The Logos Renewed

~hag

Thank you to everyone who gathered with the Regional Councils of the ASA for our 1st Roots & Renewal Session: From Artemis to the Representative of Humanity and Beyond. In this series we are taking stock of the signposts from the past as well as forging our way forward  – toward the Jubilee – the 100-Year anniversary of the Refounding of the Anthroposophical Society, at the Christmas Conference; when Rudolf Steiner took on the leadership of the Society, making the sacrifice to align his karma with ours, strengthening our connection to the movement – to Anthroposophia, & the Spiritual Beings working with us to manifest Spiritual Science on Earth during this Michaelic Age.

Those of you who follow this blog know I am keen on making karmic connections around the birth & death days of influential individualities. While researching, I came across Steiner attributing July 21st as the Birthday of Alexander the Great – which he also reveals was the very same day in 356 BC that the Temple of Ephesus went up in flames.

Legend has it that the Goddess Artemis, to whom the Temple was dedicated, was away that day – busy attending to the birth of Alexander. I love to look behind these kinds of myths & stories to see the spiritual reality speaking.

These connections peaked my interest, so I got to work creating a compilation of insights from 4 lectures by Rudolf Steiner where he outlines the influences between the burning of the Temple of Ephesus, (which BTW was considered one of the 7 Wonders of the World) the birth of Alexander the Great, & the burning of the 1st Goetheanum 100 years ago in 1922, so this year in 2022, it seems especially important to explore the spiritual underpinnings of this event, in relation to these other turning points in time.

Three of the lectures I worked with are from those famous evening lectures that Steiner gave during the Christmas Conference: WORLD HISTORY IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY. Those of you who joined us for the Epic of Gilgamesh Storytelling during the ASA Holy Nights adventure may remember that these lectures were our foundation. – Reading further, Steiner transitions quite seamlessly into the Mysteries of Ephesus & Alexandria.

And the 4th resource comes a few months after the Christmas Conference at Easter-Tide in 1924, where Steiner reveals how the Mysteries of Ephesus became inscribed into the Cosmic Ethers after the Burning of the Temple; & how Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great, was able to receive these mysteries by reading the Cosmic Script. Renewing them – he brought these mysteries back to the world in what we call the ‘Aristotelian Categories’.

So amazing to make these cosmic & historic connections – & bring them into our thinking now – And then really it’s up to us to make something of them.

Steiner tells us that these categories have not been properly understood; they are thought of as a mere list; but they are meant to be meditated on, in order to fully receive the essence beyond the logical form.

After reading the compilation together last night, we co-created the Social Sculpture that the break-out room provides. Asking ourselves things like: How can we be awake to this reality of ‘The Jealously of the gods’? As well as ‘The Jealously of Men’ so prevalent today? Some folks also pondered the Aristotle’s Categories.

For me, thru working with this material, (over 90 pages in these 4 powerful lectures) I have been striving to use my imaginative thinking to carry the clues that Steiner gives to connect the mysteries that stand behind: The Colossus of Artemis, which was a symbol of the Logos before it came to Earth in a human form, & the Representative of Humanity, The Word made manifest – The Christ impulse of Wonder, Compassion, & Conscience giving meaning to human evolution. A lightbulb goes off in my heart & mind when I add in the open secret that: ‘The Group’ is in reality a veil of the New Isis – which the true human being is called to remove, bringing the full blossom of Wisdom to the seed of Love.

It all becomes clear that we are meant to connect the dots inscribed into the ethers thru the burning of these 2 Temples – One to Artemis, the Comic Logos & the other to Anthroposophia, the Truth-Wrought-Word of the Human Being. Written in the cosmic script we find the old clairvoyance bestowed thru initiation into the Mysteries of Ephesus, being carried into the thinking of Aristotle, to inform Alexander’s Michaelic Campaign – Bringing the Mysteries of the East in a renewed form to the West; preparing the way for the Christ Event that came at the Turning Point of Time.

And then following the individualities of Aristotle & Alexander into their lives reunited once again on the Dornach hill, standing together before the burning of the Goetheanum – as the New Mysteries of the Reverse Cultus became inscribed also into the ethers, expanding & evolving the Cosmic Script, renewing The Logos – which awaits our interaction.

Friends, the Statue of the Representative of Humanity stands with us today as the living link between the past, present & future – if we will to unveil the New Isis hidden in the hand-hewn carving, whose essence dwells in the Dodecahedron of Love, that we must cultivate within our heart-thinking – to open our humanness to the Wisdom of the Christ – then the burning will not have been in vain…

Here is the Recording from our Roots & Renewal Session # 1: From Artemis to the Representative of Humanity and Beyond

We can explore this further together at the ‘Renewing the Mysteries Conference’.

