At the bird sanctuary, aptly named the ‘Magic Hedge’ near my home at the edge of the ‘Great Inland Sea of Chicago’, the sky lightened when the sun rose on this Vernal Equinox morning, but the clouds & persistent drizzle did not reveal its glory. I had to watch for other signs of Spring – the sweet earthy scent rising up from the mud, a patch of purple crocus pushing up from the dead grass, the activity of the animal kingdom, robins, starlings, a coyote family by the red dogwood tree, the song of the wind in the still bare branches, the way the water grabbed at the shore, the wet rocks gleaning in the grey. Yes, magic is abounding thru the elements, waiting to be seen & blessed by human hearts, held with awe & wonder.
As I stroll along the shore, open in reverence, I contemplate our Holy Week study of Kaspar Hauser, & I am deeply struck by the profoundness of the celestial association that was given as an imagination at his death by professor Daumer, his teacher & care giver, who Rudolf Steiner called “The last Rosicrucian”. Steiner often repeated this when speaking of Kaspar Hauser as a ‘stray Atlantean’, that when he died the ‘Sun was setting in the West & the Moon was rising in the East’ – a true Easter image. And so fitting for this year’s Easter Paradox, where the 1st Full Moon after the Spring Equinox (tonight at 8:43 CDT) is, according to Astrosopher Johnathan Hilton, in Denebola, the tail of Leo the Lion, which in ancient Arabian astrology was said to portend misfortune & disgrace, which can certainly be related to the outward aspect of Kaspar Hauser’s destiny. And yet according to the Kabbalists, it is associated with the Hebrew letter Kaph & holds the image of Strength, which points up his spiritual task.
It’s easy to want to turn away from pain & suffering; but by doing so we miss the opportunity to heal & redeem evil during this 1st cycle in the ‘Easter Paradox’ of 2019.
I am new to this study of Kaspar Hauser, but I am not new to pain & suffering, & the ever-clear calling of karmic healing. From the beginning I was struck by what seems an important relationship between Kaspar Hauser, Christian Rosenkreutz, Rudolf Steiner & The Christ.
We know that Rudolf Steiner was bound by the occult rule prohibiting him to speak about a Rosicrucian initiate directly, but it is important to note that it was in Malsch, near Karlsruhe, where Kaspar Hauser was born on Michaelmas Day in 1812, that Rudolf Steiner laid the foundation stone of the first anthroposophical building, known as ‘Francis of Assisi’, which he referred to as a ‘Rosicrucian temple’, on the night of the Pascal Full Moon of 1909.
At this event he spoke about the Full Moon as the spiritual sphere of birth & death, & how humanity moved from a state of innocence into the evolution of consciousness through the encounter with evil, which brought in death; & he called us to work to spiritualize matter.
This seems to reflect not only humankind’s journey as a whole, but also the life of Kaspar Hauser in particular.
Rudolf Steiner gave many groundbreaking lectures in Karlsruhe, including speaking for the 1st time about the ‘Second Coming of Christ’. It was there that he also revealed the nature of the human ‘Phantom’, & the ‘Resurrection body’. And then at Michaelmas, 99 years after Kaspar’s birth, Steiner compared for the 1st time the methods of the Rosicrucians with those of the Jesuits, a direct clue to the workings behind Kaspar Hauser’s mystery. Some say the Church began their attacks on Rudolf Steiner’s because of these powerful Karlsruhe lectures.
When asked about Kaspar Hauser’s previous lives, Steiner said he could not find an earlier incarnation; that he was a higher being who had a special mission on the Earth, working from an impulse coming from Rosicrucian origins.
Could it be that this individuality is a sort of Angelic Being, like the Nathan Soul, held back in the Spiritual World to fulfill a special mission? Coming, in the latter case, to give physical expression to the Cosmic Christ; & in Kaspar Hauser’s case, come to reveal the Etheric Christ, appearing in the realm of the Angels working from the Moon to the Earth?
The counterforce to this etheric appearance came in 1933, when Hitler & the Nazi Party held sway in Nuremberg, where ‘ the Child of Europe’ was murdered in 1833 a hundred years before.
It reminds me of how Steiner described a ‘Second Crucifixion’, in the 1840s, of the consciousness of the Angelic Being that was bearing Christ in the etheric realm, a kind of ‘suffocation’ brought on by materialistic thinking, which formed a sort of black cloud in the supersensible sphere between the Earth & Moon.
But as Steiner tells us, this sacrifice by this Angelic Being – has made it possible for us to renew & deepen our understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, which brought the possibility for the redemption of our physical bodies, & which, because of this ‘Second Crucifixion’, could now be experienced on the level of our formative forces, helping us develop a new clairvoyance in the etheric realm.
These thoughts lead us to Steiner’s statement that: “If Kaspar Hauser had not lived and died as he did, the contact between the Earth and the Cosmos would have been completely severed.”
So, my friends, to see Kaspar Hauser’s sacrificial life in this light, so intimately connected to this ‘Second Crucifixion’ & the ‘Second Coming of Christ’, so reflective of our 2 modern Rosicrucian Initiates, in alignment with the life of Christ, it seems to make sense to build this consciousness during this sacred Easter-Tide.
I look forward to continuing the hero’s journey throughout this Easter Paradox, exploring both dates, listening to the Elemental world, working with our friends & fellows, & with the ‘ever present help of the Spiritual World’, on this side of the Threshold & beyond, to ask the Parsifal Question, in the search of the Holy Grail & the Dawning of the New Sun.
In Vernal Balance Be –