Zechariah writing, “His name is John”.
Pontormo, on a desco da parto, c. 1526.
The Festival of St. John’s Tide starts on the fixed date of June 24, the birthday of John the Baptist
The name John is really a title, it represents the best of humanity, devoted to what is beyond the little self, alive to the revelation of the spirit brought by Christ. At the center of history, the summons of JB was to turn inward, & confront the lower self. St. John’s Day is a perfect time to re-assess & re-balance ourselves in this metanoia.
In the prologue of the Gospel of St. John the Evangelist right after we hear the ‘Word’ in the beginning, John, the 1st Adam is proclaimed. This Gospel emphasizes the divine spark in humanity, & connects us to its supreme form as the Logos Himself. The ‘disciple whom Jesus Loved’ received the forces of the beheaded John the Baptist, at the rising of Lazarus, earning him the title John as well.
Just as the Son of God who was buried in matter is born again in Jesus of Nazareth – So it is for every individual human being – there is a mighty experience, which may be called the birth of the higher self – The divine Ego is born of the striving human being. Awakening to Initiation is possible, & when it is taken up, life as we know it, opens to new dimensions.
When the human principle in Jesus of Nazareth had reached its highest development, & his body had become an expression of the spirit within him, he was ripe to receive the Christ in the Baptism by John. His body had unfolded its full power, like the radiant Sun at Midsummer.
This had been prophesied. The spirit was to be born out of the darkness, like the Sun which increases in power towards solstice, waxing strong until St. John’s day, & then begins move inward.
JB was able to behold the approach of Jesus of Nazareth, as the increase of the Sun, & say ‘I must decrease, as the Sun decreases after midsummer day.’ But The Christ as the spiritual Sun will increase, & ‘his Light will shine forth from out of the darkness.’
It was the Baptist’s mission to proclaim this: ‘He who was announced by the prophets of old, the Son of the spiritual realms, born of the spirit, behold, He hath appeared.’
John the Baptist is ever active since this turning point of time. He has lived many a life of renunciation, then, he came to prepare the way, thru baptism. And when we ‘make straight the path’, the inner spirit-light can shine forth ever more brightly, reflecting the Christ light.
This is how the universal Ego of humanity is reborn in freedom, & the condition fulfilled for the rebirth of the individual higher self in every human being.
This is the most vital event in the evolution of each individual human: the rebirth of the immortal being which can issue forth from the ordinary Ego. This is inseparable from the greatest of all events, the deed of Christ on Golgotha ‘As the meaning of the Earth‘.
Dear friends, Be awakened! There are forces trying to distract us from this truth – working to prevent us from becoming divinely human. May we be alert to the signs, & vigilant in our striving to practice Spiritual Science.
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
***
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
24 June 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The thickening crescent Moon moves past Regulus these next few evenings.
Feast Day of John the Baptist. Rudolf Steiner revealed his other lives as Elijah, Raphael, Novalis in GA 120 & in the mYstery Dramas. Steiner also gave indications that he was the 1st Adam, & that he is an inspirer of John the Evangelist/Christian Rosenkrantz.
1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn
1374 – A sudden outbreak of ‘St. John’s Dance’ causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations & begin to jump & twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion
1717 – The first Freemasonic Grand Lodge is founded in London. Benjamin Franklin was a member.
1812 –Napoleon invades Russia
1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract
1922 – Assassination of Walther Rathenau, a German statesman who served as Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic.
1938 – A 450 metric ton meteor hits Chicora, Pennsylvania
1976 – Deathday of Rudolf Kreutzer entrepreneur, anthropsopher
2004 – In New York, capital punishment is declared unconstitutional
2012 – Lonesome George, the last subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise, dies
***
![20 Brief Facts about the Life and Death of St. John the Baptist [+TEST] - The Catalog of Good Deeds](https://i0.wp.com/blog.obitel-minsk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/f35ac4a8-fc8a-4603-8d89-e421ad7c7f55.jpg?resize=346%2C439&ssl=1)
St. John’s Poem:
Hot horns of light
Frame the dreaded Forerunner…
Wild Pan the Baptist
With wort & rue in his pouch
Carob & raw honey on his breath,
Anoints the mistletoe
In the oak-grove.
