Issue 85

Autumn, 2017

St Michael and the Dragon: Silhouette

Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Michaelmas issue of New View.

What is the theme of Michaelmas? If we look into history we see many motifs of St. Michael overcoming a dragon. So the theme has something to do with overcoming that which may seem far more powerful than us and can easily strike fear into us.So courage is involved, not because you know you can do something and have no fear, but courage because there is fear but you know you need to try. So courage to be active when faced with adversity; but what is the right way to be active… and so the picture of Michaelmas deepens and broadens out, but always coming back to you, at the centre of your own life circumstances.

Rudolf Steiner had much to say about this time of year (particularly concerning the northern hemisphere season of autumn), pointing to a deep inner soul/spiritual impulse to find strength of purpose. He considered a Michaelmas Festival as second in importance only to Easter. As the seasons unfold it is easy to see how spring and summer support the human being from outside, as it were, but with autumn and winter the inner life is challenged to bring that support forward. But, as a motif, it is in engaging the will actively with strength of purpose, often against great odds, that brings out a Michaelmas mood. And a guiding image is of this great Christian archangel defeating a dragon… a picture of the throwing out of Satan from heaven. But thrown out down here, amongst us. Why? Because we need that challenge to find what we really can bring forth from ourselves – and this Michael image is there to help and inspire.

Well, one can go further from here and contemplate a great deal about human existence. There is no question about the fact of the many challenges we all face in life; it is how we meet them that matters. In recognising this Michaelmas moment, inscribed in the rhythmic cycle of the year, this issue of New View offers its readers a contemplation via the archetypal image of St. Michael and the Dragon in stark, contrasting black and white on the front cover. For Goethe, colour arises from the interplay between light and shadow, so the reader is invited to find the treasures that may be stimulated awake through this Michaelmas cover image.

New View, through its many authors, attempts to bring a spiritual scientific perspective on life, inspired by Steiner’s world view. I hope that the various contributions in this issue sparkle with a sprinkling of this common endeavour.

So, we begin with a serious question: How to heal our ill societies? Looking back at Rudolf Steiner’s political actions in 1917 and looking forward, from Harrie Salman in the Netherlands, where he looks at contemporary life, its trials and tribulations and the help that a threefold ordering of society can bring. This is followed with a contribution from an anthroposophical medical doctor in the USA, Philip F. Incao, who has deep concerns which he lays out inUnderstanding the Immune System and Vaccinations. Concern is a word that suggests we might sift through something together to gain understanding and awaken to what is afoot. That is certainly true of the contribution from Jeremy Naydler in Radiation, Robot Bees and 5G: The Nightmare Unfolds. Electricity is well and truly amongst us: do we really understand its nature; or are we only enamoured by what it can do?

If every picture tells a story, the silhouette that was specially made for the New View front cover this issue might tell you of Charles Burns its creator; but we let him tell his own story in A Typical Silhouettist.

Karin Jarman then reminds us Why Fairy Tales are for Grown-Ups, not only children.

With an item on that most beleaguered of species, the bee, NNA News around the world compiled by Christian von Arnim brings news of particular interest from near and far.

We are living through a time where, if we hold a different view or perception to another, it can be hard to find a respectful space in which to be heard. It is a form of soul illness we all need to help remedy. Robin Jackson shares his experience in Proof And Prejudice.

Terry Boardman touches on aspects of this too, in a timely, insightfully forensic look at how events can be portrayed through the mainstream media, when he goes In Search of the Truth Between Right and Left – Charlottesville, August 2017. Always begging the question about our faculty of discrimination.

Finally Douglas Sloan from the USA brings us a deep article on Rudolf Steiner: The Trinity and Creation. Real food for thought, as I hope all the contributions in this issue will prove to be.

Sprinkled through the pages is also a little humour and poetry from various contributors.

My thanks to all who have supported this issue coming into the world and a personal mention of thanks to Zephir Delamore in New Zealand who gave valuable graphic assistance at the eleventh hour!

Please be aware that New View needs to create a stronger subscriber base; if any reader can encourage another to come on board, that would help us to reduce the very difficult task of constantly fund raising to make ends meet. We walk a very fine line with this initiative: Living with uncertainty – one of the great motifs of our time!

Wishing you well, wherever you are.

Contents

Article/Author Topics

How to heal our ill societies? Looking back at Rudolf Steiner’s political actions in 1917 and looking forward

by Harrie Salman

Understanding the Immune System and Vaccinations

by Philip F. Incao, MD.

Radiation, Robot Bees and 5G: The Nightmare Unfolds

by Jeremy Naydler

A Typical Silhouettist

by Charles Burns

Why Fairy Tales are for Grown-Ups

by Karin Jarman

NNA News around the World

by Compiled by Christian von Arnim

Proof And Prejudice

by by Robin Jackson

In Search of the Truth Between Right and Left – Charlottesville, August 2017

by Terry Boardman

Rudolf Steiner: The Trinity and Creation

by Douglas Sloan

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