“It is important and of great interest to realise that everything which we have experienced in the course of one life — our feelings concerning the world, pleasure, pain, etc. — that in the spiritual world all this surrounds us as an external world. We need not feel sad that there our sufferings lie spread out before us. This is not sad at all, for there, all our sufferings exist in the same way in which storms exist in the physical world and in the spiritual world all our joyful experiences appear to us like wonderful cloud-phenomena. In Devachan our own inner experiences do not exist within us, as here on earth, but they live in our environment in an external form, in the same way in which a picture of Nature lies spread out before us. Our inner experiences live round about us, as if they were images, sounds or atmospheric phenomena; they have become objectified, as heavenly forms.
I have told you that it is not sad if our sufferings come raying towards us; just as little sad as lightning or thunder in physical life. Those who perceive these connections know what they owe to their sufferings in particular. Just those who have passed through pain and suffering will always say that they gratefully accept joy and pleasure, but that they would never wish to do without suffering and pain. We owe all our wisdom to our suffering and pain during past lives on earth. A man whose physiognomy bears upon it the mark of wisdom in this life, owes this to the fact that in former lives he experienced the world’s connection as suffering.” ~Rudolf Steiner – GA 100 – Theosophy and Rosicrucianism: Lecture V: Metamorphoses of Our Earthly Experiences in the Spiritual World – Kassel, 20th June 1907
18 September 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Look south this evening shortly after dark to find Comet PanSTARRS near the star Rho Scorpii.
Lectures by Rudolf Steiner on this date
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
900- Feast Day of Saint Richardis, was the Holy Roman Empress, born in Alsace. She married Charles the Fat & was crowned with him in Rome by Pope John VIII The marriage was childless.
Charles’ reign was marked by internal and external strife, caused primarily by the constant plundering of Norman raiders on the northern French coast. By 887, Charles appears to have succumbed to fits of madness. During this crisis, Richardis attempted to rule in her husband’s stead, but was unsuccessful. In an effort to bring down the over-powerful and hated Liutward, Charles’ archchancellor, he & Richardis were accused by Charles of adultery. Charles asserted that their marriage was unconsummated & demanded a divorce.
In a bid to assure him of her innocence, she finally assented to an ordeal by fire. Barefoot, & wearing a shirt covered in wax, the flames nevertheless refused to touch her. Disheartened by her husband’s continued mistrust, Richardis left the imperial palace & wandered into the forest. There she was visited by an angel, who ordered her to found a convent in a certain spot, which a bear would indicate to her. In Val d’Eleon, at the banks of the river, she saw a bear scratching in the dirt. There she built the abbey of Andlau.
An alternative legend recounts that Richardis found the mother bear grieving over her dead cub in the forest. When Richardis held the cub, it returned to life. After the working of this miracle, both mother & cub remained devoted to the saint for the rest of their lives.
1793 – The first cornerstone of the Capitol building is laid by George Washington
1850 – The Fugitive Slave Act passed by the United States Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests & Northern Free-Soilers. It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters & that officials & citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law. Abolitionists nicknamed it the “Bloodhound Law” for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves
1851 – First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times
1873 – Panic of 1873: The U.S. bank Jay Cooke & Company declares bankruptcy, triggering a series of bank failures.
1882 – The Pacific Stock Exchange opens.
1895 – Booker T. Washington delivers the “Atlanta compromise” address. The agreement was that Southern blacks would work & submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic education & due process in law. Blacks would not agitate for equality, integration, or justice, & Northern whites would fund black educational charities
1906 – A typhoon with tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong
1909 – 1st mention by Rudolf Steiner of the two Jesus Children. GA 114
1910 – In Amsterdam, 25,000 demonstrate for general suffrage
1916 – 1st lecture by Rudolf Steiner on the Mexican Mysteries
“…Now at a certain time a being was born in Central America who set himself a definite task within this culture. The old, original inhabitants of Mexico linked the existence of this being with a definite idea or picture. They said he had entered the world as the son of a virgin who had conceived him through super earthly powers, inasmuch as it was a feathered being from the heavens who impregnated her. When one makes researches with the occult powers at one’s disposal, one finds that the being to whom the ancient Mexicans ascribed a virgin birth was born in the year 1 A.D. and lived to be thirty-three years old. These facts emerge when, as stated, one examines the matter with occult means. This being set himself a quite specific task.
