seed
of Cosmic Word conceived?
I feel my foresight asking me
to find the strangth my soul will need
to form her spirit garment worthily.

This is the Soul Calendar’s first question verse
and its mirror is the only other one.

ADVENT II
Can True Being Inspire Me?
v35
Can I experience true being
that it may find itself anew
in soul’s creative urge?
I feel a power trusting me
to make my Self with modesty
a member of the Cosmic Self.

~Dali

Sunday 13 August 2023

Prep-Stir – Potluck – Bonfire

To celebrate The 2^nd Harvest = Lammas

The Perseid Meteor Showers, Venus/Sun Conjunction

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

And a bon voyage Blessing for Ultra-Violet Archer

7 – 9 pm

at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share,

& a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

The Palladium

July 31, 2023Biography, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

(part 6 -the final bit of the series)

Greetings friends on this Eve of the Full Thunder-Buck Moon – The Eve of the Cross-Quarter often called Lammas or Loaf-Mass in honor of the grain harvest.

I am leaving tomorrow for my next session of AAP Training, so I wanted to wrap up this series of reflections from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing Anthroposophia” Conference. Here are the links to the earlier essays part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4 – part 5

To further the emphasis on the healing task of the Arts, the perfect capper to ‘Realizing Anthroposophia’ came in the form of a spoken word performance by Richard Ramsbotham, with captivating music by Godlind Gadeke – “In Search of the Hidden Sources of Healing” – Through the death-forces in our culture to the rebirth of the spirit! Taken directly from the diaries of Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk written up in her book: “The Journey to Byzantium – The Palladium of Victory”, where she poetically describes her super-sensible experiences in Constantinople in 1926.

Yes, it’s the same Countess von Keyserlingk who together with her husband Count Carl von Keyserlingk hosted Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course at their estate in the obscure village of Koberwitz near Breslau, Germany (now Kobierzyce, near Wrocław, Poland).

Her highly developed clairvoyant ability, verified by Rudolf Steiner, opens her to the dread deed of 869 – the banishment of the Spirit – which plunges humanity into materialism. Facing this darkness, she also experiences the full potential to overcome this pronouncement – bringing a rebirth of Spirit – a healing of the sickness prevailing in our culture.

Perhaps you attended the amazing zoom series: “Shining a Light into the Darkness” initiated by Dr. Melissa Greer of Carah Medical Arts, for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Branch? Richard Ramsbotham gave the first two talks on the Academy of Gondishapur. Melissa asked him to contribute something for the Conference & this is what he felt called to bring! She sent him my essay on the Countess: Johanna von Keyserlingk: Vessel for the Etheric Christ for art & background.

Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk was deeply affected by Rudolf Steiner’s death, feeling it as blow to humanity. The only hope she thought, must come thru the aid of the Spiritual World, which she was very much in-touch with. This launched her on a quest to re-discover the lost “Palladium – The Sun-Jewel of Pallas Athena”.

~Nike (Victory) offers an egg to a snake entwined around a column surmounted by the Trojan Palladium

Many tales speak of the Palladium (like the Spear of Destiny) – as conferring spiritual rulership of the world for whoever holds it.

~Odysseus and Diomedes steal the Palladium from Troy

Steiner described the search for the Palladium as a quest for human freedom. “Legends tell of the removal of The Palladium, the Treasure of Wisdom, from Troy to Rome, from Rome to Constantinople, when Roman Christianity was secularized. They tell of its future removal to the East…& they tell of the necessity for this Sun-Treasure to receive new light from the West…How it must wait until it is redeemed spiritually in the West, released from the dark shadows of a purely external knowledge…

The Sun-Mystery has disappeared into the nether regions of human existence. Through spiritual-scientific development we must find it again…

Today people are looking expectantly towards – Washington! Not those “Washingtons” having conferences looking for an open door for trade to China -but those that speak with the tones of the spiritual world – conferences conducted in the West that will bring salvation – which develop in such a way that the Palladium can be kindled once again to light. For like a fluorescent body, the Palladium, in itself, is dark; if it is suffused with light, then it becomes radiant. And so it is with the wisdom of the East: dark in itself, but it will light up when it is permeated by the spiritual light, The Sun-Wisdom of the West.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Cosmosophy, GA 208, 6 Nov. 1921

The journey the Countess takes is not about finding a physical object, but of striving to understand the spiritual causes for the sickness of society – & for the spiritual healing of it all. This brought her first into contact with the dark powers involved with the Council of Constantinople in 869.