Until soon

~hag

Renewing the Mysteries:The Founding of The Christian Community
& the Burning of the First Goetheanum

Spring Valley, NY – August 8-13, 2022
REGISTER NOW!* lectures * artistic workshops * conversation * evening performances
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg will be offering a program on Tuesday 9 August for the Free Initiative 2:30 -3:30 pm ETFrom Artemis to the New Isis
Many anthroposophists have understood the 1923/24 Christmas Foundation Conference as constituting a renewal of the Mysteries. Nine months after the Christmas Conference, speaking to the priests of the Christian Community, Rudolf Steiner pointed to a sequence from the founding of the Christian Community in September 1922 to the burning of the Goetheanum at the end of that year to the Christmas Conference.In this 100th anniversary year of both the founding of the Christian Community and the burning of the Goetheanum, can an exploration of these events help us to understand the nature of the New Mysteries?

The keynote speaker is Daniel Hafner, priest of the Christian Community. He will address this theme with a particular focus on the colored windows of the First Goetheanum.

The Act of Consecration of Man will be celebrated during the week and there will also be a Class Lesson for members of the School of Spiritual Science.

Venue: SPRING VALLEY, NY, Threefold Community, and The Christian Community

*REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED TO ATTEND THIS EVENT: A conference on the scale currently planned requires that a minimum number of participants register by July 20th.

INFO OR QUERIES: Rev. Paul Newton paulknewton@msn.com
(845) 517-4101

Sponsored by The Christian Community Spring Valley Area and the Threefold Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

22 July 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

El Greco

Feast Day of Mary Magdalene, sister of Martha & Lazarus; who stood beneath the cross on Golgotha, & who was the 1st to see the risen Christ…The woman initiate represents the soul in humankind, Aisha, as Moses called it. The once turbulent Mary Magdalene, whose seven demons Jesus had driven out according to the Biblical account, became his most devoted disciple.  

It was at the farm in Bethany, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, Lazuars, Martha & the Magdalene that Jesus liked to rest from the labors of his mission. There He freely gave his most gentle consolations & in loving conversations He spoke of the Divine Mysteries which He did not yet always confide to his disciples. Sometimes at the hour when the gold of the sunset faded among the olive branches, when twilight slipped between their delicate foliage, Jesus became thoughtful. A shadow fell over his illumined face. He thought of the hardships of his work, the wavering faith of the Apostles, the powerful enemies in the world. The Temple, Jerusalem, humankind, with its crimes & ingratitude, rolling over Him like a living mountain. Struck by the solemnity of his voice, the women held his soul. However unchangeable the serenity of Jesus might be, they understood that His spirit was as though closed in the coffin of confinement which separated him from the joys of earth. They sensed the destiny of the Son of God; they felt His unshakable resolution.

Sometimes called simply the Magdalene, Mary is mentioned by name twelve times in the canonical gospels, more than any of the apostles. The Gospel of Luke 8:2-3 lists Mary as one of the women who traveled with Jesus & helped support his ministry “out of their resources”, indicating that she was wealthy. The same passage also states that seven demons had been driven out of her, a statement which is repeated in the longer ending of Mark. In all four canonical gospels, she is a witness to the crucifixion of Jesus &, in the Synoptic Gospels, she is also present at his burial. All four gospels identify her, either alone or as a member of a larger group of women, as the first witness to the empty tomb, & the first to testify to Jesus’s resurrection. For these reasons, she is known in many Christian traditions as the “apostle to the apostles”.

Mary is a central figure in later apocryphal Gnostic Christian writings, including the Dialogue of the Savior, the Pistis Sophia, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, & the Gospel of Mary. These texts portray her as Jesus’s closest disciple & the only one who truly understood his teachings. In the Gnostic gospels, Mary Magdalene’s closeness to Jesus results in tension with the other disciples, particularly Simon Peter.

During the Middle Ages, Mary Magdalene was conflated in western tradition with Mary of Bethany & the unnamed “sinful woman” who anoints Jesus’s feet in Luke 7:36-50, resulting in a widespread but inaccurate belief that she was a repentant prostitute or promiscuous woman. In 1969, the identification of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany & the “sinful woman” was removed from the General Roman Calendar, but the view of her as a former prostitute has persisted in popular culture.

Mary Magdalene is considered to be a saint by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, & Lutheran churches—with a feast day of July 22. During the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church used Mary Magdalene as a symbol of penance. Other Protestant churches honor her as a heroine of the faith. The Eastern Orthodox churches also commemorate her on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers, the Orthodox equivalent of one of the Western Three Marys traditions.

Elaborate medieval legends from western Europe tell exaggerated tales of Mary Magdalene’s wealth & beauty, as well as her journey to southern France.

1099 –Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Jerusalem. After the successful siege of Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He refused the title of King, however, as he believed that the true King of Jerusalem was Christ, preferring the title of Advocate (i.e., protector or defender) of the Holy Sepulchre (Latin: Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri). He is also known as the “Baron of the Holy Sepulchre” & the “Crusader King”. Godfrey is a key figure in the theories put forth in the books The Holy Blood & the Holy Grail & The Da Vinci Code. In the Paradiso segment of his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri sees the spirit of Godfrey, together with Roland’s, in the Heaven of Mars with the other “warriors of the faith”. Godfrey is depicted in Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera Rinaldo (1711) as Tasso’s “Goffredo”.