At this same time in Central America another man was born who was destined by birth to become a high initiate of Taotl. This man had in his previous earthly incarnations been initiated as described above and through the fact that he had many, many times repeated the procedure involving the excision of the stomach, which has been described to you and which there is no need to recapitulate, he had been gradually equipped with a lofty earthly and super-earthly knowledge. This was one of the greatest black magicians, if not the greatest ever to tread the earth; he possessed the greatest secrets that are to be acquired on this path. He was faced directly with a momentous decision as the year 30 A.D. approached, namely whether or not, as a single human individual, to become so powerful through continuous initiation that he would come to know a certain basic secret. Through knowledge of this secret he would have then been able to give such a shock and impetus to the coming evolution of man on earth that humanity in the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean epochs would have been thrown into terrible darkness, with the result that what the ahrimanic powers had striven for in these epochs could have come into existence.
Then a conflict began between this super-magician and the being to whom a virgin birth was ascribed, and one finds from one’s research that it lasted for three years. The being of the virgin birth bore a name that, when we try to transpose it into our speech approximates Vitzliputzli. He is a human person who, among all these beings who otherwise only moved about in spirit form and could only be perceived through atavistic clairvoyance, in actual fact became man, so the story goes, through his virgin birth. The three year conflict ended when Vitzliputzli was able to have the great magician crucified, and not only through the crucifixion to annihilate his body but also to place his soul under a ban, by this means rendering its activities powerless as well as its knowledge. Thus the knowledge assimilated by the great magician of Taotl was killed. In this way Vitzliputzli was able to win again for earthly life all those souls who, as indicated, had already received the urge to follow Lucifer and leave the earth. Through the mighty victory he had gained over the powerful black magician, Vitzliputzli was able to imbue men again with the desire for earthly existence and successive incarnations.
Nothing survived from these regions of what might have lived on if the mysteries of Taotl had borne fruit. The forces left over from the impulse that lived in these mysteries survived only in the etheric world. They still exist subsensibly, belonging to what would be seen if, in the sphere of the spirit, one could light a paper over a solfatara. The forces are there under the covering of ordinary life, which is like the surface crust of a volcano.
So, on one side, what came from the inspirer of Genghis Khan entered into the forming of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch and, on the other, what worked on as the ghost or spectre of the events that had taken place in the Western Hemisphere. No more than a feeble echo was left of this when the Europeans discovered America. But it is even known in ordinary history that many Europeans who set foot on Mexican-American soil were murdered by the decadent priesthood, which, though no longer as evil as in earlier times, still cut out the stomach, as I described. This was the fate of many Europeans who trod the soil of Mexico after the discovery of America, and the fact is even known to history.
In Vitzliputzli these people revered a Sun being who was born of a virgin, as I have said. When one investigates it occultly, one finds that he was the unknown contemporary in the Western Hemisphere of the Mystery of Golgotha. One can, indeed, also describe these things superficially as modern people like to do to avoid giving pain. If, however, one desires real knowledge, the one must cast a fleeting glance upon these concrete facts of the past, as we have done today. Yes, when we regard this modern human soul, we see how below, in the direction of the subsensible, and how above, in the direction of the super-sensible, it is exposed to great and serious dangers, and how forces play in that remain unknown. Yet it is good that they remain unknown because it is only in this way that the fifth post-Atlantean epoch can develop. The veil must be lifted now so that consciousness may be added to what still remains unconsciousness, because enough time has passed since America has been discovered. Otherwise, if consciousness did not gradually enter, these forces would become paramount, and the relatively beneficent conditions of the time of unconsciousness would turn around and become the curse of humanity. After all, many things, which in the way they have made their appearance have proved a benefit, bear the inherent tendency to become a curse to mankind.” ~Rudolf Steiner
1919 – The Netherlands gives women the right to vote
1927 – The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air
1936 – Deathday of Konrad Burdach, author of Faust and Moses
1939 – The Nazi propaganda broadcaster known as Lord Haw-Haw begins transmitting.