From Rudolf Steiner: “…At the Council of Constantinople (in 869) it was decreed that the spirit did not exist; it was dogmatically stated that the human being consisted only of body and soul, and it was heresy to speak of a human spirit. In the same way attempts will be made to decree the soul, the inner life, as nonexistent.

The time will come — and it may not be far off — when quite different tendencies will come up at a congress like the one held in 1912 (involving the start of WW1) and people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul. ‘Sound’ people will speak of nothing but the body. It will be considered a sign of illness for anyone to arrive at the idea of any such thing as a spirit or a soul. People who think like that will be considered to be sick and — you can be quite sure of it — a medicine will be found for this.

At Constantinople the spirit was made non-existent. The soul will be made non-existent with the aid of a drug. Taking a ‘sound point of view’, people will invent a vaccine to influence the organism as early as possible, preferably as soon as it is born, so that this human body never even gets the idea that there is a soul and a spirit.

The two philosophies of life will be in complete opposition. One movement will need to reflect how concepts and ideas may be developed to meet the reality of soul and spirit. The others, the heirs of modern materialism, will look for the vaccine to make the body ‘healthy’, that is, makes its constitution such that this body no longer talks of such rubbish as soul and spirit, but takes a ‘sound’ view of the forces which live in engines and in chemistry and let planets and suns arise from nebulae in the cosmos. Materialistic physicians will be asked to drive the souls out of humanity.

People who think that playful ideas will help them to look ahead to the future are very much mistaken. We need serious, profound ideas to look ahead to the future. Anthroposophy is not a game, nor just a theory; it is a task that must be faced for the sake of human evolution.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS, GA 177, 5. Changes in Humanity’s Spiritual Make-up, 7 October 1917, Dornach

Dear friends – As we meet each of the many 100 year milestones that ask us to transform & renew what was wrought in Steiner’s time, we can see many parallels. Ramsbotham’s question to us thru this artistic work is: As we stand against the abyss of the ‘4^th Industrial Revolution in which ‘biological & digital identities would be merged’ How can we uncover the hidden mysteries of Healing? What is asked of us today?

As Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk says:

“We were aware that humanity had struck against something in front of which we were powerless. So If we are not to go under, Spiritual Powers need to come to humanity’s aid.”

Thank you Dear Richard for this moving piece. The voice of the Countess rings forth today with light filled hope thru your work.

May we quest together for the renewed Sun-Jewel of AnthropoSophia – that every human soul become a Star & the Earth a New Sun…

To finalize: Here is what I put on the Ideas for the future card:

Conference or workshop theme ideas: Preventative ‘Medicine’ / Social Health

In the spirit of the ‘Cosmic Communion’ in the New Mysteries of Healing, does anyone else feel a calling to bring a Renewal to Pastoral Medicine, in the light of the Reverse Cultus, co-creating Rites of Passage to help folks meet the milestone moments marking the 7 year cycles, perhaps in conjunction with Waldorf Teachers, as a preventative measure – a psycho/spiritual medicine that may allow a healing catharsis, so that perhaps the soul doesn’t have to resort to becoming ill to have a threshold experience…?

May we ennoble the Cultural Realm in Freedom thru Love…

I will be off-line until 9 Aug. 2023 – I will try to send out remotely a few inspirations for Lammas tomorrow

May the bread of life nurture the Christ in you

~hag

“How can I do the Good?” part 2

July 26, 2023Biography, Birth / Death Days, History, Insight, Poetry~hag

Greetings friends & welcome to this attempt to digest & explore my experiences at “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference. Here is part 1 – an overview around ‘the summer of 1923 in Penmaenmawr, when Ita Wegman asked Rudolf Steiner if there could be a path for the mysteries to come into medicine again in our age’.

Please remember these reflections are only my personal impressions, a mixture of considerations gleaned from our esteemed speakers: Dr.’s Ursula Flatters, James Dyson, & Marion Debus. I am sure every participant takes in what they uniquely need to hear, & hopefully comes away with a new perspective that can be put into practice. So please feel free to add your thoughts as well!

