Kaspar Hauser West II

The Santa Cruz Monterey Bay Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in America is pleased to host

Eckart Böhmer
Richard Steel
and others

March 29, 30, 31, 2019

Kaspar Hauser: Protector of Human Spirituality in the face of Evil

A Weekend Conference

At Paloma Hall, 4096 Fairway Drive, Soquel

In speaking of Kaspar Hauser Rudolf Steiner said, “If Kaspar Hauser had not lived and died as he did, then the contact between the earth and the heavenly world would have been completely severed.”

This will be our second conference where Kaspar Hauser is the center. The very fact that human beings, and not only Anthroposophists, have the ability to question the materialistic understanding of the human being, this we owe to Kaspar Hauser. He was murdered in the 19^th century just as the aura of the earth was being thickened by the materialistic thoughts coming across the threshold at the time. Now in the 21^st century we face further advancement of the anti-human thinking and anti-human powers. Yet human beings are awakening. The fruits of Kaspar Hauser’s sacrifice are becoming evident.

Our conference, Kaspar Hauser – Protector of Human Spirituality in the face of Evil will trace this development and bring us into the deep spiritual realities behind Kaspar Hauser’s great deed for humanity.

Eckart Böhmer
Director of the biannual Kaspar Hauser Festival held in Ansbach, Germany and cofounder of the Kaspar-Hauser Research Circle with Richard Steel.

He has staged eleven of his own Kaspar Hauser productions at the Kaspar Hauser Festival and travels extensively with a series of nine lectures with which he describes the phenomenon of Kaspar Hauser.

Richard Steel

Managing Director of the Karl König Institute for Art, Science and Social Life and cofounder of the Kaspar-Hauser Research Circle with Eckart Böhmer.

He has been a long time Camphill coworker having lived and worked in Camphills mainly in Germany but also in the US. He travels extensively with lectures on Karl König and his own experiences.

Two lectures titled
“Kaspar Hauser and Plato’s allegory of the cave.”

In the famous allegory described by Plato, people live imprisoned in a cave with shadows flickering on a wall. They consider the shadows they see to be true reality. Feuerbach, the most important legal scholar of Goethe’s time and mentor of Kaspar Hauser, compares the fate of the Child of Europe with that of these prisoners. The lectures illuminate all the extraordinary parallels and shows how deeply Kaspar Hauser is connected with the struggle for the true identity of the human being, which is told in the parable.

Opening lecture
“Kaspar Hauser and the new image of the Human Being”

Our society today is more influenced than we would like to believe by a Darwinistic understanding of the human being. Simultaneously to Darwin’s quest Kaspar Hauser was experienced by his contemporaries as a “reminder” of the true, spiritual origin of the human being. His destiny was consciously subdued. One generation later Rudolf Steiner also took a stand for a new understanding of humankind and its destiny. Through the rise of National Socialism and the Second World War almost nothing was left of true spirituality. Out of this recognition Karl König began his “social experiment” of the Camphill Movement, with the “Child of Europe” as its guiding star. Can his ideals lead us into the future?

In addition to talks by each of these speakers, there will also be Dramatic Reading:
“Feuerbach, an example of a Crime against the Human Consciousness Soul.”
written by Eckart Böhmer – Feuerbach fought more than any other legal scholar before him for the equality of the human being before the law. Thus he also succeeded in abolishing torture as a legitimate interrogation method in Bavaria as early as 1813 and with this influenced developments in many parts of the world, an important achievement that some nations have not even achieved to this day. The play takes place in 1814, when Napoleon’s star had to sink, exactly 100 years before the beginning of the First World War. Feuerbach receives a “visit” by an ” unclean spirit”, which then reveals itself as an incorporation of torture. A fierce dispute unfolds between the two over the destiny and progress of mankind, anticipating the events surrounding Kaspar Hauser.

PLUS

Singing and poems and short stories and conversation

Registration for the entire Weekend program is $50.00

Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Branch members (with current dues paid) may register for $35.