1947 – The National Security Council & the Central Intelligence Agency are established in the United States under the National Security Act
1960 – Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations
1962 – Deathday of Therese Neumann, mystic, stigmatic
2007 – Buddhist monks join anti-government protesters in Myanmar, starting what some call the Saffron Revolution
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
AUTUMN PRELUDE IV
The Fruit Of Will
v24
In constant self-creation
the soul grows self-aware;
the spirit of the world strives onward
in new self-knowledge re-enlivened,
creating from the darkness of the soul
the sense of selfhood’s harvest of the will.
and its October mirror
MICHAELMAS IV
Michaelic Hope
v29
To have the inner fire
to kindle thinking’s radiance
and draw the meaning of experience
from worldwide spirit’s well of power
is now for me the summer’s heritage,
is autumn’s peace… and winter’s hope.
The “Cognitive Ritual” of Anthroposophia – Living into the New Mysteries with~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
FRIDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2022, Front Range Anthroposophical Cafe, 6 pm PT, 7 pm MT, 8 pm CT, 9 pm ET
When Rudolf Steiner founded the ‘New Mysteries’ thru Anthroposophia at the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, he laid the foundation on earth for a new “cultus”, which had been part of the Michael School in the Super-sensible world during the 18th & 19th Centuries. He referred to this practical aspect of the New Mysteries as: the “Cognitive Ritual”, the “Ritual of Knowledge”, the “Spiritual Communion of Humanity”, the “Cosmic Communion”, the “World Ritual”, the “Reverse Ritual”, or “the “Cosmic Ritual”. How is it different from the Sacramental Communion? And why is it important for us today?
You are invited: Saturday/Sunday 24-25 September 2022
The BDANC Fall Michaelmas Gathering
hosted Gloria Decater at Live Power Community Farm, Covelo
Saturday:
*Honoring the Cow
*Honoring the Elementals – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
*Hands on prep making with Harald Hoven
*The Evolution of Biodynamic Legacy Farms – Old farms that need new farmers – Round table discussion with Gloria Decater and Chuck Ginsberg
*Bridging Heaven and Earth through Singing, Storytelling and Biography Work with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
The Michaelmas 2022 Bridging Project at Live Power Farm
We will work in conscious community to connect beyond the threshold for the future evolution of the Earth. Spiritual Science brings us many teachings on communicating with the ‘so-called dead’, working with the spiritual hierarchies, & coming to know the Christ as the meaning of the Earth. We can learn what our beloved dead & the unborn can teach us about what it means to be human in a spiritual sense here on Earth.
*Discussion about Sequential Spraying for Drought Remediation with Michael Aldinger
*Catered dinner
Sunday:
*Eurythmy – with Cynthia Hoven
*Anthroposophical Salon – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg and Nancy Poer
For details, accommodations, meal reservations and schedule see www.bdanc.org
Live Power Community Farm is a seasoned, long-time biodynamic farm whose farming family have passed through many seasons of soul, soil and spirit. Gloria Decater, whose husband Stephen crossed the threshold last year, is currently in the process of exploring how the future incarnation of this living farm individuality needs to evolve. Although the CSA aspect of the farm is on hold right now, Gloria has been continuing to host educational activities for children and adults.
PURCHASING PREPARATIONS: Preps must be ordered at least three days in advance – by Sept 21st – to be picked up at the meeting. These BD preparations are hand made by groups of BDANC practitioners on various BD farms around NORCAL. Supervision and distribution by Harald Hoven.
Horn Manure (500) $5 members/$7 non-members
Horn Silica (501) $3 members/$4 non-members
Compost Prep Set (502-507) $18 members/$21 non-members
Compost Prep (Barrel Compost) $5 members/$7 non-members
Contact Harald Hoven – Phone: (916) 837-8776 Email: hhoven@att.net
Dear friends –
The Michaelmas Season is looming. The oblique angle of the Sun cuts across the shadows like a sword. The days grow shorter & the harvest has begun
Biodynamic agriculture has a keen focus on tuning into the natural rhythms of the Earth, & the cosmos. The alteration between night & day can be seen as the Earth breathing in & out, so it is with each turn on the wheel of year – there is a seasonal cycle in tune with the Earth’s journey around the Sun. Once a year in the Autumn the planet takes a deep breath in, as everything comes to harvest & slowly goes into a Winter dormancy.
