The sacrifice of Joan of Arc

Here on this Deathday of Joan of Arc, Receive this recording of our Pentecost Festival for 2023: Anthroposophia & the Redemption of Lucifer with Velsum.

The Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, born in the Epiphany of 1412 – A sublime individuality that came to be embodied in the small village of Domremy, where a Druidic legend foretold the coming of a maiden, a virgin, chosen by the fairies – was burned alive today, May 30, 1431.

What is the mission of The Maid of Orleans?

Jehanne or Joan is the feminine form of Joannes or John, which is, in the case of John the Baptist & St. John the Divine, a title of initiation – so right there we have a mighty clue.

The powers working thru her directed her to battle against the inflammatory Luciferic forces of deception prevailing in humanity at that special time, right before the beginning of the Consciousness Soul Age.

Joan of Arc, with the aid of Michael, (& other spiritual helpers) was able to harness & vanquish the seductive Luciferic forces which were vying to prevent this shift in human consciousness.

Steiner describes the miracle of her birth, how she went thru a sort of pre-earthy initiation during the potent time of the 13 Holy Nights, incarnating on Epiphany, the day the Christ came into a human being at the Baptism.

And we can also point to her equally auspicious death. Yes it was gruesome, she endured so much, not unlike like the sacrifice of The Cosmic Being of Love at the ‘Turning Point of Time’.

In her case, it occurred because all the selfish Luciferic forces of her enemies joined together to bring about her death by fire.

At her witch trial she prophetically said that within 7 years after of her death: “the English would meet with a much greater reversal of fortune than any they had known before”.

Spiritual Science tells us that the soul of Joan of Arc continued working across the Threshold to shape these events after her death. What the spiritual powers want to bring about, will occur, whatever the external conditions may be.

The Maid’s adversaries were able to bring about her death, but they were not able to prevent her mission. The power behind the will of the Maid of Orleans, the forces of Michael, are working still against the immoral Luciferic forces that rage in the world.

And, of course, dear friends, we are also having to deal with hostile forces in our time, but now-a-days these are predominantly Ahrimanic forces, not inflaming, but hardening, materialistic forces, that came up with the industrial age. These forces are in evidence everywhere, especially if we turn our attention not only to the electric or mechanical element, but also thru-out cyber space; which can be a distractive shrouding for the reappearance of Christ in the etheric realm, if we are not awake & consciously consecrating this medium in the name of Christ. 

Spiritual science tells us if we remain unconscious of these forces working into our sense impressions, these elemental beings that have become enslaved by Ahriman – if we don’t meet the spirit behind every sense impression – we are offering an abode to the dragon that seeks to stupefy us. These sclerotic forces influence our entire earthly life, creating the fearful events happening now all over the globe.

And so as we remember the deeds of Joan of Arc on this her deathday, we are also reminded of our current task, to name & tame the modern beasts, to take our will forces in hand – to be spiritual warriors for peace, & the light of truth. 

~hag

C~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

30 May 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: the bright waxing gibbous moon will glow near Spica, the brightest star in Virgo the Maiden. The moon and Spica will set a few hours before dawn.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) The Gospel of St. John, Lecture 10, THE EFFECT OF THE CHRIST IMPULSE WITHIN HUMANKIND. Lecture 11, The Christian Initiation 30 May 1908

Joan of Arc - Maid of Heaven - Joan Burning Postcard | Joan of arc, Saint  joan of arc, St joan

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, The Present Age magazine, Wikipedia Commons)

Joan of Arc is back for one night and one night only. This legendary Chicago band is teaming up once again to perform their original score to Carl Dreyer’s classic silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Come out to the historic Music Box Theater to experience their haunting music live with one of the true masterpieces of silent cinema. You won’t want to miss this unique performance by this beloved Chicago band
https://www.chicagohumanities.org/events/attend/joan-arc/

I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience“. ~ Zbigniew Herbert  (Poet) 1924 – 1998

Jeanne dArc by François Nicolas Chifflart

1431 – Deathday of Joan of Arc, French martyr & Saint, burnt at the stake by the British under Duke of Bedford.

1593 – Deathday of Christopher Marlowe, English poet & playwright

1672 – Birthday of Peter the Great Czar of Russia.  He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist & medieval political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, based on The Enlightenment.

1778 – Deathday of Voltaire, French philosopher & author. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as being a former pupil of the mysteries in Karmic Relationships Vol. 2.

1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel

1935 – Deathday of Daniel Nicol Dunlop , a Scottish entrepreneur, founder of the World Power Conference & other associations, a theosophist-turned-anthroposophist. Thought to have been a Templar in a former life. Dunlop saw Rudolf Steiner for the first time when he was still General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, both of them expressed their intimate spiritual connection &respect for one another.  Dunlop started the anthroposophical “Human Freedom Group & anthroposophical Summer Schools. In 1928 he organized the first & only World Conference on Anthroposophy & in 1929 he was elected General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. He had a deep friendship with Eleanor Merry, who supported his work, especially after the death of his own wife, Eleanor in 1932. As a result of conflicts & power struggles within the General Anthroposophical Society, leading to its splintering in April 1935, Dunlop was expelled together with a number of other leading members. He died shortly afterwards of an appendicitis. Dunlop enlisted the help of fellow anthroposophist Walter Johannes Stein in the hope of founding a World Economic Organization, but his death prevented this.

1936 – Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz resigns from the General Anthroposophical Society on the 1 year anniversary of his friend D.N. Dunlop’s death, in protest after many of his contemporizes were expelled from the Society.

