“Of what significance is it to one who has gone through the gates of death when they now see embedded in the souls ebbing and flowing in our world, the memories which these souls streaming by have of the dead? When they perceive these memories what do they mean to our beloved dead?.. “ ~Rudolf Steiner*
Dear friends – For many years I have made working with the dead an important priority in my life of Applied Anthroposophy. Our dearly beloved give us so much when we dedicate our thinking toward them in the spiritual realms.
I love this idea from Rudolf Steiner: ‘We are the art of the dead’.*
~Bruce Roloff
We are called to continue our relationships with those across the Threshold. The Original Calendar of the Soul given to us by Rudolf Steiner with its marking of the birth & death days of notable individuals, affords us many opportunities to consider how our memories, spiritual thoughts, & the reading of Anthroposophical content, can be to those in the spiritual world – What would it be like to imagine it like how art is to us in the physical world..?
We are called to turn our thoughts to the spiritual worlds, not out of mere fancy, or with a wish they could still be with us, but “because of the conviction gained through Spiritual Science that in turning our thoughts to the other worlds, we are able to make a contribution to this world, by ennobling and invigorating the conceptions needed for our willing, thinking, and feeling.”*
We turn our thoughts to those we have known, or admired, in the knowledge out of spiritual science, that we can be helpful to them – & they to us, as we continue our relationship.
It seems that lately we been given some powerful opportunities to practice this. It’s always interesting to me when I take the time to connect the dots between various souls who were born or died on the same day.
Today we have an interesting combination. So take a breath, it’s going to be a long post. Just take what sticks out for you & leave the rest. And as always Please share what comes up for you.
Blessings on this working:
TODAY in1889 – Birthday of Lili Kolisko a scientist & anthroposopher. The rising image method she developed enabled the detection of cosmic effects in earthly substances for the first time & made her a pioneer of biodynamic agriculture.
She was the daughter of a typesetter, born in Vienna. Together with her two step-sisters, she grew up very poor, burdened by her father’s drunkenness. Still she was able to attend high school & graduate with honors. After the outbreak of the First World War, she worked at a hospital where she learned to use a wide variety of medical laboratory techniques. This is where she met the young assistant doctor Eugen Kolisko. They were married in 1917. Both were united by a strong interest in the natural sciences & anthroposophy .
After Lili Kolisko had met Rudolf Steiner for the first time in 1915 , she wrote a letter asking for suggestions for the development of a chemistry oriented towards the humanities.
In 1919 the Kolisko couple had a daughter & the family moved to Stuttgart , where Eugen Kolisko worked as a teacher in the newly founded Waldorf School .
In July of the same year, Eugen Kolisko & Rudolf Steiner researched a cure for foot-and-mouth disease, which was rampant at the time. Lili Kolisko was entrusted with the laboratory work required to find out the correct dosage of the agent.
Rudolf Steiner instructed her to carry out germination experiments on plants with various dilutions & to record the result in the form of a curve. Lili Kolisko also examined the blood of the sick animals &, in 1922, when little was known about the function of the spleen, was able to prove a metabolic regulator secreted by the spleen in her pioneering work “Spleen function and the platelet question”. In the course of this work with Steiner they founded the Biological Institute at the Goetheanum..
Rudolf Steiner considered Lili Kolisko’s research work to be very important & often visited her in her laboratory to discuss the results & provide further suggestions. He worked with both Koliskos emphasizing that science needed to overcome the prevailing materialism, to make visible the ethereal qualities in matter. Together with Steiner, Lili Kolisko developed potentization methods where the material substance was gradually thinned beyond the limits of physcial, so that the etheric efficacy emerged more & more clearly. In germination tests with plants, in the dilutions, she denoted the rhythmic properties directed by Steiner’s indications.
“Lili Kolisko’s studies of the effects of the smallest entities, have put everything that has been touching in homeopathy on such a thorough scientific basis in such a brilliant way. One can consider it absolutely scientific that the smallest entities, in tiny quantities – precisely the radiant forces which are used in the organic world – are released by using these minute quantities in a corresponding way. ” ~Rudolf Steiner, GA 327
In the afterword of her study, which summarizes her work from 1923 – 1959 on the physiological & physical proof of the effectiveness of the smallest entities , Lili Kolisko writes: “In the course that Rudolf Steiner held for doctors in Switzerland in 1920, he described it as “a beautiful task to show the effects that emerge during potentiation in certain curves”. It was a nice job. Time and again one convinces oneself that if one takes Rudolf Steiner’s words seriously and follows his suggestions, they will come true in every detail. Plant growth shows an effectiveness again and again, but it is no longer bound to a substance. One perceives effects – without being able to prove a substance for it. You stand in amazement and admiration in front of the sheer effects of forces. A wonderful rhythm swings through the substance, from the terrestrial to the cosmic…You have to learn to read the curves. That too is a nice job. In Jahn in 1926, I wrote in the epilogue of the book “Physiological evidence of effectiveness smallest entities in seven metals”: The curves are spiritual into the physical shut fetched images realities they reflect Weltgesetzmäßigkeiten again! If one keeps in mind, you do not shy away from the effort to penetrate deeper into this wonderful area and to think in gratitude to Rudolf Steiner, who made this knowledge accessible to us. “~ Lili Kolisko
This rhythmization method developed by Lili Kolisko, in which she worked out differentiated shaking rhythms for individual substances, was groundbreaking for later anthroposophical research on medicinal products.