In this incarnation, I have always felt a dis-comfort with being in the body, a sense of well being is not often present. My ‘Life Sense’ is perhaps overly acute, but this has allowed me to experience the Ego Sense – The “I” of the Other – more strongly as well.

Dis-ease comes from the past –

Something was lost or knocked out of balance within the soul-forces & is seeking a recalibration – It is often a karmic wake- up call – an opportunity for growth thru catharsis.

We can Will to reconnect to our Pre-personal “I” – The “I” of our unborn-ness; & to the original primal forces of the Zodiac living in our physical organs, & the Planetary Beings who formed us.

Many Anthroposophical remedies employ the 7 metals (mineral world) representing the Planets, or treatments using the animal & plant kingdoms potentized to the degree that the physical matter becomes spiritualized, to help us realign with our Divine Blueprint…

Healing comes from the future –

We meet a dis-ease so we can experience transformation & healing. We must let go – to let come. We build up a health plan, an imagination of wholeness, & then release all expectation of the out-come. Patience is needed. Yet it is not a passive waiting, it is an Active, Faith & Trust filled Doing – Building a Foundation of Study – Biography & Psycho-Spiritual work to Know Thy-Self, an ordered consistent Meditation & daily Practice with Esoteric Exercises…etc…A Cultivation of silent stillness – A sacred space for the light of the Holy Spirit to enter with healing in her wings.

We listen – to receive inspiration. This cultivates that middle, ever present Christic space, between the 2 streams of Time, allowing us to anchor our Higher Self, so that it can receive Intuition for the co-creation of wholeness. This is the mystery of healing – Karma is freed –

The 2 streams of Time meet in the present creating a transcendent 3^rd space for Social Relationship – ‘when 2 or 3 are gathered…’

We can imagine our time in the Michael School, & our practicum thru the Cosmic Cultus – & then we must apply this Wisdom in the “I” to “I” Encounter‘ in our time together now.

Are we unconsciously using power over others? Or are we consciously cultivating power with others – supporting & sharing our gifts in communion?

How do we resurrect the ‘Temple Legend’ to redeem the sword of Cain in the future stream of rightful willing – Bestowing a blessing – a unified restoration of the spiritual essence within the Priestly Abel stream…

Do we Will to become our Brother’s Keeper – in the Freedom of Love…?

~hag

~Pamela Matthews

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My song raps itself around
The belly of the New Sophia
Pulsing in union with The Logos
In rhythm with the Sun streaming
In the All-Space of the Fixed Stars
Forming fresh consonants
Into the aura of imaginations
That inform my soul thru rolling vowels
Of planetary bodies
That sing their echo into my open ear…
~hag

Sergei Olegovitch Prokofieff
16 January 1954 – † 26 July 2014

Today 26 July is the deathday of Sergei O. Prokofieff – the 1^st to confirm my connection with the New Isis. And his dedication to the 1^st Class Lessons birthed in me a true knowing. He opened the living reality of the ‘New Mysteries’, revealing the relationship of the Christ-Sophia in this Michaelic age, with Rudolf Steiner & Christian Rosenkreutz, which we as human beings are called to explore & develop. “The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation – A Esoteric Study of the Festivals” is my Bible – my calling, my life’s work. “The Occult Significance of Forgiveness” changed my life (I am of course still striving here) And the massive work “May Human Beings Hear It” which convinced me to dedicate myself to the Foundation Stone Meditation, pointing up the living reality of the Christmas Conference, which I feel a personal & collective responsibility to fulfill.

My heart spills over with gratitude for this true initiate, this real anthroposopher, this true human being, who continues to be my mentor from across the Threshold.

“Anthroposophia seeks to become a new group-soul for that part of humankind which is united within the General Anthroposophical Society founded by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, thereby representing a kind of archetype for the whole of future evolution & at the same time initiating that universally human process which Rudolf Steiner described in the following words: ‘When people gather together in voluntary associations, they group themselves around focal points. The feelings that stream together at such a focal point now gives Beings the opportunity to work as a kind of group-soul, though in a completely different sense from the former unconscious group-souls. All previous group-souls were beings who made man unfree. These New Beings, however, are wholly compatible with the freedom & preservation of human individuality’.