So it’s time to gather on the land for the Fall Prep Day at the Zinniker Farm.
October 1st, 2022.
Suggested donation: $20 per person in support of the Stewardship of Zinniker Farm
We’ll start at 1:30pm.
Dress for comfort with layers.
Please bring a dish to pass for the evening potluck & bonfire.
As always in the fall we will be filling horns for the BD 500 Horn Manure Preparation:
It is a powerful means for structuring the soil
It stimulates soil microbial activity of the soil and the production of humus
It regulates the pH balance of the soil
It stimulates seed germination and root development, in particular vertical growth, increasing depth of root systems
It improves the development of leguminous plants (Fabaceae) and nodule formation
It helps dissolve minerals even in deep layers (alios) and can helps counteract excessive salt levels.
We won’t need to make any of the compost preparations, so we will spend the remaining time with application of the preparations. We will learn how to add the preparations to the compost pile and stir and spray Horn Manure.
We are looking forward to seeing you soon.
Petra & Mark Zinniker
Zinniker Farm
N7399 Bowers Rd
Elkhorn, WI 53121
262-642-5775
zinnikerfarm@gmail.com
Missed reading this yesterday, so am doing some catch-up today. That’s an interesting revelation about how our suffering in a future realm will be external. Perhaps that’s what’s meant when the very last chapter of the Revelation speaks of a world where there’ll be no more death, sorrow, crying or pain. Through many recent accounts of NDE’s we’ve heard people speak of how they were separated from their bodies, and were able to look down on their bodies being cared for. I know that Cayce had this happen in one of his incarnations, where he learned that he could leave his body as a means of enduring pain which he could no longer bear.
The virgin birth mentioned in the Mexican Mystery lecture should teach us that a virgin birth, or immaculate conception, is not the unusual miracle we think of when we cite the birth of Jesus. At one time, in Atlantis, before male and female were separated, humans conceived without coitus occurring. Since then, there have been individuals who were born of virgins – the Egyptian priest Ra Ta was one that we know of, circa 10,500 B.C.; then, it seems likely that Sarah, Abraham’s wife, didn’t need the seed of Abraham, who was in his 90’s, to conceive Isaac. Hebrews 11:11 tells us that “By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age…” Women, even today, have this ability, in exceptional circumstances, to conceive seed on their own. Now, in saying this, we should learn from it that with God, all things are possible, and not be surprised or shocked, but we should also heed Steiner’s caution at the conclusion of the excerpt from the Mexican Mystery lecture, where he states: “After all, many things, which in the way they have made their appearance have proved a benefit, bear the inherent tendency to become a curse to mankind.” So we should ponder these things, as Mary did, but not give our pearls to the swine. Mary, mother of Jesus, was also immaculately conceived by her mother, Anna. Anna suffered the rejection of many in the Essene community because of her insistence that she had not had relations with a man in conceiving her daughter.
The story of Therese Neumann is also quite interesting. Her spinal injury which started her adventures confirms something Steiner speaks about, how our astral body is confined by the ganglia in the region of the lower spine. When an injury occurs there, our astral body can be released from its confines. This can be diagnosed as a psychological illness, or it can be seen for it’s spiritual implications by those so trained. For a return to a normal life, an osteopath may quite often make the necessary adjustments. In the case of Therese, the osteopathic remedy was probably unknown at that time, but because of her spiritual surroundings, it turned out well for her, in spite of much suffering. Another case of this kind of spinal nerve injury leading to spiritual experience was that of Christina Grof, who was the wife of Stan Grof, the psychologist. During the birth of her first child, Christina suffered some sort of nerve damage – it took a while for them to realize that she was not psychologically ill. The way that she and Stan turned this into a beneficial experience is recounted in their book, “The Stormy Search for the Self”. What they learned enabled them to help many people who have had similar experiences. Due to the fact that they were both trained psychologists, the book is a good read for anyone interested in the subject of psychology.