On the basis of this procedure, she also examined the influence of cosmic constellations on the creative forces in the following decades. In an elaborate series of tests with one percent metal salt solutions, she was able to determine the effect of solar and lunar eclipses and the influence of the planetary movements on the seven planetary metalsdocument. I published the results of some of her work: The “star work in earth materials” during the Cosmic & Earthly Easter event a few years back.
Together with her husband, Lili Kolisko was very active in the Anthroposophical Society. After the Christmas conference in 1924 she was commissioned by Rudolf Steiner to read the esoteric instructions given by Steiner, the so-called ‘class hours’, for the teachers of the Stuttgart Waldorf School as part of the newly established ‘First Class of the School of Spiritual Science.
After Rudolf Steiner’s death in 1925, the working conditions for the Kolisko couple, who were close to Ita Wegman & Elisabeth Vreede, became increasingly difficult due to the ongoing disputes.
Lili Kolisko’s work was also largely ignored by the anthroposophical doctors & only given little financial means, because she was not considered competent enough because she had no academic medical or pharmaceutical training. The couple left Stuttgart in 1934 & moved to London, where the ‘International Association for the Advancement of Spiritual Science’ was to be established at the suggestion of the English anthroposopher Daniel Nicol Dunlop . The plan failed because Dunlop died the following year.
In 1939 Lili Kolisko’s husband Eugen died suddenly & unexpectedly of a heart attack in a lonely train compartment of a suburban train . From then on, Lili Kolisko lived very withdrawn, but she continued her research tirelessly under the most difficult financial conditions. She also translated numerous works by her late husband into English. In 1961 she was able to complete the biography of her husband Eugen Kolisko, in which she also reports in great detail about the bitter experience with the Anthroposophical Society after Steiner’s death.
1905 – The birthday of Bernard Lievegoed born in Sumatra. His father was a journalist, his mother a teacher. When Bernard was 2 years old he contracted cholera & became paralyzed on one side. He did not learn to walk again until he was 4 years old. His daughter Christie Amons-Lievegoed points out: “When one realizes what learning to walk means in a child’s life, one can see that having to learn to walk twice has been an enormous training of will for him.” She also describes Bernard as a dreaming child, open to the wonders found in the tropical nature of his childhood, which had a deep influence. Bernard often gave credit to this upbringing which he saw as giving him ‘rich life forces’ that fortified not only his health but also the liveliness of his thinking.
His daughter describes: “In Sumatra, behind a ditch at the end of the garden, the jungle began. He saw monkeys in the trees and heard all the wonderful sounds that emanate from such a jungle at night. That fueled his imagination. What nature also provided for opportunities for adventure is described in the booklet: “The eye of the needle. We as children could not imagine our father on a crocodile hunt, although there was still much in our house that reminded us of the “Indonesian” time, such as wayang puppets and – indeed – a crocodile skin!”
Bernard’s technical interest was also apparent at an early age, diving his father’s car in the mountains. He loved all technical gadgets.
His childhood had a cosmopolitan character; it made him a citizen of the world. His journalist father took him to Washington DC, to visit the United States Congress, where he witnessed the declaration of war on Germany. Thru his father, but also thru the cultural differences between his classmates, he experienced a lot of international politics.
At the age of 17 he went to The Hague & took his final exams there. He then decided to study medicine in Groningen.
Bernard Lievegoed was 21 years old when he encountered anthroposophy. Many ‘greats’ of the medical & pedagogical movement were present at a conference in The Hague in 1926, one year after Rudolf Steiner’s death. Thru the stories of the people who had known him, Bernard experienced Rudolf & called him his true teacher.
After graduation & military service, an important event took place in 1930, a turning point in Bernard’s life – camp “De Stakenberg”, an international meeting of anthroposophists with 1200 participants.
Bernard, aged 25, was assigned the organization of this huge camping experiment & Nel Schatborn, (who later became his 2nd wife) still a medical student, became camp commander. Truus Hinse, Bernard’s fiancée, was also present; a meeting of 3 people who would be intimately intertwined with each other’s destinies. During this camp, Bernard decides to commit himself to curative education.
He visits the “Lauenstein” in Germany, the Clinic with “Sonnenhof” as an annex in Arlesheim [Switzerland] & has the feeling of being “at home at last”. He is deeply impressed by the mood, the approach & the medical care of the children.
On September 19, 1931, the Zonnehuis in Bosch en Duin was opened, with 6 children. A year later, Bernard sends a telegram to the head of the medical movement, Ita Wegman, with the text: “Habe neues Haus kauft” (I’ve bought a new house).
His first years in curative education are characterized by great intimacy & intensity of work. There was no money, & there were also few employees who knew what anthroposophical education entailed. He worked closely in consultation with Ita Wegman about spiritual, but also extremely practical matters. She was like a mother of the emerging international curative education movement. She also gave her warm support to the initiative in Holland.
For Bernard, work in Bosch en Duin begins with the deepest confrontation of his life. He is deeply saddened that Truus, whom he has been married to less than a year, dies after the birth of their son. She was only 23 years old, he was 27 years old. While he experiences deep despair inwardly, the work must be built up. Outwardly, Europe darkens. He then says: “It is my sole purpose to bring the work of Rudolf Steiner to the world. Young people must find spiritual food against National Socialism” & he wants to make sure that the Zonnehuis can have an impact in cultural life.
In 1934 Nel Schatborn comes to the Zonnehuis & a year later they get married. This is followed by the intensive years of ever-deepening curative education, of medical work & lectures in the country, of his doctorate & the trials of the Second World War.
