Like the stamen inside a flower
The steeple stands in lovely blue
And the day unfolds around its needle;
The flock of swallows that circles the steeple
Flies there each day through the same blue air
That carries their cries from me to you;
We know how high the sun is now
As long as the roof of the steeple glows,
The roof that’s covered with sheets of tin;
Up there in the wind, where the wind is not
Turning the vane of the weathercock,
The weathercock silently crows in the wind.
—Friedrich Hölderlin, from “In Lovely Blue” (trans. George Kalogeris)
***
Tied as it is to the moveable feast of Easter, Whitsun (or Pentecost) is thus also a moveable feast, though, it seems, one that is increasingly less prominent in the collective consciousness of Christendom (a "place" that is also, it seems, increasingly less conscious of itself).
Whitsun, of course, is a festival of the Spirit, and of community, of communal (spiritual) understanding that even transcends language.
In considering the life's work of Rudolf Steiner, it's not hard to understand why some have remarked on its overall Whitsun-like or Pentecostal nature. This is something, perhaps, to reflect on from time to time.
It can also be interesting to read, with this in mind (or not), the lecture courses given by Rudolf Steiner right at Whitsun, such as, for instance, the Study in the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas given in May 1920, The Redemption of Thinking (CW 72), as well as the Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture (CW 327) lectures given exactly 100 years ago (June 7-20, 1924), which were the original inspiration of what became the worldwide organic movement, and, more consciously, the biodynamic movement.
And speaking of Whitsun (which was three weeks ago, on May 19), the short earthly biography of Kaspar Hauser is also linked with the Whitsun festival, appearing as he did, seemingly out of nowhere, on the Monday after Whitsun, in Nuremberg, in 1828. (That was on May 20, 1828, meaning Whitsun fell on May 19 that year as well.) Five years later, on the Monday before Whitsun, he was confirmed at The Chapel of the Knights of the Swan in Ansbach.
We're pleased to announce this week the publication in English of Peter Selg's monograph study, The Confirmation of Kaspar Hauser, where you can read more about the significance of that event, and other things besides.
With warm greetings from all of us at SteinerBooks,
—John-Scott
New Release
The Confirmation of Kaspar Hauser
Peter Selg
During the 2018 Kaspar Hauser Festival in Ansbach, Germany, Peter Selg assumed the task of understanding the individuals in Kaspar Hauser’s life and comprehending their significance for his destiny. Selg examines the sociopolitical and philosophical context of Hauser’s life, starting with Friedrich Hölderlin and other significant luminaries of the time. Selg compares the biographies of Kaspar Hauser and Rudolf Steiner, who stated, “If Kaspar Hauser had not lived and died as he did, the contact between the earth and the spiritual world would have been completely broken.” And Selg points out, “Through his path of suffering, Hauser prepared something that would allow new life and a new ‘teaching’ to enter the earthly realm.”
We are also able to witness Kaspar Hauser’s confirmation ceremony of May 20, 1833, in the Swan Knight Chapel of the Gumbertus Church in Ansbach. Eckart Böhmer, director of the Kaspar Hauser Festival, wrote, “Kaspar Hauser’s confirmation, probably in his 21st year, is possibly the brightest event of his short life.”
Also by Peter Selg
From the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
Life of the Human Soul and its Relation to World Evolution
9 lectures, Dornach, April 29 – June 17, 1922 (CW 212)
READ MORE
And thus Christ was set against the ahrimanic powers who act on earth in what would otherwise have lapsed. Through a resolve of the super-earthly gods, Christ was set against these powers and now works on within the earthly realm. He has no need to become free, for He is a god and remains so in passing through death. He does not become similar to earth but lives as god within the earth. And this mean that we have, on the one hand, the ability to place as much as possible on the freedom side of the scales, really to pursue individualism to its ultimate consequences—for it is only in the individual human being that moral consciousness will be found. This is why my Philosophy of Freedom has been called the most extreme individualism. It had to be this, since it is, on the other hand, the most Christian of philosophies. On the other side of the scales had to be placed natural science, knowledge of the natural world in the fullest sense, which we only penetrate through the spirit, by raising ourselves to pure, free thinking. This can still be saved, redeemed with purely technological knowledge. On the other side of the scales, though, we must place true knowledge of the Christ, which is at the same time true knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha.
It was therefore self-evident that I had to try to write The Philosophy of Freedom, naturally with its inevitable flaws since one cannot do everything perfectly at the first attempt. But on the other hand, in my books Eleven European Mystics and Christianity as Mystical Fact, it was necessary for me to point to the Mystery of Golgotha. These two things simply belong together. . . . If modern souls are to find the right orientation to world evolution, they must develop a strong impulse for freedom on the one hand, and on the other an equally strong impulse for inner experience of the Mystery of Golgotha.
—Rudolf Steiner, from a lecture of May 7, 1922 , in Life of the Human Soul and its Relation to World Evolution (CW 212)
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