What strikes me about “Uitzilopochtli (or Vitzliputzli, as the name was transcribed in Steiner’s account)” – intro to GA171 – is that there is not much else elaborated on this figure and ‘what’ happened during those three years of conflict. The rest is up to our own intuition and imagination.
Whereas Christ was crucified in one location, another being who was the opposite pole of the spectrum (evil) was crucified in different location, but same time frame. The other thing, is that this Sun being in human form was revered as a Sun and War God.
Now let us read between the lines here… and keeping in mind the ‘second crucification’ as an event, too.
“The veil must be lifted now so that consciousness may be added to what still remains unconsciousness, because enough time has passed since America has been discovered. Otherwise, if consciousness did not gradually enter, these forces would become paramount, and the relatively beneficent conditions of the time of unconsciousness would turn around and become the curse of humanity.”
Perhaps I am influenced by Tolkien much, but Evil doesn’t exactly die… it waits. But things are not black and white, and so obvious on the surface. What seems very palpable nowadays, is that there is ‘very’ strong sorcery occurring right now. It is then important to imagine and intuit what exactly is meant by sorcery and black magic. First of all, caused harm… intentional harm, is hallmark. I can hardly see this an issue of debate. Secondly, I feel that whatever/whoever is behind this particular sorcery is much more subtle and more clever than the powerful magician described in the Mexican Mysteries.
I could be mistaken, that we are living a kind of recapitulation of that time. I cannot say that as fact, but there does seem some similarities occurring. If this is somewhat on point, then there would be a ‘spiritual’ interference such as a Sun being incarnating as Man to counteract it. What Steiner doesn’t say explicitly, is that that three years of conflict must have been extremely violent. Talk about a Storm.
If we were to see these events play out, would many of us see this as Sorathic… forces of destruction? I know people wouldn’t acknowledge Vitzliputli as Sorathic (or even Luciferic)… but this conflict was violent, wasn’t it?
This is by no means advocating such things, but my point is, is that some things get so out of hand and it seems that pressure gets built up to a point where everything erupts like a volcano. Or not.. maybe there is just too much interference, and not enough people waking up. TV, mal-nutrition, keep people too busy to think, bread and circus… how can a majority of people wake up from that?
I don’t know, perhaps this slow long process of suffering is just all part of a higher divine plan so that in future incarnations people will be all the more wiser. In that sense, what happened thousands of years ago may not be an exact recapitulation, but a dynamic that gets played out at a completely different level. It seems more of a psychological/spiritual battle rather than a physical one this time around.
Hi KJ – Yes this mystery is so deep & wide, & which, as you pointed out, has become so interwoven with the big picture it can be hard to see.
The question that I am asking is, since we know great evil, certainly black magic is afoot, how can we find the opposite pole – the great good –
In times of crisis, a timeless quote from the late Fred Rogers tends to emerge again and again on social media: “Look for the helpers.”
His mother reminded him to find these people in times of tragedy and anxiety, and it continues to ring true. “You can always find people who are helping,” he said.
And not just the human beings eho are working from the Christ Impulse, but great spiritual beings who are tapping us on the shoulder all the time waiting for us to take notice, to take up their good will…
That is a great question, what is the opposite pole, the ‘great good.’ Perhaps for starters, what is it about evil and black magic that makes it dangerous? Maybe an obvious answer, but essentially it is to break our spirit, and crush our inner freedom.
Since there are helpers available, waiting for us to take notice, then a big part comes down to honing our thinking as a conscious process that involves ‘them’ as well. Hence the emphasis on Cosmic (rather than Personal) Intelligence.
Perhaps that is why there is an imaginal deficiency. In general (majority wise), we don’t know what is possible or truly potential. This is why art is so important. It is a semblance of potential, which is the spiritual essence of things. It is a very stark contrast to seeing reality as the material… for the actual reality is Beings. Everything else is illusion.
O yes, perfect – “the actual reality is Beings”!
Thank you, it’s true everything else is an illusion.
Thank you for being a true Human Being & a dear brother to my soul
Let’s continue to imagine the potential of the spiritual essence of our Divine nature
& work together thru the art of our lives
xox
Likewise, sister! Truly, so much potential. Much to imagine…