Immediately after, one of his children dies, a grief that opens him to whole new questions. They come to meet him from the business community & prepare his professorships in Rotterdam & Enschede & his many lecture tours.
The very 1st lecture for the ‘Society for Industry & Trade’ in 1948 has far-reaching consequences, bringing questions from the business community with an emphasis on education & training. In 1953, the ‘Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences’ [now Erasmus University] appointed him professor by special appointment of social pedagogy.
In order to have a practice ground, he founded the ‘NPI’ (Dutch Pedagogical Institute for Business) in 1954. It was an entirely new initiative within Dutch society – He shows how organizations can be seen as living organisms that go thru developmental phases. The work becomes very fruitful, courses are given for managers & bosses, it was about serving & bringing out the best in people.
Bernard Lievegoed speaks of the “spirit capital of a company”, which is just as important as the economic & the production process.
In 1961 he took over the presidency of the Anthroposophy Association in Nederland (until 1975) from Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven, who died unexpectedly.
Between 1968 & 1976 he was appointed to the Government Commission for Education, which was to reform the Dutch education system in Holland.
He was the chairman of the supervisory board of the Dutch Waldorf school teacher training VPA ( Vrije Pedagogische Akademie , today Hogeschool Helicon ). In 1973 he left Erasmus University to work for the Vrije Hogeschool (now Bernard Lievegoed College for Liberal Arts ), which he founded in 1971 working as rector until 1982.
In the last two decades before his death in 1992, he was increasingly active as a writer & lecturer. He exerted a lasting influence on the anthroposophical movement worldwide. His book ‘The Battle for the Soul’ was said to have been ‘wrested from him on his deathbed’ & only published after his death, changed my life in helping me see how I can put Anthroposophy into practice.
He was an innovator in many areas, with a special intuition for what was happening at the time; that is why his initiatives always gained social support. He knew that warm, spirit-filled enthusiasm creates fertile seeds for life – now & in the future.
1973 – Deathday of J.R.R Tolkien. His tales tell the story of human evolution in the form of a myth or fairy tale – reminiscent of the initiation rites seen in the occult traditions, & in a renewed sense in Spiritual Science. Tolkien tells about a humanity born from the Music of the spiritual Hierarchies – coming to Earth immortal & perfect, & transforming this original pureness in a love for Earth & her creations. The way Tolkien chooses numbers, images, events – everything is amazingly similar to the ancient teachings – Yes, everything reveals this presence in Tolkien’s soul – an artistic forming of past incarnations & certainly influenced by the anthroposophical Christology discussed with his friend Owen Barfield – revealing deep knowledge & images, that whisper into his inspired ear -The precise & patient, but non-intellectual, inner dialogue with the spiritual streams of a human civilization from the past, into the present & future time.
2009 – Deathday of Ernst Katz, a great teacher of anthroposophy based for many years in Ann Arbor MI, where he was professor of physics at the University there. At the retreat I attended last year in Ann Arbor, as part of the General Council of the ASA , the local community shared many stories about this powerful thinker. We heard that at the tender age of 16 Ernst joined the Anthroposophical Society & for his long life of 96 years was fully dedicated to Spiritual Science as a way of life & method of understanding the human being’s purpose on Earth.
Ernst ran the legendary Ann Arbor study group which at first held its meetings in various members’ homes. The protocol was as the same oneused in the CRC study group: Designated people present a short recap in their own words of the Steiner lecture followed by a general discussion in the group. Many folks were drawn to Ernst’s quiet way of leading. Attendance was typically 25 to 30 eager anthroposophers, & discussion was lively.
Even his physics students at the university recognized his extraordinary teaching skills & moral character. It was clear to all that Ernst saw every human connection as an event of destiny, & he treated each one with respect & reverence.
It was Ernst’s suggestion that the members of the study group buy an old abandoned fraternity house to create a place for university students interested in spiritual development to live & study – & the Rudolf Steiner House of the Great Lakes Branch was born. For many years Ernst & his wife Katherine were overseers of the building which was donated to the Anthroposophical Society in America & is now the society’s headquarters. He is still teaching from the spiritual world today!
~Arnold Böcklin
*“Each time that a dead person receives a remembrance of themself in the soul of a person who was in some way connected with them, it is always as if something streamed over to them as beauty, enhancing their life. And as to us here on earth, beauty comes from Art, so to the dead, beauty streams to them from what rays forth out of the hearts and souls of those who keep them in memory…” ~Rudolf Steiner, GA 157a – The Forming of Destiny and Life after Death: LECTURE 4: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL AND THE PHYSICAL WORLDS, AND HOW THEY ARE EXPERIENCED AFTER DEATH – Berlin, 7th December, 1915.
~Elizabeth Wang
Thank you dear friends for keeping the connection alive!
~hag
2 September 2023 – “Speaking with the stars”: Tonight around midnight Venus (Occult Mercury) stands stationary, bringing its current retrograde path to an end. Rising now before sunrise amid the stars of Cancer the Crab – to the lower right (southeast) of the Beehive Cluster.
Sunrise: 6:28 A.M.
Sunset: 7:30 P.M.
Moonrise: 9:08 P.M.
Moonset: 9:29 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (90%)
~Arnold Böcklin
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this date
Saturday 23 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
*Autumnal Equinox
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep
30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day
Hi Tom,
You see how explosive this has become. You were going to tell more of what came after your treatise on Steiner’s “Riddles of Philosophy”, c. 1996. I am only reminding because I wait for it. I think your trauma came about that time, and you saw how difficult it is to reach others. It is very difficult to reach others, as you can see. Yet, we realized each other over many years, and still do. Thanks for writing on Hazel’s Reverse Ritual. I am glad to know you as a survivor, like me. Wonderful.
