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Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
FEBRUARY 14
St. Valentine’s Day
February 14 is St Valentine’s Day, or more correctly, the Feast of St. Valentinus. Actually, the generic name for this increasingly popular festival is Candlemas, meaning “sacred white light’. The official church title, however, for this wordy but profound “love” celebration is Feast of the Purification -of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In ancient Rome this same day was paradoxically called the Lupercalia – ‘festival of the wolf’!
When considering a spirit-permeated human reproduction, we should be apprised of the Christian principle that sex, as self-gratification, recreation, or reproduction even, is invalid if the element of love, by definition between consenting parties, is absent. Sex, as an end in itself, or for mere pragmatism, reduces the human being to the level of the animal; in its worst form, the bestial – as per the Lupercalia.
But what kind of love? Love is an abstract noun and can mean different things to different people. In fact, love can be divided into four clear streams, into which all the manifold kinds of love in the world find residence, such as mother love, love of literature, and so on. Obviously love has its amoral or indeed immoral antithesis, like love of cruelty, money, etc.; though the antithesis of love is naturally hatred; or the lesser cold-heartedness.
Love has existed in human culture – and only human culture – for all time. However, it was not until the teachings of the Buddha that it was codified into a set of clear principles – world vegetarianism arising from this, for example, as well as non-cruelty to animals. The three modem religions of The Book still haven’t caught up with that one!
It wasn’t until about six centuries later that, not merely the teaching, but the power of love incarnated into the world. This mighty cosmic event occurred at the Mystery of Golgotha.
Over the subsequent two millennia, this power of love has; in spite of at times being beset by seemingly insurmountable moral and physical obstacles, transformed the general human condition today to one of mercy, forbearance, and even compassion. The Four Paths of Love are:
Self-love is a principle based on the physical body, on the miracle of manifestation and incarnation. The “Self is of course that eternal spiritual essence of ones being that can only evolve · through repeated cycles of life on earth – in a physical body. Without self-love (no, not narcissism), we diminish our capacity for serving the world via the three higher love streams: the second being a natural extension.
Love of Man is rather life-filled in nature, informed as it is by the dynamics of family/friends, community, and society – a body, soul, spirit triune. It is the relationship of the living archetype of the individual with the equivalent of other people, or indeed the whole of humanity, that is so vital in the cultivation of love of man. When we are in a social setting, whether just two people or many, we relate via invisible fingers of numinous light, advancing in interest, withdrawing in suspicion – or fear!
Our heart-centered life body is truly our social organ, obviously stunted in misanthropes, more developed in the gregarious. Feminism is an outcome of a rising of consciousness of love of man – er, “people”!
From love of man. (or mankind), we range even wider with:
Love of the World. This sentient body faculty embraces not just people, but all creation, from the stars to a grain of sand – and all God’s sublime works between … though it’s hard to love a tapeworm! (An unnecessary aside: one can buy the eggs of these horrid helminthes on the internet; euphemistically marketed as “weight loss pills” – guaranteed! The main victims are teenage girls consumed with an unnaturally slim body image; a distorted “selflove”, actually.)
Mind you, it’s probably only due to a lack of understanding of the role that these ostensibly loathsome creatures (the worms, not the girls!) play in the Divine Plan that renders then so unlovable. The modem animal liberation movement, aptly sentient-based as it is, is a manifestation of love of the world as is love of nature and environmentalism generally.
The fourth, highest, and least common “love” in this matter bound age is Love of the Spirit. This is naturally more prevalent in the less materialistic East. However, religious, and spiritual life is alive and well in the West as well. Just because a person observes religious or even spiritualistic practices of any kind or another doesn’t necessarily mean one is cultivating, spiritual love.
It’s hard to imagine that an atheist, one who spends his or her life vigorously asserting the non-existence of supersensible reality, would have ready access to this ego-based love principle.
