Let us consider a nation, for example. The nation, as a structure has not been haphazardly thrown together in the world, it is not something produced by chance; each nation, has its prescribed task in the course of human evolution. Anyone who contemplates a nation from a higher vantage point can reflect that every nation has a specific task; that his own nation has itself to fulfil a task which is incumbent on it. He can say to himself: I belong to this nation, so I must help to serve the common national task — and I am able so to serve, because an astrality lives in me which belongs to the whole nation. This national purpose is plainly expressed on the astral plane; it is an intentional thought — something that lives on higher planes than the astral plane. In order to meditate on the thoughts of the world laws, one must rise above the astral plane to the mental plane [devachan].

Now although the national thought does live in every individual [member], the individual is much more than just his national thought. In addition, he brings his own personality to expression. Something quite remarkable and special shows itself to us here. It is much easier for a person to see his way in the thought world of his nation, in his devachanic mission, than it is to bring about the [correct] balance between his own feelings and the national feelings. 

As man develops, however, he raises his own astral body up, it becomes more differentiated, more specific. And it is then possible for his astral body to be in a position to acquire that form of mind which lies above the mind of his nation. When what shines down from this higher level is intellectually or mentally grasped, then ideals can easily be taken up.

It sometimes also happens that the feelings of a person’s astral body have not developed so far as his thinking. The thoughts of a nation could influence the thinking of the individual so powerfully that they take hold of him before he has developed far enough within himself.

When such a person dies, who was a great and noble idealist, who has devoted himself to the ideals of his nation, he becomes overrun by the personal element still present in him. For the lower qualities of his astral body become totally predominant. Now suppose that such a person has become a martyr. He created something noble, but has been ill-treated by his nation, just as such advanced natures sometimes are. If he is persecuted, perhaps killed, on account of his ideals, then the thought of revenge comes into play immediately after his death. What he had suppressed as personal will still be there in Kamaloka.

A nation which treats its idealists in this fashion creates for itself bad powers in Kamaloka, which rebound against it. Russia has created bad powers of this kind. For years it has ill-treated many noble personalities. The baser forces of these personalities are now active in Kamaloka as enemies of what lives in Russia, as enemies of those for whom they made sacrifices in life. Such martyrs, who have recently died, can now be seen fighting on the side of the Japanese, against their own people. This is a fact which becomes comprehensible to us if we look into the more deeply active powers of the life of the soul. The events of the future become clear to us if we look at them from this aspect.

We live as members of the Germanic peoples, flanked by Slavonic peoples in the east, and by Anglo-American peoples in the west. Both the Americans and the Slavs are rising races who have to fulfill their purpose in the future, races who still stand at the beginning of their national thought.

The basic characteristic of the Slavonic peoples is expressed in their spiritual talents. If you try to understand the Slavonic culture, you will find that it tends towards a spiritual culture, that something spiritual is growing there.

In America we have a certain parallel. There, materialism is carried to the extreme, and has been pursued radically in all national perspectives. In modern times, that has led to the spirit itself being interpreted in a materialistic way.

Whereas, among the Slavonic peoples, individual personalities such as Tolstoy arose, who sought to stimulate development in a great and beautiful way, the American people took pains to conceive spirituality and the soul in a material way. Thus we find a strongly material spirituality and [indeed] spiritualism among them. With them, the spirit is sought for in exactly the same way as they search after physical truths. But it is precisely in the manner of seeking that the difference lies. If you seek to see the spiritual with the eyes, it becomes psychic, and this psychic aspect has developed itself very strongly in America.

You can see how the world here becomes understandable, when we contemplate it from an occult basis. If we seek to understand the occult view of the world then the world of phenomena becomes more and more comprehensible as well.

We have to earn our knowledge. What the investigator lacks in certainty or confidence, the certainty and confidence of belief must supply. [The two] must work together, therefore, and then they will undividedly produce in the end what must come to us undivided — the fruit of experience, knowledge. ~Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND, GA 93, PART III, The Relationship Between Occult Knowledge and Everyday Life, 23 October 1905, Berlin

20 May 2022 -“Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“Love is the final end of the world’s history, the Amen of the universe” ~Novalis

World Bee Day – Birthday in 1734 of Anton Janša, the pioneer of beekeeping.The purpose of this international day is to acknowledge the role of bees & other pollinators for our ecosytem

325 – The First Council of Nicaea is formally opened, starting the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church. Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son & His relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, & establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, & the promulgation of early canon law.

1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship Matthew looking for a route to the west.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Calicuta India.

1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.

1609 – Shakespeare’s sonnets are illicitly published in London, by Thomas Thorpe.

1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire & most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years’ War.