Anthroposophia would seek to become the 1^st of these Beings in our time. However, whether this is possible depends not on this Being alone, but also on human beings.

Thus by uniting with one another in the General Anthroposophical Society out of a love for Anthroposophia & a wish to serve her as a real, living Being, anthroposophist’s throughout the world have the task of together creating on Earth something akin to an all embracing soul-chalice into which this supersensible Being, the youngest member of the heavenly Sophia, can descend. And this means none other than the beginning of the incarnation of the heavenly Sophia on Earth. (this will come about in the 7^th epoch, but of which we must prepare now)

Only from this grandiose perspective can we really understand the inner significance of the deed wrought by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference, a deed which represents the high-point & culmination of the entire 21 year development of the anthroposophical movement (1902-23) – a ‘Turning Point of Time’ – For it signified the birth on Earth of her ego in the sheaths of the General Anthroposophical Society. In this way the foundation was laid, or-one could say-the possibility created, for the further working of Anthroposophia in the midst as a New Group-Soul.” ~Sergei O. Prokofieff, “The Heavenly Sophia and the Being Anthroposophia”

May we take up this task to give birth to Anthroposophia, this Being of Human Wisdom, within ourselves, to serve the world.

~hag

Sergei Olegovitch was the grandson of the composer Sergei Prokofiev. Born in Moscow, he studied fine arts & painting at the Moscow School of Art. He encountered anthroposophy in his youth, & soon made the decision to devote his life to it. Prokofieff, wrote his first book, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries, while living in Soviet Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was a co-founder of the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. At Easter 2001, he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland. Prokofieff was a prolific author; at the core of his work is an attempt to develop a deepened understanding for Christianity on the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research. Prokofieff left us a treasure trove of Works

Thank you dear Sergei for your continued inspiration.

~hag

26 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Tonight the bright waxing gibbous moon will pass the star with the strange sounding name Zubenelgenubi – the alpha star in Libra the Scales ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast of Saint Anne, mother of Mary, & grandmother of Jesus according to apocryphal Christian & Islamic tradition.

1856 – Birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright & critic, Nobel Prize laureate.

1875 – Birthday of Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist & psychotherapist. Jung was also an artist, craftsman & builder as well as a prolific writer. Many of his works were not published until after his death & some are still awaiting publication.

Among the central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation—the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of each individual’s conscious & unconscious elements. Jung considered it to be the main task of human development. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, & extraversion / introversion.

When Jung was six months old, tension between his parents was growing. Emilie Jung, his mother was an eccentric & depressed woman; she spent considerable time in her bedroom where she said that spirits visited her at night. Although she was normal during the day, Jung recalled that at night his mother became strange & mysterious. He reported that one night he saw a faintly luminous & indefinite figure coming from her room with a head detached from the neck, floating in the air in front of the body. Jung was a solitary, introverted child.

From childhood, he believed that, like his mother, he had 2 personalities—a modern Swiss citizen & a personality more suited to the 18th century. Personality Number 1″, as he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time. “Personality Number 2” was a dignified, authoritative & influential man from the past. A number of childhood memories made lifelong impressions on him. As a boy, he carved a tiny mannequin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pencil case & placed it inside the case. He added a stone, which he had painted into upper & lower halves, & hid the case in the attic. Periodically, he would return to the mannequin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with messages inscribed on them in his own secret language. He later reflected that this ceremonial act brought him a feeling of inner peace &security. Years later, he discovered similarities between his personal experience & the practices associated with totems in indigenous cultures, such as the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim or the tjurungas of Australia. He concluded that his intuitive ceremonial act was an unconscious ritual, which he had practiced in a way that was strikingly similar to those in distant locations which he, as a young boy, knew nothing about. His observations about symbols, archetypes, & the collective unconscious were inspired, in part, by these early experiences combined with his later research.

At the age of 12, shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, Jung was pushed to the ground by another boy so hard that he momentarily lost consciousness. A thought then came to him—”now you won’t have to go to school anymore.” From then on, whenever he walked to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at home for the next 6 months until he overheard his father speaking hurriedly to a visitor about the boy’s future ability to support himself. They suspected he had epilepsy. Confronted with the reality of his family’s poverty, he realized the need for academic excellence. He went into his father’s study & began pouring over Latin grammar. He eventually overcame the urge & did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, “was when I learned what a neurosis is.”