Throughout Christian history, various luminaries, often subsequently canonized, have manifested in teaching and deed one or other of the four love streams.
One of the first, representing the physical body Self Love, was St. Paul. Oddly it is only Spiritual Science that has been able to cast light on the mystery of why St. Paul was, before his famous epiphany on the road to Damascus, named Saul. Although a high-ranked Rabbi, Saul was also a Roman citizen. In these contradictory roles, Saul persecuted First century Christians generally, and was complicit in the brutal stoning of the first Martyr for Christ. How it must have enraged the hate-filled Saul to witness Stephen’s unflinching smile of seraphic blessedness under the blows.
The letter S in Saul is the consonant ascribed to the constellation of Scorpio, with its, aptly, Rome-inspired Mars inspiration. (Mars dwells in the House of Scorpio). The letter P of Paul rather belongs to Virgo, sign of moral purity, of The Virgin. Scorpio and Virgo are traditional opposites; hence Paul experienced a· complete moral transformation after his Christ vision and temporary blindness.
As a result, he became an evangelist, teaching the new Christian revelation of love and peace far and wide. Well, not farthest and widest, actually, only along what is known as The Path of the Olive. The olive is the universal symbol of love and peace; as in to offer an olive branch. The golden oil (especially the well-named virgin olive oil!) is one of the purest, most nourishing and therapeutic substances known. It is indeed concentrated Sun substance; the essence of the Sun God, the Christ, himself.
From Jerusalem, olive epicenter of the planet, especially the all-sacred Mount of Olives, Paul journeyed south to Arabia. When the olive groves diminished, he turned north again, travelling through his home territory of Tarsus in today’s Turkey, then north-west to Greece, and finally Rome. (He was, among other things, shipwrecked in Malta; the odyssey of Paul being high adventure indeed!) Thus, he scribed a south-east, north-west arc from the Holy City, with Tarsus at the fulcrum, to Rome.
The north-west, south-east is the famous “Axis of Michael”, the Sun Archangel, he who sits on the right side of the heavenly throne of Christ. From any perspective, Paul was a true Michaelian (though not one without faults; he was somewhat of a misogynist!); a warrior of the Spirit. Little wonder his teachings followed this divine yellow oil road. In spite of the extent of his travels, the doughty Paul never ventured in non-olive regions; even though his mission was to evangelize the “gentiles” – that is, everyone who was non-Jewish! In fact, his first audacious act was one of love, breaking bread with said gentiles; a strict prohibition for any Jew in that era, especially a rabbi, as he formerly was!
In a later, European, context the twin spiritual capitals of Western Christianity, Rome, and London, are also on a north-west, south-east Michaelian axis. St. Peter’s in Rome, heart of world Catholicism, forms the lower focal point of a sacred arc whose opposite is – aptly – St. Paul’s in London, holy city of global Protestantism. Both St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s are mighty domed buildings, erected only about a century apart. They are holy counterpoints of Christian love in the dark heart of Western materialism. Michelangelo’s Pieta, in St. Peter’s is one of the most moving mother-love images of all time.
Paul’s most eternal epithet was – “Not I, but Christ in me.” Throughout the Roman era, the incarnation of the individual ego gathered apace. Had it been permitted to continue without the intervention of the Mystery of Golgotha, it would have become too embedded in matter. Rampant egotism, far more destructive than we suffer today, would have been inevitable.
It is only with the embracing, on one’s incarnational journey, of the Mysterium Amour, the Mystery of Love as embodied in the Christ impulse, can this hell-bent – literally! – descent be arrested. In this context, the scriptural aphorism “the meek shall inherit the earth” has even more profound resonance.
Paul was imprisoned in Rome for about two years, where, though suffering extreme privation, he managed to continue writing. He was executed, probably by that most depraved of emperors, Nero, of Mysterium Iniquitatus – Mystery of Evil – notoriety, around 66AD, 33 years after the Crucifixion. Curiously this was the same sacred number of years Christ-Jesus lived on earth – 66 being its negative equivalent.
