The return of the angels

an Angels? sisters and best friends, 1961 Norwich

Popper Péter wrote an article about Dr András Petö called Buddha in Budapest, in it he claims that Petö said that we all have an angel within us. I have written about it in my blog before, as has Andrew Sutton. We both mention the uncanny connection there seems to be between Petö and angels.

I discovered something new today, I discovered it quite by chance. I discovered that maybe Petö was not alone in his beliefs about angels.

It is a really cold, grey and dreary afternoon, even a few snow flakes have fallen, so instead of making a beeline from the tram stop straight home, I stopped off at the really good book shop at the top of my street to browse for a book I had read a review of recently. While paying for my purchase my eye was caught by a display of small chocolate bars with pictures of and quotes about angels on them. I was not attracted by them all just one in particular which said “Jeder Mensch hat seiner Engel, Rudolf Steiner” in English every person has their angel.

Rudolf Steiner lived between 1861 and 1925, he was born in Austria and died in Switzerland. He lectured during his lifetime in many cities in Germany, Vienna, Austria and in Switzerland.

I have read the extract from the lecture which which Rudolf Steiner gave in 1918 in Zurich, from where the quotation on the chocolate bar comes. Reading it in context I think Steiner believed that the angel is something which influences us and not as I think Popper Péter meant which is that András Petö believed the angel within us has an influence on others.

Whatever it was they were both trying to tell us I will let you decide for yourselves. I just thought I would bring it to the attention of those interested that it appears that Dr András Petö was not the only one interested in angels, or writing and talking about angels, in German speaking Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.

Does anyone know of anymore early twentieth century angel fans?

Notes

My blog -

http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/11/angels-and-souls-to-me-its-one-and-same.html

Andrew Sutton -

http://www.conductive-world.info/2008/11/we-all-have-angel-within-us-andrs-pet.html

Rudolf Steiner –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner#Christ_and_human_evolution

Lecture by Rudolf Steiner, 9th October 1918 - The Work of Angels on Man’s Astral BodyTranslated by D. S. Osmond with the help of Owen Barfield
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19181009p01.html

Questioning angels

Dan's Marching Dinos by Dan aged 8, December 2008

This afternoon I was talking to a friend, who also happens to be one of my NICE angels, about my wonderful time in Norway. She had been reading my December postings and had really got the right idea. She realised that I had been having a whale of a time (more precisely a “dino” of a time).

Nice work if you can get it

She asked me to explain to her why it had been so good, what had made Norway so exciting for me. I described my fascination for the darkness and the amazing lights, the lovely, singing language and the fact that I could speak English to most people! Then I went on to the real reason that I had had a “Dino of a time"… the work was so good! Why, she eagerly wanted to know? In the end I told her: “Because it was just like working with you!”

My Norwegian NICE angels, Lill and Marthe, are just as much fun to work with as is Raphaela. It isn’t just the fun though, it is how they work and think that all makes for a wonderful working atmosphere, with lots of stimulating experiences for the children.

I must add that it is not only stimulating for the children when I work with these NICE-trained conductors, it is stimulating for us all, especially me. They all ask so many questions and I try to answer these to the best of my ability.

When Raphaela was still a student she came to work with me twice, and then later for a few more years as a newly qualified conductor. The flow of questions was never-ending, starting on the way to work and finishing on the way home. Even now we use up at least half of our very long phone calls on conductive questioning and problem-solving. In Norway my experience was just the same, often the Norwegians and I would sit together for a couple of hours after work deep in discussion about all things conductive. It was very beneficial for us all, not least for the children.

"You are not ready for that yet!"

Why am I writing this, why my excitement about the questioning attitude of these young NICE- trained conductors? Because while I was talking to friend Raphaela on the phone this afternoon I was reminded of just one of my own experiences as a second-year student at the Petö Institute, which encouraged exactly the opposite attitude.

I and fellow British students had been observing a group as part of our conductive pedagogy lectures and had gathered together with two senior conductor/lecturers for a short round of questions and answers about what we had seen. I and other students were asking questions relating to the theme of how we could begin to plan individual programmes for some of these children.

We all were given the same answer: “You are not yet ready to understand the answer to that question, you will learn about that next year! "

In those days I was too timid to reply with the response that was bursting to get out of my mouth: “Surely, if I know the question I am more than ready to hear and understand the answer”. This would more likely have been lost on the lecturers and we did not pursue it, we simply took our questions to our group leaders who were always more than willing to provide answers.

I sincerely do hope that students there are taught a bit differently now.

Note

NICE - National Institute for Conductive Education
http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/

My very own Golden Globe

Today I received my very own “Golden Globe” award and I too made a gushing acceptance speech, but I actually managed to string my words together a bit better than Kate did and I also remembered the names of my friends!