Jung did not plan to study psychiatry since it was not considered prestigious at the time. But, when looking at a psychiatric textbook, his interest was immediately captured—it combined the biological & the spiritual, exactly what he was searching for.

In 1895 Jung began to study medicine at the University of Basel. Barely a year later in 1896, his father Paul died & left the family near destitute. They were helped out by relatives who also contributed to Jung’s studies.

During his student days, he entertained his contemporaries with the family legend, that his paternal grandfather was the illegitimate son of Wolfgang Goethe & his German great-grandmother, Sophie Ziegler. In later life, he pulled back from this tale, saying only that Sophie was a friend of Goethe’s niece.

I will be away 1-8 August 2023

After- Image 4

July 14, 2023Biography, Insight, Quote, Upcoming Event~hag

After-Image 1 & After-Image 2 & After-Image 3

Dear friends – Welcome to this last essay in the series based on our work with the After-Image during the ‘Fire in the Heart’ Christian Community Conference.

Anthroposophy asks us to live into the idea that there is a kind of reversal from what we see in the material world & what we experience in the Spiritual Worlds. This kind of Reversal is one of the reasons the Backwards Review or “Ruchschau” is recommended before sleep. In German Ruchschau, actually translates as ‘viewing movement’ which makes sense since the Etheric/Life-Body of Formative Forces is a Time-Body expressed thru rhythm & habits.

The Ruchschau is a potent alchemical force – a practical way of consciously entering into the spiritual world. It centers on taking memory pictures across the threshold into the spiritual world during sleep. We are more likely to then to receive a further after-image in the morning.

Dennis Klocek calls the backward review “a practice of soul distillation…The backwards review trains us to repeatedly form and dissolve pictures with personal will. When done at the threshold of sleep, this practice amounts to willing life pictures across the abyss of dream and on into the spiritual world. In the morning I can briefly establish a link to them by listening to my heartbeat.”

If the backwards review is done regularly, it fortifies our Etheric/Life-Body, AND our dreams become more lucid…

~Odilon Redon

Ok, deep breath – here we go: On Sunday 9 July 2023, I awoke in the twittering twilight of a ‘Driftless-Region’ dawn, with the fragment of a dream:

I was standing in a garden. The air was fragrant. I looked to my left, & saw a large raised bed of tall star-gazer lilies, open & dripping nectar. On my right, was a huge field of rioting roses, some wide-petaled & exposed – others, a tight red bud. I could see their scent like a misty vapor, rising & falling. In the distance, rays of light pierced thru the leaves & clustered flowers of the Linden trees, which formed a ring at the edge of my vision. Swirling in the beamed light were many swarming honeybees – their intense hum & the smell of the flowers made me light-headed. I looked down at my feet, & dug my toes, which were painted red, into the rich black earth. I looked up at the big sky undulating with white clouds that were forming & re-forming. I was trying to make out the shapes when I awoke.

I put the dream away, hurrying to pack-up & get ready for the Act of Consecration, in which I was serving on the left.

I was excited to put into practice Steiner’s Candle-Gazing Exercise which we had been working with in our group over the last 2 days, up close at the altar where I could see all 7 flames.

At first I experienced the usual after-image of the yellow flame becoming violet at the center with a kind of rainbow effect bringing in green & orange, the candlesticks flipping from white to black, the firing up of the purple aura outlining the flowers, the altar, the window, & the bodies of the Priests.

When we got to the part in the service when the Priest makes the sign of the Cross horizontally over the Chalice, I experienced rays of yellow/violet/green light from the 6 candles streaming out – & arching into the tallest center candle. And from that center candle sprang, what I can only describe, perhaps, as a Salamander or Fire-Being of Light. It was shaped like a sea-horse, with bright primary red in the bottom circle ringed with green around the bottom edge, ringed upward with concentric circles of orange into yellow becoming misty white at the top, & at the bottom a white & grey wispy tail curling up like the sea-horse. I blinked & it plunged down into the altar. I felt it like a current in my body, piercing past me into the earth. Then it rose back up again – very fast – & disappeared into the ceiling.

