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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Syncretist & eclectic religions & belief systems > Post-renaissance syncretist / eclectic systems > Theosophy & Anthroposophy
From 1933 to 1935, Ita Wegman was confronted by both Nazi fascism
and internal crises in the General Anthroposophical Society. During
those years, she traveled to Palestine in the fall of 1934
following a grave illness that nearly ended with her death. Her
correspondence during this period, as well as her notes on the
trip, reveal the great biographical importance to her of these
travels and indeed the whole scope of her spiritual experiences in
1934. Ita Wegman had unambiguous perspectives and a uniquely clear
view of both the political threat and her social-spiritual task
during this period. There was, however, a radical change in her
inner stance toward the opposition, aggression, and defamation she
encountered within anthroposophic contexts in reaction to her
intense, purely motivated efforts. She tried to live and work in
true accord with her inner impulses and, ultimately, with Rudolf
Steiner's legacy, especially within the anthroposophic movement.
Doing so, she increasingly found her way to her own distinctive and
uncompromising path. The author reveals the general nature of those
three years-a period whose distinctive spiritual and Christological
task and dramatic dangers Rudolf Steiner had foreseen in 1923: "If
these men the Nazis] gain government power, I will no longer be
able to set foot on German soil." Ita Wegman's efforts in 1933 to
confront the dark powers of National Socialism and the convulsions
in Dornach, which she experienced firsthand, as well as her
subsequent illness and the clarity of her "Christological
conversion" in 1934 to '35, reveal a very specific, intrinsically
comprehensible and forward-looking quality whose spiritual
signature is clearly prefigured in Rudolf Steiner's
spiritual-scientific predictions. In this book, Peter Selg focuses
exclusively on Ita Wegman, her development, and her words, simply
presenting the processes she went through and, implicitly, their
extraordinary spiritual nature, without any attempt at
interpretation. This focus arises from the governing premise that
the mysteries of a great life such as that of Ita Wegman reveal
themselves in the details. Tracing the subtle steps in her life
allow us deeper insight into Ita Wegman's being. She herself wrote,
"In general meetings or gatherings, people always understood me
poorly because I lacked a smooth way of expressing myself. But
people of goodwill always understood what I meant." This book was
originally published in German as Geistiger Widerstand und
Uberwindung. Ita Wegman 1933-1935 by Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach,
Switzerland, 2005.
Even within the Anthroposophical Society and movement, people's
relationship to Rudolf Steiner is weakening and dissipating. This
is problematic, says Prokofieff, as the future of both the Society
and movement is dependent on a sufficient number of people aspiring
to and realizing a true spiritual connection with anthroposophy's
founder, Rudolf Steiner. Prokofieff deals in detail with the issues
surrounding this concern, and asks the question, "Can one be an
anthroposophist without being Rudolf Steiner's pupil?" In the
second part of this book Prokofieff elaborates on the mysteries
surrounding the laying of the spiritual Foundation Stone at the
Society's Christmas Meeting of 1923-24. This event, he suggests,
ensured that a personal relationship to Rudolf Steiner "would not
remain within the realm of the generally abstract or intellectual,
but would become a real inner deed". Thus Rudolf Steiner gave each
of us the possibility of connecting with him by way of free inner
work on the Foundation Stone. Both parts of this book are
integrally linked in the sense that once a relationship to Rudolf
Steiner is established, an inner longing to work with the new
Mysteries will inevitably follow. In Prokofieff's words: "...the
will to take the foundation of the New Mysteries seriously leads to
a real, inner connection with Rudolf Steiner". Also included is an
important essay that assesses the difficulties connected with the
recent digital publication of Rudolf Steiner's most important
esoteric texts, as well as the occult background to the internet
and electronic media as a whole. In response to readers' questions
as to how one might counteract the damaging consequences of these
developments, the author has expanded and developed his original
essay on the subject.
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