Some years earlier while visiting Greece, Paul was arrested for “rabble rousing” (probably true, knowing the nature of this contentious, cantankerous, cross-grained man!). While being led in chains through a temple, he asked about an empty niche; unusual, as all the others contained statues of Zeus, Aphrodite, Hermes, etc.
“That’s for the Unknown God.” he was informed.
“Well, he’s not unknown anymore! It’s the Christ!” the apoplectic apostle apostrophized. The irony here is that, even though Jesus of Nazareth is the most well-known person in history, his divine counterpart, the Christ, remains largely “unknown”, or at least unacknowledged, even today.
Of course, Paul’s perceived blasphemy should have attracted a new round of beatings, but instead was noticed by one Dionysius the Areopagite, Priest of Ares (mentioned in Chapter 1). Dionysius was a man of high degree and a Word Master in an Ares-Mars culture of oratory! Paul was taken to the temple on the Hill of Areopagus – Hill of Mars – right behind the Parthenon. Here the two enjoyed a profound spiritual exchange, one in which Paul apprised his new friend of the Christ revelation of – anti-Ares – peace and love.
However, Dionysius also had occult knowledge, but of a far more ancient kind. He led Paul on an imaginative journey around another Path of the Olive, but of the heavens this time; one beginning with the Angels, and terminating, eight ranks later, at the sublime realm of the Seraphim, Spirits of Love themselves.
As such, Paul became aware of three great spiritual hierarchies, each containing three others. Dionysius first described the Third Hierarchy, realm of the Angeloi, then the Archangeloi (to which Michael belongs), and the highest of all, the Archai.
The Second Hierarchy comprised the Exusiai (which Paul recognized, among others, as the Old Testament Elohim), the Dynarnis and the Kyriotetes.
Finally, the lofty First Hierarchy of Thrones, Cherubim (“I know them,” Paul might have exclaimed “we Jews call them Spirits of Wisdom.”); and finally, the highest of the high, the Seraphim, Spirits of Love.
From that day on, this formally ordained esoteric knowledge became the legacy of all mankind, permeating the Christian narrative right down the centuries.
For the last hundred years, it has taken an even more enlightened form, via access to the Akashic Chronicle In fact it was the poetic Paul, in his Self-Love mode, who, in his wisdom, penned one of the most beautiful paeans to the Love Mysteries of all time; that spoken in so many sacred ceremonies, like weddings and funerals. It is the famous “love verse” from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13:
- Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity (archaic for ‘love’), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
- And through I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
- And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
- Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
- Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinkenth no evil.
- Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.
- Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
- Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
- For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
- But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
- When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
- For now, we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
- And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
But back to St Valentine’s Day: what can the legend of the gentle Saint Valentine have to do with the fell rituals of the Lupercalia in the Wolf Caves of Ancient Rome?
Noble deeds by individuals have often been imprinted into the history of western civilization by canonization – formal creation of saints by the Catholic Church. All too often, however, the passing of time and lack of fidelity can corrupt the reality of a saint into trivial ritual or mindless custom. To a large degree this has happened to the legend of St. Valentine.
In another instance, how many revelers give a thought during fireworks display to the story behind the color and movement of the ever-popular Catherine wheel?
Do they recall that it is really a re-enactment of the macabre and agonizing death of Saint Catherine; an educated, independent woman (‘independent’ ? – curiously unappreciated in the 4th century!), who was painted with pitch, tied to a spiked wooden wheel, set alight and rolled down a hill?
The story of the good Saint Nicholas also has not escaped perversion over time. He (among many other notable and noble deeds) rescued children from a demented cannibal; one who already had them in a huge vat to cook. This lofty personage has been degenerated into Santa Claus – patron saint of consumerism and acquisitiveness. The division between historical fact and legend becomes obfuscated with time. The story of Saint Valentine really begins with the founding of Rome and the suckling of Romulus and Remus by a she-wolf.