I immediately broke out in a sweat. I felt my vision constricting & expanding at the same time. The light all around seemed overly bright, saturated with little rainbows that appeared in tiny squares, like pixels revealing something behind the light. I got concerned that I was going to faint. I worked to center myself, trying to control my breathing. I was dripping sweat.

While the Transubstantiation was happening, my vision was narrowing, the too bright light becoming velvet black, studded with flickering 4-pointed rainbow stars – like a Christmas card I said to myself.

The sound in the room became highly pitched. I consciously brought my attention down from my head into my throat – engaging my larynx – vibrating The Word within me. “O Christ, sick is the dwelling…O Christ, I confess…”

My vision was now fully inward, yet in the atmosphere I felt a pulsing, a kind of fireworks show – flashing like a coded message – it took me back to my dream. Was this forming & re-forming what the clouds were veiling?

(In retrospect, I woke up this morning thinking it was like the scene in the Bhagavata, when Arjuna opens Krishna’s sight to the eternal world…)

For a second I saw my Self falling like a tree in the forest, & I was concerned about where I would land?

When it came time for folks to come up to receive communion, I stood as the left-server at the end – the pillar reflecting the community. When the 1^st round of folks had all lined up, I knew I should slip out the door to get some fresh air.

I sat down on the cool stone steps of The ‘Old Main’ Building where the Christian Community holds their affiliate services, swimming in sweat, pushing up the sleeves of my white vestments. I knew I had a few moments to catch my breath since there would be several rounds with the over 50 folks in the Church who would be taking communion.

Pat, a nurse practitioner saw me leave & came out to check on me. I turned & she gasped: ‘My dear, you are as white as your collar’. She touched my forehead & exclaimed: ‘O, & very clammy’. She sat down with me for a bit until I knew I was good to go back in to take up my position. There were still 2 more rounds to go, so I was able to receive the chalice – & O Lordy – The ‘wine’ was especially enlivening.

Afterward I felt strange about what happened. No one asked me anything, which I wondered about; but I was also relieved, since I wouldn’t have been able to speak about it.

Going around the circle at the closing Plenum, I became uneasy. I didn’t feel ready to share. Would people think I was crazy, or irresponsible, or deluded…? I was so uncomfortable.

It wasn’t until after we had driven the 4 hours home that I was able to talk a bit about it to CG, UVA & LDL. Their open-heartedness took the load right off me. And I remembered that I had felt that same kind of lifting during the service on Friday morning – Such wonder – & reverent gratitude! And a reminder that my intention during the clay exercise was ‘Let go & let come’.

And now thru the digestion process, which always comes, for me, in having to put the experience into writing, deepening my persepctive, is able to live as an after-image of wholeness. Especially since it has become interwoven with the forces present during this time of my Natal Return, which always brings a profound retrospective.

Thank-you dear friends, for being part of my spiritual biography. May we all move ever closer to our highest destiny – forging the Wisdom of Love in Freedom.

Xox

~hag

Then I will be heading out for our next training 1-7 August 2023

After-Image 3

July 13, 2023Biography, Community, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Event~hag

After-Image 1 & After-Image 2

After taking our after-image impressions from the altar candles during the ‘Close of Day’ into Night School, the group returned the next day with lively descriptions of their experiences of the Light Ensouled.

At the risk of turning on the fire hose, (which my husband reminds me I tend to do, offering too much information) I spoke a bit about the role of empathy in the cultivation of the after-image, how important it is to initiate the marriage of warmth & light – Love & Wisdom = Christ/Sophia – & how that relates to what Rudolf Steiner brought thru his Karmic Relationships lectures in August 1924, from Torquay around the coming together of the ‘2 Streams’ – The Arthur Stream = Light, & the Grail Stream = Warmth.

There is a mysterious connection with how the Life-Spirit or etheric essence of the Christ rose up for the earth in the 9^th Century, & at the same time, as a kind of oppositional after-image comes the ‘Abolition of the Spirit’ at the 8th Ecumenical Council of 869, brought on because of the failed unification in the spiritual world of the individualities of Aristotle & Alexander, with Harun al Rashed & his counselor.

I prefaced this with an overview of the 4 main Christian Festivals – How at Easter we see a redemption of the physical body thru the overcoming of Death with the Resurrection of Christ, leading in the future to the achievement of what Spiritual Science calls The ‘Spirit-Human.’ The Transfiguration & Ascension brings the possibility for the rescuing of our Etheric Body – ‘Life-Spirit’. And with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the purification of our Astral Body, to bring us ‘Spirit-Self’.

