June 2nd, 2016
455 – Sack of Rome: Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks
1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city.
1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Found guilty, she is hanged on June 10.
1743 – Birthday of Alessandro Cagliostro, Italian occultist and explorer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe relates in his Italian Journey, that during the trial of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace*, Cagliostro said that he had been born of noble birth but abandoned as an orphan upon the island of Malta. He claimed to have traveled as a child to Medina, Mecca, & Cairo, & was then admitted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, where he studied alchemy, the Kabbalah, & magic. (*The Affair of the Diamond Necklace – an incident in 1781 at the court of Louis XVI of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The reputation of the Queen, which was already tarnished by gossip, was ruined by the implication that she had participated in a crime to defraud the crown jewelers of the cost of a very expensive diamond necklace. The Affair was historically significant as one of the events that led to the French populace’s disillusionment with the monarchy, which, among other causes, eventually culminated in the French Revolution)
1793 – French Revolution: François Hanriot, leader of the Parisian National Guard, arrests 22 Girondists selected by Jean-Paul Marat, setting the stage for the Reign of Terror.
1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States
1882 – Deathday of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general and politician. “That’s not a man. One day the Devil fell in love with a holy, Garibaldi was born after nine months”. — A dying soldier, after a battle against Garibaldi, in the comic story “Mille contro centomila”. I believe Steiner speaks about him in his Karmic Relationships lectures.
1922 – Start of the East-West Congress in Vienna, opened by Polzer-Hoditz. It was Rudolf Steiner’s last public lecture on Three-folding.
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Odiln Redon
~The striped pebble is warm in my palm
I raise it up to honor the salamanders raying slices thru the sky –
Blazing thru magnolias toward the valley
Where the fire begins again…
There I stand poised in the fragrance of purple amaranth
Throwing stars & wishing on stones
I am a flower that never dies…
~hag
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In thinking about: “The Working of the Spirit” by Michael Burton & Marke Levene. Part 8 (program for the Chicago reading)
Having passed thru the “Trial by Fire” in scene 10, next we meet the “Trial by water” & (spoiler alert!!!) the death of the spiritual teacher Benedictus. There is a definite correlation to the untimely passing of Rudolf Steiner that is implied here. We see into the souls of those who were in his inner circle. Hilary takes it very hard, blaming himself. The Guardian, who bares the countenance of Benedictus, seeks to comfort him: “Your better selves shall sleep at times. But I do not forget. And, through my power, you’ll pick yourself out of the dust when you have failed and turn again to the deep and inward longing of your heart.” Each of them feels his presence as a force weaving the karma between them.
Then with a rush, the outer circle arrives, manic in the push of business, the tasks of the factory, an opening for their personal agendas. Ferdinand Reinecke, (his name means fox) who we have seen throughout as a conniving opportunist, has had a kind of mystical experience involving the inner workings of the Strader machine, right at the time of Benedictus’ passing, bringing a leap in his spiritual growth. And yet Ahriman still has a hold of him, & we see a battle, with the Guardian lending support to all.
Frederick Trautman wants to seize this opportunity to give his group greater power, the inner group ponders this.
Tomorrow we meet the “Trail by Air”.
Until soon
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