Granted, I came into this late and did not attend any of the lectures, so can someone clue me into why and how Michael’s reign has been closed and superseded by Vidar, i.e. suggested readings, comments,l etc. Does this mean no more Michaelmas?
Hi Janet – That was a conjecture that I do not agree with in any way. It does not stand up to anything having to do with Spiritual Science.
Phew. I am relieved.
It’s so important that we don’t create cults of personality seeking to make others into experts, who we blindly follow. We are meant to do our own Spiritually Scientific research, & to think for ourselves. Even the great initiate Rudolf Steiner emphasizes that we are not to just take his word for something – but we must put it to the test thru our own soul forces.
Hazel,
I would like to dedicate this sonnet I wrote in 1987 to you for encouraging us all to relate to the dead.
Tom
==============================
MESSAGE FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
My labor over life’s enormous span
was interrupted by a sudden death.
I hope for people to recall what man
they knew before his last recorded breath.
I speak the language that I always spoke,
but not too loudly, more with feeling here.
I spend my time among the simple folk
I overlooked before. They still stand near.
I know the purpose and the meaning of my life!
I hover, ever watchful of your mood.
The light and darkness here reflect your strife.
I long to feed you with this special food!
Be seen and heard by all your dead! We live!
We walk the path with you, and we forgive.
================================
from “Post-Existential Sonnets,” Folio I
by Tom Mellett, Austin, Texas, 1987
Hi Hazel,
I was very pleased to read of Rudolf Steiner’s encounters with Albert Schweitzer from 1903 to 1922. While Schweitzer embraced Steiner’s Ethical Thinking in all his endeavors, he readily admits that he could not rise to the spiritual science knowledge needed to vouchsafe the full acceptance of the so-called “Life Divine”. As a medical doctor, he had reached certain limits which prevented his full attainment, but he knew that Christ walked with him every day in Africa. This proves another case of the Etheric Christ. I am keeping a tabulation of this kind of experience, and this is a wonderful example to add. Thanks for this remembrance of Schweitzer’s relationship to Rudolf Steiner. Awesome.
For me Schweitzer’s relationship to Rudolf Steiner also showed how people tend to relate more either to the more human aspect of Jesus & others to the Cosmic or divine Christ aspect
Like the Jesuits supposedly do vs. the Rosicrucians?
Working with will is the perview of both, but the Jesuits want to tie that will & the Rosicrucians want to use it to serve the highest good in freedom
“I ask you: How many people today know that party opinions are shadows of realities in the spiritual world? Some do know and act according to their knowledge. I can point to some who know. The Jesuits, for instance, they know. Do not think that the Jesuits believe that when they write something against anthroposophy in their journals, for instance, they have hit upon something special and logically irrefutable. Refutations are not what counts there. The Jesuits know very well how their refutations could be countered. They are not concerned with a rational fighting for or against something, but with being followers of a certain spiritual being which I do not wish to name today, but which they call Jesus, their Leader, to whom they belong. Whoever this being may be, they call it Jesus. I do not wish to go into the facts more closely, but they call themselves soldiers and him their Leader. They do not fight to refute, they fight to recruit adherents for the companies, the army of Jesus — that is, the being they call Jesus. And they know very well that as soon as one looks across the threshold, abstract categories, logical approval or disapproval no longer matter, only the hosts following one or the other being. Down on earth it is a matter of mere figures of speech. This is what mankind today is hardly willing to understand, namely, that if we wish to escape from the decline of our age it can no longer be a question of abstractions or merely of what one may think, but that we must deal with realities. We shall begin to ascend to realities when we stop talking about right or wrong and begin speaking about healthy or sick. We begin to rise to realities when we cease talking about programs of parties or world views, and instead speak about following real beings whom we encounter as soon as we become aware of what exists an yonder side of the threshold. It must be our concern today actually to take that serious step that leads from abstraction to reality, from merely logical knowledge to knowledge as deed. This alone can lead us out of the chaos now gripping the world.” GA 199, lecture 1, 6 August 1920
Hi Hazel,
The Art of Speaking With The Dead is something I only gradually came to know, and it concerns the real possibility to speak the Science of the Spirit to those in Kama Loca. I realized that I was doing this since the year 2000, but it didn’t hit me until about five years ago. You see, whenever the 10:10 Thought Experiment, which you have ably identified as a living practice is seen for all its merits, it leads to the realization that pure thoughts conducted sense-free can meet those who are living entirely in soul and spirit, which is across the threshold in Kama Loca. Thus, as odd as it may sound, a school for spiritual science exists for those who are deceased, who now hunger for the spirit, and this includes ones own beloved relatives. So, I have come to actually experience an invitation to enter the realm of the dead and offer my findings in spiritual science. About five years ago, Michael quietly spoke, as the conscience of the heart, that I might want to consider the larger ramifications of what I was doing. This allowed the deeper dive back to 2000, when I was sweeping out the airport on graveyard shift, and privately speaking to anybody who would listen that a school for spiritual science had to happen.
Kama Loca is the first stage in the life between death and rebirth, and souls are very hungry to hear from humans. I know this now. Michael told me that I was doing my job, and to keep feeding the humans as well. Yes, speaking to the living and the dead is a true Art of endeavor. Your blog makes this possible to the largest extent these days. We are entering the Michael countdown, which succeeds Saint John, and these last days are glorious for biographical description.