The God has gone into the grain
The Sun is on the water
The edge of the rioting rose
Begins to melt
Its scent is heavy on the heat
Stealing the breath
From the hot mouth of God
Her infer-red ruby steams
The magnetic stains of light
To guide the Summer-Tide Soul
Into the labyrinth
Where the Oak King crests
And gives way
To the Dark Holly Twin
~hag
***
Friday 26 June & Sunday 28 June, 2020 Goethe’s Primordial Plant Workshop with Victoria Martin
Friday 26 June or Sunday 28 June, 2020 – Goethe’s Primordial Plant: Urpflanze Magic Art Workshop with Victoria Martin – Create your own Totem Plant Portrait on 8 x 32 Archival Canvas.
$15 – $25 (or pay what you will) includes Tuition & All Materials. Space is limited to 10, so please reserve your spot. Each session is a stand alone event.
Friday 26 – Doors open 4:30pm, Lecture, Demo & Art Making: 5 pm – 6:30 pm, Critique & Soiree 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Sunday 28 – Doors open: 2:30pm, Lecture, Demo & Art Making: 3 pm – 4:30 pm, Critique & Soiree: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Please bring Paleo Snacks to share. RSVP by Thursday June 25 Contact viccimartin@gmail.com or call 312-961-3380.
~Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago Festivals & Programs Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
***
Sat. 27 June 2020 Werbeck Singing workshop 9 am – 5 pm
9 am – 3:30 pm Sat. 27 June 2020 with Alicia Burns at Elderberries 3-Fold Bio-dynamic Outpost & Cultural Hub 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618
$25-$65 or pay it forward
…the human voice needs no training, it is already there, finished and perfect as an entity. What the voice is waiting for is liberation. We should speak of freeing the voice, or better yet uncovering the voice, and not voice-training. ~ Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström, creator of the Werbeck Singing Method
Details TBA. for more info. contact Frank Agrama
***
August 8-18 ‘Classroom Alive’ Youth Open-Source Learning in Chicago
We’re starting up with Culture in our community – join young people here in Chicago for a 10 day walking journey – Classroom Alive Chicago!
Exploration & experiencial learning all over Chicagoland, starting at at Elderberries 3-Fold Bio-dynamic Outpost & Cultrual Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618
for more info. contact Ultra-Violet Archer, or Frank Agrama
Details TBA #ClassroomAliveChicago2020
Thank you for forwarding this flier for any interested young people –
Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator
August 20-23, 2020 Questions of Courage Youth Conference at Elderberries
Questions of Courage 2020 in Chicago – August 20-23 Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and 3Fold Cultural Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618
August 20: Check-in, share conversation, build the ground for the journey together.
August 21-22: Travel to Wisconsin Move together towards the land, link up with Farmer John and Haidy Angelic Organics Biodynamic Farm, and also with Dana and Phil Burns at Healing Traditions and Alizur farm. Connect with the land, plants, animals, and one another, through creative explorations and “roughin’ it” type amendments. Sleep under the stars or indoors.
August 23: Return to Chicago Enter back into the metropolitan context, into the social questions of urban life, and close the gathering together at Elderberries, setting the ground for future work out of questions of courage that are present.
Other locations and collaborators are currently in dialogue, and will be updated here.
The gathering is essentially about stepping into the living natural element, step by step, making an integral connection, with one another, ourselves, and the elements that support us here on the Earth…”
registration: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdY7KXHkjUPV2h9UD…/viewform
Thank you Elderberries for giving us an anchor to build our heartland gathering around!
***
August 27-30, HOW WE WILL 2020
At Elderberries 3-fold Bio-Dynamic Outpost
for more info. contact Frank Agrama or Dottie Zold
Details TBA Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago -Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator
***
As we know, the Gospel of St. John is unique because it is an eyewitness account of the three years that Christ walked the earth. Thus, its presentation is linear and chronological in time. It had to be written by a high Initiate from the outset; thus, from the time that the two disciples of John hear JB say for the second time, “Behold the Lamb of God”. This is when the eyewitness account begins. But, only one of these two disciples is ever identified by name; this is Andrew. The other remains unnamed until we first hear the name, Lazarus, at the beginning of chapter 11.
There is an important verse in chapter 11 which indicates that an interlude occurs in the narrative of the Gospel of St. John. It is where it says:
“54 Therefore Jesus no longer continued to walk publicly among the Jews, but went away from there to the country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there He stayed with the disciples.”
Then, the narrative picks up again with chapter 12, and the return to Bethany six days before the Passover. This is where Lazarus is observed and accounted as “reclining at the table with Him.” Thus, begins his new designation as “the Disciple Whom the Lord loved.”