1645 – Yangzhou massacre: the 10-day massacre of 900,000 residents of the city of Yangzhou, part of the Transition from Ming to Qing.

1802 – By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution.

1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads his French troops into the Battle of Bautzen in Saxony, Germany, against the combined armies of Russia and Prussia. The battle ends the next day with a French victory

1862 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law

1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.

1891 –The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope.

1902 – Cuba gains independence from the United States.

1940 –The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1956 – In Operation Redwing, the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean

1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.

1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Find a collection of the RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

Announcing an exciting Event on Ascension Thursday, May 26^th   7 – 8:30 pm Eastern time.

Climbing Jacob’s Ladder – Celebrating the Festival of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg & Eurythmy with Maria Ver Eecke

“In heavy clouds let Him ascend
And so also let Him downward tread.
In cooling streams let Him be sent,
In flames of fire blaze His descent,
In air & essence, sound & dew
To permeate our whole earth thru” ~Novalis

Ascension is a Festival of the Elements, & of the Hierarchies, it relates to the Transfiguration & the fulfillment of the promise of the ‘Second Coming’. Together we will explore the mystery of ‘As Above so Below’.

            Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is a trans-denominational minister, essayist, lecturer, performer, and poet. She writes and curates ‘Reverse Ritual, Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year’ and the ‘I Think Speech’ podcast. Hazel’s been the Cultural Events and Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago for over 10 years. She is a member of the Central Regional Council, the School for Spiritual Science, the Esoteric Youth Circle, and the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America.

                  Register by contacting Diane McGary, mcgary.family@comcast.net, by Sunday, May 22nd. You will receive an email with the zoom link on Tuesday May 24.

Hope to see you there!! – YES! Please feel free to spread the word!

Yours, Diane McGary, mcgary.family@comcast.net, for the the Eastern Region

A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor & Spirit Community

with the Eastern, Central and Western Regional Councils of the Anthroposophical Society in America

Sunday 29 May 2022 – 3 – 4:30 pm PT, 4-5:30 MT, 5-6:30 pm CT, 6-7:30 pm ET

We will be working with Rudolf Steiner’s THE FIFTH GOSPEL GA 148, Lecture II, 2 October 1913, Oslo

The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, our individual “I”, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is strongly felt during this time of the consciousness soul age. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create this type of culture, and the opportunity is here for each of us to meet, human to human, where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength comes from our personal development and is enhanced by weaving our gifts together with others, knitting our social world in conscious community.

For more info. contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

Topic: All Regions Whitsun

Time: May 29, 2022 05:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

Passcode: Whitsun

The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation June 1, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern) “Anyone who approaches these mysteries today must feel that they are confronting and challenging themselves by striving for the virtues of Parzival, while knowing that — because of modern conditions — they are in fact someone else also, the wounded Amfortas. Today we bear this divided nature within us: aspiring Parzival, wounded Amfortas. That is what self-knowledge must lead us to feel. From this recognition will flow the forces which make a unity again of this duality, and will thus advance us a little further in world evolution.”~ from Chapter 15,  Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 15 “Acknowledging Amfortas,” excerpts from Steiner’s lecture given at Berlin on 7 February 1913 (GA 144, lecture IV), will be the focus of the June 1 meeting. A transcript of the entire lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link. * Please consider giving to the development and maintenance of the digital library of Rudolf Steiner’s work.  Scroll to the bottom of this message to read more about the RSArchive.org and SteinerLibrary.org

The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing  study conversation.  The study has been divided among two volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group. This collection of lectures has been republished by Rudolf Steiner Press under the title: “The Mysteries of the Holy Grail — from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation.”  The book was compiled and edited by Matthew Barton, published by Rudolf Steiner Press in 2010. This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer).  To connect to the audio/video-conference: Video Conference Details:Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88210505106 Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106 One tap mobile +13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown) +13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago) Dial by your location         +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)         +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)         +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)         +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)         +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)         +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcHr5EVwrv If you have questions, please contact Mary Mertz mary.mcginnis@juno.com or Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu. There is a knighthood of the 21st century whose riders do not ride through the darkness of physical forests as of old, but through the forest of darkened minds. They are armed with a spiritual armor and an inner sun makes them radiant. Out of them shines healing, healing that flows from the knowledge of the human being as a spiritual being. They must create inner order, inner justice, peace and conviction in the darkness of our time. ~Karl Konig Agenda for this meeting (CST)  7:15  Welcome and Introductions         7:18  Verse 7:25  Study led by volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers           Mariarosa – pages 117-123b           Marianne – pages 123b-129 7:50  Conversation 8:25   ID volunteers for next meeting 8:28  Close with verse