The dead have tapped me from an early age, & it has always felt natural to commune with them.
I receive many inspirations, more consciously now when I work from their biographies.
The 22nd Verse of the COTS is really helping us to make the transition from St. Jon’s thru the 2nd harvest of Lammas to the Equinox & on into the Michaelmas Season
The light from all around the universe
Powerfully survives within me.
It will become the light of my soul
And shine into the spirit depths —
To liberate fruits from the cosmic self
and let them ripen —
within the course of time —
Into my own human self.
TM version of verse 22
Thank you Steve for posting my translation. Now that René Querido has become our “Maestro” here — conducting from his podium in Kama Loka what I call now “The Hazel Phil-karmanic Orchestra” — please allow me to relate events that demonstrate my deep karmic connections with RQ, especially in regard to translating Steiner from the German — what I style as my “New American Translation.”
In late 1980, when I was attending the TT year at Rudolf Steiner College (with classmate Brian Gray), the Reverend Carl Stegmann (1897-1996) asked René if he could recommend someone to help Carl translate his followup book to his “Other America” series.
René recommended me and so began my own “America Work” in Anthroposophy, not only translating Carl’s writing, but — even more valuable to me — also listening raptly to Carl relate his own many personal conversations he had with RS. (Carl was in the very 1st class of priests ordained into the CC and RS specifically gave Carl the mission to accomplish the “America work.”)
And by helping Carl, I actually felt like I was receiving a “baton” from Carl in this soul-spiritual “relay race” which was originally given to Carl by Rudolf Steiner himself!
At the time I was fairly fluent in the German language. How did this come to be? I actually learned to speak German with near-native fluency in 1973. But where? Not in Germany! Rather, in California!!!
You see, in the early 1970s I was on active duty with the US Army in the field of Military Intelligence, and because of my aptitude for language, I was assigned to learn German at the Defense Language Institute located in Monterey, California.
At that time (1973) I was still 3 years away from discovering the existence of Rudolf Steiner in this incarnation. (It was through reading the “Spear of Destiny” book in 1976 in Houston, TX.)
(I just now realized that my learning German in Monterey had its karmic 7 year cycle culmination in my translation work with Carl. And in terms of geography, RSC in Fair Oaks is located a mere 140 miles NNE of Monterey.)
Let me end this personal history here because I have yet to mention the destiny of my New American CoS translations. They were set to choral music by a famous modern American composer, William Jay Sydeman (1928-2021).
I was part of the world premiere performance in 1992 at the SF Waldorf school where Jay asked me to recite 10 of the verses to the orchestra’s accompaniment, while the other 42 were sung by 2 choral groups of men and women.
But how did I ever get connected to Jay Sydeman in the first place? You guessed it. Through René Querido!
Here is Jay’s website. He’s also playing here in Hazel’s orchestra. (And the great music teacher Clifton Furness, who died in 1946, is quite pleased with Jay’s presence.)
https://www.williamjaysydeman.com/
Hi Tom,
I am just now seeing this. I do remember you telling me, or possibly on Steiner98 about these circumstances. My question then, as now, is: What happened to the follow-up to Carl Stegmann’s “The Other America”? His incentive in bringing the initiative of the Priest Course on the Apocalypse to America as a fourth Mystery Epoch has always intrigued me. He eventually wanted to start a center for anthroposophical studies for adults, didn’t he, and this became RSC for Waldorf teacher training. Thanks for the reminder of your glory days.
Ah, therein lies a deeply karmic tale! I will only hint at it here, but suffice it to say that some factions in the Sacramento anthroposophical community who were there at the founding of Carl’s “Sacramento Center for Anthroposophical Studies” in that Bicentennial year of 1976 were quite disappointed when ca. 1978 — with the arrival of René and Merlyn Querido at the invitation of Franklin and Betty Kane — the center metamorphosed into a Waldorf Teacher Training Center and was renamed as Rudolf Steiner College.
Some felt that Carl’s impulse was hijacked. 20 years ago, at an RSC summer course for Waldorf Teachers, I asked Betty Kane (now Staley because she married Jim Staley, a teacher at the Sac WS) about the issue of Carl’s Steiner-given mission to develop the “America-Work.”
She replied tersely: “Waldorf Education *IS* the America-work.”
Be that as it may, it’s time to address the deeper underlying forces at work here. Please note that the late Franklin Kane, his then wife Betty Kane and René Querido are all Jewish. Carl Stegmann is not.
This is the reason why I encouraged Hazel and now you to read about the life and times of one Hans Büchenbacher (1887-1977)who was the chairman of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany in the years 1931-1934.
He was raised Catholic and became a deeply committed Christian anthroposophist, but there was Jewish blood in his father’s ancestry.
I now quote from a historian of anthroposophy whom I consider to be as much an Aristotelian Chartrian as you and I: Herr Doktor Peter Staudenmaier.
https://waldorfblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/hans-buechenbacher-erinnerungen-reviewed-by-peter-staudenmaier.pdf
===================
“Under pressure from his gentile colleagues, Büchenbacher resigned as chairman of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany in 1934. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1936.
In one of the more telling episodes related here, Büchenbacher recalls a private discussion with Rudolf Steiner in 1920 about antisemitism within anthroposophist ranks.
Despite Büchenbacher’s testimony that he had personally experienced antisemitism among Steiner’s followers, Steiner categorically denied that there was any antisemitism in the Anthroposophical Society.