In our present age, one of the many tasks of humaity, besides recognizing evil, is to work with the after-image so that, like the vision of The Transfiguration & Ascension, we can enliven our Life-Body, allowing us to meet the Etheric Christ.

At this point we got up to do the hygienic eurythmy gestures for Faith, Love & Hope – Eurythmy being a powerful way to strengthen our etheric body.

I brought a Steiner verse to pair with the Love A gesture:

“In purest outpoured light
shimmers the godhead of the world.

In purest Love towards all that lives
Outpours the godhood of my soul

I rest within the godhead of the world
There shall I find myself
Within the godhead of the world.”

After sharing our reflections about the eurythmy, I spoke about how when Paul had his Damascus Experience of the Etheric Christ, he was struck blind for 3 days. So much here to contemplate in regards our theme eh…?

In “Learning to Experience the Etheric World, Empathy, the After-Image & a New Social Ethic” Baruch Urieli has a short chapter called: ‘The Archetype of the After-Image’ – where he fills out the picture of Mary Magdalene’s deed in anointing the feet & head of Christ – & how on Easter morning she looks into the empty tomb to see 2 Light-Beings, sitting at the foot & head. When the angels ask her why she is weeping, she turns & sees Jesus as the Gardener (the plant Kingdom is connected to the etheric realm). When he speaks her name, she turns once more, & recognizes Christ in his risen Life-body.

These events show how empathy can bring on the after-image – how the love & compassion of Mary Magdalene is an example of the ‘New Power of Will’ (The New Yoga Will which uses light not air) – which enables the opening of the etheric space to inner vision. Urieli: “For that further step to happen we must ‘Turn once more’ – we must ‘Re-turn’ to that space which is the home of our “I Am”, the space where our name resounds.”

In 1923 Rudolf Steiner gave medical student Helene von Grunelius ‘The Warmth Meditation” & described it “as the way for medical practitioners to behold the etheric Christ.”

“You detect at this point what life, which has poured into the world, actually is. Where can the source of this life be found? It can be found in what stirs the moral ideals and prompts us to say that if we allow ourselves to be filled by the light of moral ideals today, they will bear life, matter, and light and create worlds. We carry that world-creating element, and the moral ideal is the source of all that creates worlds.” ~Rudolf Steiner

~Brad Huck

This idea of creating ‘The New Jerusalem‘ is the basis of my work with an initiative that I call The ‘10:10 Thought-Seed’ Imagination – ‘Project Egregore’ – which is a collective ‘Thought-Form’ of Good Will – a “key-call” to the Spiritual powers on the Inner Planes, to enlist their aid in the graceful unfolding of our highest human destiny.

Through our continued, & consistent intention to visualize the Human Being as a Star & the Earth as a Sun, our positive egregore grows in the etheric realm of formative forces allowing us to meet & work with Christ in His Life-Body.

Our goal is to co-create a new ‘Group-Soul United in Christ’ thru our daily 10:10 contemplation.

For the practicum we all gazed into the beeswax candle set upon a pillar while I spoke the Meditative Thought-Seed many have been working with. In-between verses we shut our eyes to experience the after-image.

Yellow – For Thinking:
“When I think light, my soul shines,
When my soul shines, the earth is a star,
When the earth is a star, then I am, a true human being”.
~Herbert Hahn

Red – For Feeling:
When I feel Love, my heart sings
When my heart sings, the Earth resounds
When the Earth resounds, I am a true I AM

Blue – For Willing:
When I will life, my hands help
When my hands help, the Earth heals
When the Earth heals, I am a free human being

Another way to access the Etheric World, & a powerful way of strengthening our Life-Body, is to speak meditative verses, like I shared yesterday, backwards – since everything in the spiritual world is revealed thru its reversal –

Thinking – In Reverse:
I Am a True Human Being
The Earth is a Star
My Soul Shines
I Think Light

Feeling – In Reverse:
I Am a True I Am
The Earth Resounds
My Heart Sings
I feel Love

Willing – In Reverse:
I Am a Free Human Being
The Earth Heals
My Hands Help
I Will Life

Tomorrow I will share my powerful after-image experience at the altar.