This lupine image, with its implications of primeval fertility rites, recurs throughout history – even to the present. A lascivious womanizer is regarded as a ‘wolf. Indeed, the spiritual purity of Saint Francis (see later) was needed to tame the ferocity of the wolf of Gubbio.
The Festival of the Wolf – or Lupercalia – became established in Rome and was celebrated on the night of February 14 in caves in the Palatine Hills called the Lupercal. On this night the priests of Lupercus would sacrifice dogs and goats; then range naked over the countryside with the flayed hides of the slaughtered animals flogging anyone they encountered, especially women. It was believed that this increased the hapless ladies’ proclivity to have children. These depraved ‘priests’, not surprisingly, worshiped Juno Februata, goddess of feverish love!
Under the influence of Christian Rome this February 14 ritual was transformed by Pope Gelasius I into (as mentioned earlier) the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary – or Candlemas. Something of a turnabout!
This date was chosen because Jewish law of yore required Mary to travel to Jerusalem forty days after the birth of the Jesus child for presentation and purification (Luke 2:22-28). Toe feast originally was held on February 14, forty days after Epiphany (meaning “to show”) on January 6 – which was at that time celebrated as Jesus’ birthday.
A ‘love’ celebration, indeed!
Valentine was a rebellious Christian priest in Rome during the notorious persecutions of the 3rd century. He proclaimed vigorously against the Lupercalia, enraging the Emperor Claudius II, The Goth, by secretly performing marriage ceremonies for young Roman soldiers.
This heartfelt act of rebellion was against the strict imperial proscription that the hapless soldiers were to remain single. Toe edict actually created a serious social problem, with sex-starved soldiers not only spawning a rape epidemic in Roman cities and towns, but across the whole three continents of the Empire.
The top brass also thought that married soldiers would have a diminished commitment to their far-flung military adventures, due to wanting to get home to the wife and kids (as we saw in the film, Gladiator).
They were also thought less likely to commit acts of senseless valor (a word akin to ‘Valentine’, ironically meaning ‘to be strong’ – Latin valere); the kind that wins wars in hand-to-hand combat. For this, the – morally strong! – priest was arrested and jailed. While so incarcerated he would receive small notes sent by amorous young people (or so the legend has it) who regarded him as a kind of savior of romance. Hence the practice, even today, of exchanging tokens, notes and presents between lovers or would-be lovers.
Claudius was a short-tempered but thankfully short-lived emperor; his place in history being secured when he led a small but disciplined army to cauterizes the hemorrhage of south-bound migratory Goths (hence his appellation – Gothicus). The plague-ridden emperor put a permanent stop to Valentine’s practice (but not his popularity) by making the unrepentant priest the prime sacrifice to Lupercal on February 14,270 AD. He was ceremoniously beheaded.
Pope Gelasius canonized Valentine exactly two centuries later for great courage and self-sacrifice – as well as miracle healing. He is said to have restored the sight of his jailer’s daughter – a truly noble act. He even followed this up, so it’s said, by, in the best Valentine’s Day tradition, sending her a greeting card -“From your Valentinus”!
The Festival of Saint Valentine has taken many forms since the 5th Century – mostly increasing in superficiality. Men once wore the name of a hoped-for lover pinned to their sleeves on Valentine’s Day, from which we have. the phrase “wearing his heart on his sleeve”.
Though Saint Valentine did support young love and attempted to ennoble it with the new Christian values – the emerging social/cultural force of the time.
But he was no sentimentalist, as is expressed in much Valentine imagery. His deeds were heroic and his sacrifice absolute. Today the hideous wolf caves are bricked up or used for wine storage, but the name of Valentine, and in some small way the Christian Spirit of Love and moral “strength” (as his name implies) that he embodied, can be found on gift-card shelves everywhere from Raina to Redfern.
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