=====================
To quote the great Joel Wendt (who was present at the founding of Carl’s center in 1976):
“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”
Thank you Tom, Yes this is a hard truth, one that cannot be denied. But also we cannot linger there. We musy go forward…
Hazel wrote:
Thank you Tom, Yes this is a hard truth, one that cannot be denied. But also we cannot linger there. We must go forward…
=======================
Not to worry, Hazel! My guiding mantram is:
“Float like a butterfly; sting like a bee.”
Karmic Relationships III, Lecture 10,
4 August 1924, GA 237,Dornach
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA237/English/RSP1977/19240804p01.html
“Now it is true that many anthroposophists let their minds be carried away from a living feeling of what is present in their time. For they prefer to paddle in the Timeless.
In this respect one has the strangest experiences in conversation with anthroposophists. They are very well aware, for instance, who Lycurgus was, but their ignorance of their contemporaries, every now and then, is simply touching.
This too is due to the fact that such a man is pre-disposed to the unfolding of inner initiative. His karma having placed him in the world with this quality, he is always in the position (forgive the comparison) of a bee that has a sting but is afraid to use it at the right moment.
The sting is the initiative, but the man is afraid to use it. He is afraid, above all, of stinging into the Ahrimanic realm. Not that he fears that he will thereby hurt the Ahrimanic.
No, he is afraid that the sting will recoil into his own body. This, to some extent, is what his fear is like. Thus through an undetermined fear of life the initiative remains inactive.”
Yes, I hear that!
“Be a person of initiative, and take care that the hindrances of your own body or hindrances that otherwise confront you do not prevent you from finding the center of your being, where the source of your initiative lies. Likewise, you will find that all joy and sorrow, all happiness and pain, depend on finding or not finding your own individual initiative” ~Rudolf Steiner, 1 lecture, Dornach, Switzerland, August 4, 1924 (CW 237)
Steiner urges those who feel the calling of the Archangel Michael to become people of initiative. Anthroposophists should be aware that initiative lies in their karma, and much of what meets them in this life will depend on the extent to which they can become willingly, actively conscious of it.
In the second half of this inspiring lecture, Steiner describes how the being of Ahriman is able to work through the personal intellect of human beings today. Consequently, we are called on to remain inwardly awake and vigilant at all times.
Hazel, let’s keep on with this critically important lecture. Let me quote from near the beginning so we can know how Steiner sets the tone for this lecture about the karma of Anthroposophists and how it differs from the karma of our fellow incarnated materialists.
KR 3, Lec 10, August 4, 1924, GA 237
It has inspired me to provide a summary title:
===================
We Anthroposophists
are not just BORN LOSERS!
We are RE-BORN LOSERS!
===================
“… when a man is thus strongly united with spiritual impulses which work immediately upon his soul, he will as he descends from the spiritual into the physical worlds, enter less deeply, unite himself less strongly with the external, bodily nature. All those who have grown into the Michael stream as above described, were thus predestined to enter into this physical body with a certain reservation, if I may put it so. This too lies deep in the karma of the souls of anthroposophists.
In those, on the other hand, who out of an inner impulse quite consciously and anxiously hold themselves at a distance from things anthroposophical, we shall always find that they are fully and firmly established in the physical bodily nature. In the men of today who turn to that spiritual life which Anthroposophy would give, we find a looser relationship at any rate of the astral body and Ego-organization with the physical and etheric organization.
Now this means that such a man will less easily come to terms with his life. He will find life less easy to deal with, for the simple reason that he has more possibilities to choose from than other men. And he easily grows out of the very things that other men easily grow into.
Think only, my dear friends, to what an intense degree many a human being of today is what the connections of outer life have made of him. No one can doubt that he fits into these connections, however questionable the thing may sometimes be in other respects. We see him as a clerk, a City man, a Builder, a Contractor, a Captain of industry and so forth.
He is what he is as an absolute matter of course. There is no question about it. True, such a man will sometimes say he feels he was born for a better, or at any rate a different kind of life; but such a saying is not taken so very seriously. And now compare the infinite difficulties we find in those who are drawn by an inner impulse into the spiritual life of Anthroposophy.”
I have often spoken about how hard it is for me to be in a body. So this Lecture is a go-to for me.
This verse resonates
“The wishes of the soul are springing
The deeds of the will are thriving
The fruits of life are maturing
I feel my destiny
My destiny finds me
I feel my star
My star finds me
I feel my goals in life
My goals in life are finding me
My soul and the great world are one
Life grows more radiant about me
Life grows more challenging for me
Life grows more abundant within me.”
When I was part of the ASA leadership I recommended this & other of the Karmic Relationships lectures that speak about the karma of Anthroposophists to the General Council as study material…
Hi Hazel and Tom,
I know that we have discussed these intimate matters before, and Tom’s trauma goes back a number of years to where he actually began to perceive anthroposophists, including himself, as “born losers”. The year 1996 seems to arise in my soul, and a treatise he had written that got little attention. I liked it, but something snapped for him. Hazel, I know that you have had opportunity on occasion to recommend to ASiA, a deeper study of Karmic Relationships. The outcome of your suggestions is outside my purview of the situation, but I know that we here on Reverse Ritual have tackled every obstacle in the quest for truth.