Until soon

~hag

13 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: On the mornings of July 13 and 14, 2023, the waning crescent moon will pass the Pleiades star cluster, one of the many gems of Taurus the Bull. The bright orange star Aldebaran will shine nearby. Also, look for the glow of earthshine on the darkened portion of the moon. ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

In conjunction with our after-image theme of seeing into the Etheric we have Today – the anniversary of the third Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima on Friday, July 13, 1917. The three secrets involve Hell, World War I & World War II.

Sacred Heart Of The Virgin Mary | Di maria, Maria mãe de jesus, Virgem maria

Our Lady told the children that to save the sinners from hell, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. She asked for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, & the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

From the Fourth Memoir: The Story of the Apparitions by Lucia Santos the oldest of the 3 children:

‘A few moments after arriving at the Cova da Iria, near the holmoak, where a large number of people were praying the Rosary, we saw the flash of light once more, and a moment later Our Lady appeared on the holmoak.

— Your Grace, what do you want of me? — I asked.

— I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you.

— I would like to ask you to tell us who you are, and to work a miracle so that everybody will believe that you are appearing to us.

— Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.

I then made some requests, but I cannot recall now just what they were. What I do remember is that Our Lady said it was necessary for such people to pray the Rosary in order to obtain these graces during the year. And she continued:

— Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation (порт. reparação) for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly:

— You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion (port. a devoção) to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

— To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation (port. a Comunhão reparadora) on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved; etc… Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.

— When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.

After this, there was a moment of silence, and then I asked:

— Your Grace, is there anything more that you want of me?

— No, I do not want anything more of you today.

Then, as before Our Lady began to ascend towards the east, until she finally disappeared in the immense distance of the firmament’.

1298 – Deathday of Blessed Jacobus de Varagine, an Italian chronicler & archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of hagiographies of the legendary lives of saints of the Middle Ages. The Golden Legend is the source of the Rose Cross Meditation that Rudolf Steiner often quoted.

1527 – Birthday of John Dee, English-Welsh mathematician, astronomer, & astrologer & occultist

1727 – The founding of The Herrnhuter Brotherhood, The Moravian Church – Unitas Fratrum – Unity of the Brethren – predating the Protestant Reformation by a century, it was really the 1^st Protestant Church, with its heritage dating back to the Bohemian Reformation in the fifteenth century. It places a high value on ecumenism, personal piety, music -communio sub utraque specie, married priests, & eliminating indulgences & the idea of Purgatory. The Church’s emblem is the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) with the flag of victory, surrounded by the Latin inscription: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur “Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him”

1889 – Deathday of Robert Hamerling an Austrian poet. Rudolf Steiner gave his funeral address. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA154/English/AP1990/19140426p01.html

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica characterizes Hamerling as one of the most remarkable poets of the modern Austrian school, describing his imagination as rich & his poems as full of life & color. In his most popular poem, Ahasver in Rom (1866), the emperor Nero is the central figure. Among his other works, Venus im Exil (1858); Der König von Sion (1869), characterized as a masterpiece; Die sieben Todsünden (1872) Blätter im Winde (1887); Homunculus (1888); Amor und Psyche (1882). His novel, Aspasia (1876), a finely-drawn description of the Periclean age, & his tragedy Danton und Robespierre (1870), showed Hamerling’s genius.

In Karmic Relationships Vol. 2, lecture 6, Steiner describes him as a pupil of Plato in an earlier incarnation.

1963 – Deathday of Albert Steffen a poet, painter, dramatist, essayist,& novelist. He joined the Anthroposophical Society in 1912 & became its president after the death of its founder, Rudolf Steiner, in 1925. Steffen was chief editor of the society’s journal, Das Goetheanum, from 1921-1963

His earliest works, predating his encounter with anthroposophy, already manifest a spiritual awareness. His later works, which reflect a vision of the world permeated by metaphysical powers of good & evil, draw on a wide range of esoteric European & Asian traditions

I will be heading out for our next training 1-7 August 2023

Here is a newsletter with an article I wrote about my expereince working with Steiner’s Inner Realities of Evoultion

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Insight

Identity

The Palladium

“How can I do the Good?” part 2

After- Image 4

After-Image 3

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