1499 – Battle of Dornach: The Swiss decisively defeat the army of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor & concluded the Swabian War between the Swiss & the Swabian League.

1893 – Katharine Lee Bates writes America the Beautiful after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado. At the age of 33, Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, had taken a train trip to teach a short summer school session at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, & they found their way into her poem, including the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the “White City” with its promise of the future contained within its gleaming white buildings; the wheat fields of America’s heartland Kansas, through which her train was riding & the majestic view of the Great Plains from high atop Pikes Peak. On the pinnacle of that mountain, the words of the poem started to come to her, & she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room at the original Antlers Hotel. The poem was initially published two years later in The Congregationalist to commemorate the Fourth of July. It quickly caught the public’s fancy. Just as Bates had been inspired to write her poem, Samuel A Ward, too, was inspired. The tune came to him while he was on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City after a leisurely summer day & he immediately wrote it down. He was so anxious to capture the tune in his head, he asked fellow passenger friend Harry Martin for his shirt cuff to write the tune on.

1946 – King David Hotel bombing: A Zionist underground organisation, the Irgun, bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, resulting in 491 deaths.

~aCord change –
from a cosmos of wisdom to one of love…
here the moon leaps out of the spiral…
self-ignition, springing from the middle of the vortex,
where the old ends & the new meets re-birth…
~hag

11 thoughts on “The Logos Renewed

  1. This post reminds me of the Tarkovsky film, Nostalghia (who he just so happens to be an Anthroposophist). He dedicated this film to his Mother.

    Many powerful scenes to choose from. Very meditative. Here is one that came to mind (no subtitles):

    https://youtu.be/eTLFC-Eyj9Q

    1. WOW, so atmospheric – the dark Church the candles, the sound of the shoes on the rock floor…The questioning interchange…The miracle of the birds…a lovely mystery…Thank you

      1. Yes, Tarkovsky is one of my favorite film makers. He definitely understands, what Steiner illustrates, The Arts and Their Mission:

        “But — to repeat — the anthroposophical method of knowledge brings one to a realization that thoughts are not the living reality; they are dead gestures which merely point to that reality; and at a certain stage one feels that, to attain reality, one must begin to create; must pass over to art. Ideas alone simply cannot present the world in its rich full content. Thus Anthroposophy prepares the soul for artistic feeling and creating.”
        GA 276 lecture VII

        Tarkovsky:
        “We have to use our time on Earth to improve ourselves spiritually. This means that art must serve this purpose.”

        https://youtu.be/d7qZFe7elAQ

        1. Seeing him in nature like this really shows his humanity. Thanks, I have not connected with Tarkovsky’s work before – he is a modern Rosicrucian. How did you come to see his films?
          And the Steiner Quote really speaks to enthuse my willing.

          1. Yes, absolutely!

            I found out about his films when I lived in Chicago. One of my roommates was a film student, and he suggested to check them out.

  2. Excellent research you’ve done; greatly appreciate your research into Mary of Magdalene. Very interesting that she was considered an “apostle to the apostles”. Cheers.

    1. Learning about Her can take a lot of sleuthing. It’s worth reading the Nag Hammadi texts found in 1948…the Gospel of Phillip, Thunder, Perfect Mind, & the Gospel of Mary Magdalene to get a vision of Her outside the canonical scriptures.
      For like so many women her story happens outside of the written word…in legend, whispered from grandmother to granddaughter – in art.
      She was not a prostitute. Ever. She was a Pucelle, a Vierge, an independent woman, of means and education. She never betrayed Jesus, she never left his side during his Passion. She was at the foot of the cross as he died, she anointed his body in preparation of His deed, & she was there when he was resurrected.
      “Are you the gardener?” she asked him. This was the sacred question. It was the question of Inanna to Dumuzi, of Isis to Osiris…Are you the gardener come to transform the Earth?
      Some say Magdala means Tower. The Great Tower. The Column of Saints.

      1. Hi Hazel,

        The role of Mary Magdalene is important. Within canonical scripture there comes an event involving Christ’s invitation to dine with a certain Pharisee, and this occurs just before the naming of Mary as having had the seven demons removed at the beginning of Luke, chapter 8.

        36 Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to dine with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, 38 and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.”

        40 And Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he replied, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.” 44 Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. 47 For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.” 49 Those who were reclining at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” 50 And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7

        1. It can be shown that Mary is identified in the Gospel of John as being the unnamed sinner described from Luke, chapter 7. In chapters 11 and 12 of John, it is indicated that she performed this earlier act of faith, and anoints the Christ again there with the return to Bethany. Lazarus has been raised in order to become a disciple, and Mary goes for the alabaster flask of perfumed lotion to wash the feet of Christ.

          John 11

          11 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.

          John 12

          12 Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him. 3 Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

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