One important item is the 11th and final lecture of GA 237, in which is described the split in the cosmic intelligence. Thus, the prior lecture, which is being discussed, as we speak, presages what Steiner was forced to reveal as a conclusion to volume 3 of the KR, which concerns the Karma of the Anthroposophical Movement. This incentive was directly continued in the fourth and final volume. So, indeed, Steiner’s remarks from lecture 10, as cited, are very psychological in nature, and do touch a nerve with both you, Tom, as well as Hazel. This then becomes the substance of integration in the pursuit of personal sincerity and goodwill.
In the 11th lecture of GA 237, the real issue that was stressing Steiner is revealed. This is the revolt of the Planetary Intelligences, inspired by Oriphiel. This has the effect, and causes Michael to subtract out of the General Collective Consciousness, the personal and individual intelligence that will one day assure our rise to Ego consciousness in the present age of the Consciousness Soul.
This effort of explanation is continued in the Michael Mystery here, when Steiner was in Britain for the course in Torquay.
https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_c01.html
It’s also important to think how when the intelligences left Michael the karma of many human beings became disrupted because some guardian angels went with Michael & others became more terestrial, so we are at odds
Hello Hazel & Steve,
I won’t have time to respond here until tomorrow. However, a notable synchronicity just happened, which I deem as a cute revelation of the Etheric Christ.
My Anthroposophical renegade counterpart in Germany, Michael Eggert — he of the infamous Egoisten blog — made note of an article by British Anthroposophist Robert Rose entitled “The Michael Path is Open.”
(The article is in German but you can easily translate it.)
https://anthroblog.anthroweb.info/2023/der-michael-pfad-ist-offen/
The synchro here is for you Hazel. You see, Robert Rose wrote the article to counter the new conviction by Anthroposophist Are Thorsen that the Michael Path to spirituality today has been CLOSED!!!
In Rose’s article is a link to a YouTube video of Are Thorsen lecturing (on Zoom) on his radical thesis to the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Society in Chicago about 6 months ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkQ986RKHa
Are believes that while the Michael path is now closed, the new open path is that of Vidar.
Silliness…
Michael & Vidar work together
The way is open
The only thing closed are the minds & hearts of people with false ego’s
If we take the long view, it was the revolt of the planetary Archangels led by Oriphiel that forced Michael to separate out the personal and individual intelligence of humanity for its further development toward Ego consciousness. Thus, Rudolf Steiner became the emissary of Michael at the outset of the 20th century for bringing the Cosmic Intelligence into our own individualized intelligence as a cultural deed. So, the Michael sacrifice in the 9th century has had its positive consequences. The downside is that people today, in large part, refuse to have anything to do with Anthroposophy, and therefore succumb to the present crisis of consciousness. They, unfortunately, become the “born losers” in the world.
Vidar consciousness is very much a part of what we have been doing for years, and Michael is still very much a part of the equation. I see Vidar as an Angel that has evolved to Archangel, while Michael, of course, is an Archangel that has advanced over time to become the leading Time Spirit (Archai) of our present age. He now bears Creator Powers since the Exusiai have passed the Regency to Him.
Thank you, dear Hazel. This is an especially important post!!
We need all the spiritual allies we can get, & we are so blessed to have such powerful ones as these
Greetings,
an another artistic Title,we are the art of the dead!Thank you,
Rev 3 1,
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
what a bible!
from link,
https://www.gotquestions.org/church-in-Sardis.html
Jesus then calls them to repent of their sin: “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you received and heard; obey it, and repent” (Revelation 3:2-3a). To “wake up” means to start paying attention to their need of salvation, to stop being careless about their heart’s condition before God.
Namaste,mkyogi
Thank you again Hazel, for some valuable biography work. I’d like to read more of Lili Kolisko’s description of the bitter disputes in the A.S. that she included in the biography of her husband Eugen – is this available in English? It seems that these disputes after Steiner’s death played an enormous role in the Society – Thomas Meyer said it drained the Society of some of it’s best minds. As such, it seems like something I should know more about. A quick Google search didn’t show anything; she doesn’t even rate a page in Wikipedia, unlike Eugen.
Here is a good site for her
https://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?&id=248
Thanks Hazel. That site led me to this site: https://www.koliskoarchive.com/download-ein-lebensbild.php
They have a downloadable copy, but only available in German. The book was called “Ein Lebensbild”, translates to “A Picture of Life”.
Thank you very much for posting these biographies, especially Lili Kolisko and Bernard Lievegoed
Hi Rev. C –
They bring us so many gifts!
xox
https://i0.wp.com/reverseritual.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venus-mercury-willi-msucher.jpg?ssl=1
“Similar to the moon, Mercury has its target points more in the inner being of man, working from outside only on the human countenance. In the part lying below the region of the heart, its forces are effective by taking hold inwardly of the human organization and, in turn, streaming forth from there. Mercury’s chief task is to bring the astral body’s activity into all breathing and circulation processes of the human being. Mercury is the intercessor between the astral body and the rhythmic processes in man. Thus, we are able to say that its forces intercede between the astral element and the rhythmic activity (see outline on p. 250). Due to this, similar to the moon forces, the Mercury forces also intervene in the whole human metabolism, but only insofar as the metabolism is subject to rhythm, reacting upon rhythmic activity.
Then there is Venus. Venus is active especially in the human etheric body, in what works out of the cosmos in the human etheric body and its activities”
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA204/English/AP1987/19210505p02.html
“There are other forces in our planetary system which show a more intimate adjustment to the spiritual world — the forces that we find in Mercury and Venus. Through these forces our path is continually raised. Thus, when we look upon the path from above, we have the lemniscate, but when we look at it from the other side, we obtain lines which are continually rising upwards; there is a progression”.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA201/English/RSP1972/images/manhier1101.png
GA 201, lecture XI
Thank you these Qoutes really help us live into the drawing by Willi Sucher
It is a very perceptive drawing. It helps, with the Steiner text, to explain how we have seven daytime signs, i.e., Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra; and five nighttime signs: Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces.