1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shoot & kill 10 labor demonstrators

1989 –The 33-foot high “Goddess of Democracy” statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators

François Chifflart

~i am a form in the flame
seen only if one gazes long into the fire…
clouds of smoke tear like a shroud & i see the shine of other hidden ones,
faces aglow with heat
flashing like lightning, speaking with thunder…
rising in the smoke
the scent of my prayer
an incense of hope & wonder…
~hag

5 thoughts on “The sacrifice of Joan of Arc

    1. “Another historical event was the struggle between France and England. It changed the map of Europe in such a way that we can say that if France had not been victorious over England, all conditions and relationships would have become different. But how did this victory happen? It happened because the Christ impulse has worked itself into the subconscious of the soul up to the present time, when it is increasingly becoming a conscious force. So we can see in the evolution of the Western spirit how the Christ impulse seeks out in the souls of men those conditions by which it can become effective in some individuals. Legends have preserved for us the manner in which the Christ impulse can assert itself within the Western spiritual tradition. In part, these legends refer generally to ancient pagan ages, but they take us back to those heathen times in which an understanding of Christianity was beginning to germinate.”

      https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/ChrLuc_index.html

      The death of Jacques de Molay, the last grandmaster of the Knights Templar, who bore the Christ Impulse, can be effectively equated to the death of Joan of Arc. Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake in 1314, by the order of Pope Clement V, a French Pope, and Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431, by order of the English church. Intersecting these two occurrences was the beginning of the Fifth Cultural epoch in 1413, when Joan was just one year old. The Christ Impulse moves in mysterious ways.

      1. Steiner speaks about how a sort of denial of the build up to the 1st World War had been present for a long time in the astral world, but was held back by something that was also astral: by the fear, doubt & hatred held in the feeling life of human beings. These negative astral forces were able to hold the war back, to prevent it, for a while. Steiner says: “…at 1st a fearful denial was able to stop war from breaking out. But then with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, there emerged a ‘reversal event’ – this recalls the words from Joan of Arc: “the English would meet with a much greater reversal than any they had known before”.

        so do you see, in that case the selfish Luciferic forces that Joan was able to hold back for a time, made a reversal & came back to destroy the English after her sacrifice – that her sacrifice was what tipped the scales for it to happen. & in this case of the world war, all the elements of fear from the ahrimanic powers, began to gather around the sacrificed soul of the Archduke, creating a focal point, a tear at the threshold.

        It’s hard to really imagine this, but we know that anything that has a specific character on the physical plane will have the opposite character in the spiritual world. Everything is revered. An element that had a blocking effect, keeping the 1st World War at bay, was now acting in the opposite way, as a spur, an incitement, to war. So we see that a flip of the elements of fear, of the deceiving Ahrimanic elements, became a catalyst for war, which now a 100 years later, has led to the events of our present age, where there is constant war, in all realms of society.

        Steiner tells us that we must not try to deny or rebel against these materialistic Ahrimanic elements. We must let them strengthen us; we must develop the courage of Michael to see it as something that is necessary in our time, something that has to be present, so that we can learn to reverse it thru our heart-thinking – transforming these forces thru love. / The question is: How do we make it possible for divine spiritual forces, the ‘ever present help of the spiritual world’, to enter into our actions?

        Without seeking to run away & hide, without pulling the covers over our heads & sleeping thru this opportunity, without blindly following the materialistic narrative, how do we offer conscious resistance to this deceptive Ahrimanic element in our age, the way resistance was offered to the Luciferic element at the time of Joan of Arc?

        By taking the path towards a spiritualization of human culture; cultivating our ability to form ideas & concepts into a thinking will for good.

        This is the prerequisite foundation needed to manifest the 3-fold social organism. Which we can only do if we stop listening to the prejudices & propaganda currently pounding us deeper into the materialism of our age – a voice that speaks loudly at times, or can be the faintest of whispers from the dragon within.

        We can generate the great strength we need to offer a conscious resistance to these hardening forces by approaching the spirit not only thru the inner powers of revelation & faith, like in the case of Joan of Arc, but by concentrating our powers of understanding on what spiritual science has to give – a common sense-yet divinely inspired wisdom, filling us with light.

        1. Indeed. And by continually focusing on and demonstrating the Anthroposophical virtues of: Goodwill, Sincerity, Fire & Enthusiasm. Steiner indicates in his course, “The Mystery of Death”, GA 159, which is dedicated to Joan of Arc throughout its 15 lectures, that the Spirit of Joan was working through the etheric bodies of the French soldiers in the first Battle of the Marne, and that from the astral world could be seen all these unexpended etheric bodies of the young brave and dead French soldiers, all bearing the gleaming presence of Joan in their “glory bodies”. Michael had to find a means to dissolve these French etheric bodies, and so brought in the Russian Folk Soul to aid in the process. The French soldiers were able to pass into the heavenly worlds fairly soon after the Russian Folk Soul was brought in to dissipate these etheric bodies, which were imbued with the image of the immortal Joan of Arc, who had literally turned the tide of the Hundred Years War in favor of France in just three years, c. 1429-1431.

          Yes, this was a huge theme for Rudolf Steiner in the early days and months of World War I. The continuing presence and Spirit of Joan working in the world.

          1. In fact, Joan plays a significant figure in Steiner’s very first two lectures in describing the “Christ Impulse and the Michael Spirit Serving It”. January 1915. The first Battle of the Marne was displaying its effects to Steiner as a kind of light aura in which Joan’s signature appeared.

            https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA157/English/RSP1987/19150117p01.html

            https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA157/English/RSP1987/19150119p01.html

            I know you know about these two lectures especially well.

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