It can be shown that Christ was compelled to prepare His disciples when they were all gathered in Ephraim for the period of time before the return to Bethany. Christ had by this time to be the Teacher of the twelve because John had returned to life in the body of Lazarus. Thus, He gave an extended discourse on the workings of the Elijah-John stream from the outside in being the Folk Soul of the twelve, and teaching them in those moments where their consciousness could receive clairvoyant communications. Christ was now to be the giver of an extended course in spiritual science when He took the disciples to the wilderness town of Ephraim for the period of time leading up to return to Bethany just before the Passover.
Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on The Gospel of St. Mark were delayed for some two years because of the perceived need to prepare very carefully for what was to be imparted in these lectures. Much in these lectures concerns this careful teaching of the meaning of the Elijah-John stream as it worked from outside for some two years after the beheading of John. Christ also is compelled to tell His disciples why He selected them quite specifically. Because they were formerly the Maccabees. His time on earth was nearing the end of the Physical appearance.
Dear Hazel, you introduce today’s topic, “Prepare the Way”, very nicely here:
“The name John is really a title, it represents the best of humanity, devoted to what is beyond the little self, alive to the revelation of the spirit brought by Christ. At the center of history, the summons of JB was to turn inward, & confront the lower self. St. John’s Day is a perfect time to re-assess & re-balance ourselves in this metanoia.”
Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture-course on the Gospel of St. John which began on 24 June 1909 in Kassel, and wherein the first lecture here is rather devoted to what occurs at the age of 40, and can be called, “the breaking forth of the higher Ego”. This is the so-called, “age 40 initiation”, when certain initiates can begin to speak openly about occult matters. Steiner places himself among this experience, c. 1900-1901, and wherein the beginnings of the anthroposophical movement took place. John the Baptist, as well, took pains when asked by the priests and Levites about who he was to say: “I am the voice of one calling in solitude of the soul, ‘make straight the way of the Lord, make His paths level’.” This demonstrates John as also the forerunner of the Higher Ego in mankind.
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA112/English/AP1948/19090624p02.html
In returning to the death of Lazarus as depicted in the Gospel of John, chapter 11, it is noteworthy that Christ inquires how long Lazarus has been in the tomb, and suffering the sickness. He is told, two days. Then, He decides to wait two more days before going to raise Lazarus. Why is the question here? The two sisters, Martha and Mary, both say that if He had been there, their brother would not have died. Yet, the body of Lazarus is, indeed, raised from the dead. This chapter should be looked at closely. Every word is meaningful.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+11&version=NASB
Hazel, you wrote:
“In the prologue of the Gospel of St. John the Evangelist right after we hear the ‘Word’ in the beginning, John, the 1st Adam is proclaimed. This Gospel emphasizes the divine spark in humanity, & connects us to its supreme form as the Logos Himself. The ‘disciple whom Jesus Loved’ received the forces of the beheaded John the Baptist, at the rising of Lazarus, earning him the title John as well.”
It can be shown that the Spirit of John actually returned to earth and took the body of the deceased Lazarus, who had died. Both John 11, and Luke 16, give clear indication that Lazarus dies, and Luke 16 especially conveys that Lazarus goes to “rest in Abraham’s bosom”.
But the secret is that there are two Forerunners in the life of Christ on earth. John is the forerunner in life before the entry of Christ into earth evolution, and Lazarus is the forerunner in death as the human sacrifice before the Mystery of Golgotha. Thus, Lazarus dies in order for John the Baptist to reappear in the body of Lazarus and become Saint John. And Lazarus eventually reincarnates as Christian Rosenkreutz in the 13th century.
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. 20 And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, 21 and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. 22 Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’” Luke 16
Yes, the concept of ‘Spiritual Economy’ & these ‘incorporations’ are complicated & interesting to contemplate. I come to the thought that it is never a whole cloth kind of situation. Some parts are passed on – 1 or more of the various sheaths Physical, Etheric, Astral or Ego…It is like a combining of forces such as we see with the 2 Jesus children. But the individualizes of The Nathan Soul Zarthustra /Master Jesus – the Buddha – The Sophia…etc go on…John the Baptizer having gone on to the Angel stage works to help us build a new Christ centered Group Soul, just as he overshadowed the apostles, & especially John the Evangelist he name sake…