The horizontal lemniscate represents the true second axiom of Copernicus, which he entirely missed by saying that the Earth revolves around the Sun. In reality, the Earth moves around its own axis, and simultaneously moves through the Ether, which is an ascending arc.
Our Solar System is far more intricate than how it is displayed in a standard Copernican model, where Venus and Mercury somehow got interchanged. Tycho Brahe tried to portray it as a dual system in which the Sun and the outer planets, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, revolve around the Earth at the center, which encompasses Venus and Mercury. Thus, the important factor to convey in any true diagram of the Solar System is how outer space and inner space are configured in order to communicate with each other. The planets have an integral relationship with each other which supports the forming of Universal Human. Because the outer planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, separated before the Sun in the Polarean Epoch, and Venus and Mercury afterward, it created this condition of outer and inner space involving the five planets. If all five planets had ejected together in the Polarean Epoch, than Earth as the Fourth Sphere would have been the simple system that the Copernican model attempts to display today. But, because Venus and Mercury ejected after the separation of the Sun, it became necessary to create a kind of counter-sphere in order to encompass this inner space as the domain of Venus and Mercury. This is the Eighth Sphere, which has a function which is not depicted in any conventional model of our Solar System, but has been thoroughly investigated and described by Spiritual Science.
The interchange of Venus and Mercury is a sign that the Eighth Sphere is to be withheld from knowledge for as long as possible. But, Spiritual Science has identified it. Anthroposophists are free to speak about it, and try to inform the world, and each other.
What are we to do with this knowing & this Speaking to inform?
Continue to do so, of course. This is why Goodwill, Sincerity, Fire & Enthusiasm are so important. You are in the Higher Sun Triad now, and over the next ten years you will come to see and make relationships that will prove to be truly daunting. So, we must add Patience and Perseverance to the equation. Likely, the further study and identification of the Eighth Sphere is one for both the Natural Science Section, and Astronomical Section, of the School of Spiritual Science. My understanding is that here in North America they are combined.
“ Here we may have some idea, from the aspect of Astronomy, of the forming and shaping of something which is minute and cellular. Embryology cannot be studied at all without Astronomy, for what Embryology has to show is only the other pole of what is seen in Astronomy. We must, in a way, follow the starry heavens on the one hand, seeing how they reveal successive stages, and we must then follow the process of development of a fructified cell. The two belong together, for the one is only the image of the other. if you understand nothing of Astronomy, you will never understand the forces which are at work in Embryology, and if you understand nothing of Embryology, you will never understand the meaning of the activities with which Astronomy has to deal. For these activities appear in miniature in the processes of Embryology. It is conceivable that a science should be formed, in which, on the one hand, astronomical events are calculated and described, and on the other hand all that belongs to them in Embryology, which is only the other aspect of the same thing. Now look at the position as it is today: you find that Embryology is studied on its own. It would be regarded as madness if you were to demand of a modern embryologist that he should study Astronomy in order to understand the phenomena in his own sphere of work.” GA 323 lecture I Third scientific course.
“ And by pure observation in Embryology we have at a certain point nothing before us but chaos; it all seems chaotic at first, observation is impossible. Then we come out of chaos into the realm of Geometry. It is therefore an ideal of certain biologists — a very justifiable ideal — to grasp in a geometrical form what presents itself in Embryology; not merely to make illustrations of the growing embryo naturalistically, but to construct the forms according to some inherent law, similar to the laws underlying geometrical figures. It is a justifiable ideal. Now therefore we can say: When in Embryology we try to follow up the real process by observation, we emerge out of a sphere which lies about as near to our understanding as that which is beyond the incommensurable numbers. In Astronomy on the one hand, we proceed with our understanding up to the point where we can no longer follow mathematically. In Embryology on the other hand our understanding begins at a certain point, where we are first able to set to work with something resembling Geometry. Think the thought through to its conclusion.”
GA 323 lecture IV Third Scientific Course.
You can see here how the school of the Quadrivium plays a role. As illustrated, one needs to know of embryology to under stand astronomy, and the other way around… and then, you get into geometry, numbers, and so on. Eventually you’ll get into Music as well. It’s really not heard of something like Music being tied into the Copernican model, yet, as Steiner implies there is more to Cosmology than mere orbits. I mean, what else could be meant by Music of The Spheres?
Thanks for the Trivium, as well; especially the Dialectica. This Astronomy Course, GA 323, is a profound, and profoundly difficult and concentrative study. I printed out all 18 lectures a number of years ago, and set about to study it. I think I got up to lecture 9, and was exhausted. Yet, I have always retained the idea of Embryology on a cellular level as a miniature Universe as a paradigm shift that should be recognized. Also, Steiner’s description of “Cassini Curves” somewhere is very telling of how the planets each travel their own inner revolution as a trace of how they support the evolution of Universal Human. You see, when Jahve left the Sun for the Moon, it caused the several planets all to begin to serve the objective of what is described nicely in lecture XIII of GA 204, Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy. For example, Mercury brings a certain activity of the Astral Body into the rhythmic system of heart and lungs. That is why the Feeling Soul is a gateway for the so-called “New Yoga Will”.
Thanks for following up on this.