These friends are two conductive souls whom I have known since 1992. They are not only conductive souls, these are your everyday real-life souls, people who care and understand.

My own Golden Globe is three inches tall. It is getting more and more golden as it sits in my hand and develops its own patina from my touch. Most importantly, it is formed in the shape of an angel!

Yes I am the one who calls my conductor colleagues my angels, writes about Dr András Petö and his angels and has a few other friends whom I consider to be my angels, and I have actually received my own angel! I was thrilled and what luck that I didn’t have to trip up the stairs in a long dress and embarrass myself with a daft speech to receive it. I accepted it graciously with a huge smile and a warm soul.

My Golden Angel came in a lovely silky black bag with the word "pilgrim" printed all around the top. This is quite apt as one definition of the word pilgrim is “one who journeys in foreign lands", something that I have the tendency to do!

This small bronze angel was created by the sculptor Christoph Fischbach and produced in the workshops of the Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach. It came with a small booklet telling me that angels were in themselves never something to believe in but messengers, the bringers of tidings from somewhere/someone else., implying to me that this angels is sent to rest a hand on my shoulder and watch out that I do not stumble on my foreign journeys.

The friends who presented me with my mini-award I have known since 1992. I first met them in Budapest when they were living there while their daughter attended the Petö Institute. The support that they gave me in my final weeks while I was taking exams was invaluable. It really did feel as if I had my own personal angels bringing me messages from a higher level, encouraging me and showing me that I could do it! Which of course I could and I did.

András Petö I think was right when he said that in each of us is an angel (see blog references below) and I believe that we find many ways to dispatch these angels as our own messengers. I am very happy, as over the moon as Kate was with her two Golden Globes, to have my very own angel in my pocket, not dispatched to me surrounded by the glitter of hollywood stars, but in my own cosy kitchen and by two valued friends.

Notes

Golden Globes

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0MDhTcTImjQ

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/4221181/Golden-Globes-Kate-Winslet-makes-gushing-speech-but-forgets-Angelina-Jolies-name.html

Pilgrim

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pilgrim

Patina -

A surface appearance of something grown beautiful, especially with age or use
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patina

Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach -
http://www.bonn-region.de/english/sightseeing/ahr-valley/benediktinerabtei-maria-laach-benedictine-abbey-maria-laach.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abtei_Maria_Laach
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abtei_Maria_Laach

András Petö’s angel
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlRJDMY_V2laGhTXgJsbVbcwJ5UUf7MIZCWHGzSj3gO_P__ZgYU5uQx0koCQV-8EIK8q-y1_UN40RnmckX1NmLXsB1h6_nYFU8qNOFj6ZbPof8q7_5bgIw65yKnT2-fsTPLG_TrDibiSK/s1600-h/IMGP0112angel.jpg
http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/11/angels-and-souls-to-me-its-one-and-same.html
http://www.conductive-world.info/2008/11/we-all-have-angel-within-us-andrs-pet.html

Two bits from András Petö on angels

"If an illness comes into the realms of God’s influence, the Ens Dei of Paracelus, we enter the area of mercy, grace and favour and of healing through belief and prayer. The saints of the holy sites of pilgrimage, such as Lourdes, belong to this category as do theologists who believe in and speak about the work of the angels, together with that of the saints, in their sermons. Many people pray for the healing properties of these angels and saints."

Karl Otto Bärnklau, Unfug der Krankheit – Triumph der Heilkunst Verlag, Karl Schustek, Hanau/Main, 1965

"There is always a voice saying to do this and to do that and you must not close your mind to the idea that an angel is speaking from within you”.

Reportedly said in a conversation between Peter Popper and András Petö

“Bits in between” for conductors

Some of the bits in between, 13th December 2008

Conductors need their “bits in between” too, especially after working for two weeks, ten hours each day, including Sunday!

I think I can quite honestly say that I have never in my life so wished for Friday to come, so that I could have a break from work. As a self-employed conductor I often work at the weekends too and I feel very lucky that I can go to work each day wanting to walk through the door and get on with it,

But this weekend I was glad of a day off, as I really needed some “bits in between” for myself. I needed to get out in the fresh air, get to know my surroundings in the daylight, get my bearings, see what Hamar looks like, learn a little bit about Norwegian life and for a few hours forget about en, tu, tre, fire, fem!

Le Louvre in Hamar

On Friday evening, when I was walking in the cold wind beside the lake with the mum of one of the Nice angels, I saw the old ruins that are covered with a glass pyramid. I have seen photographs taken of these ruins before the beautiful glass structure was erected over them, when they looked like any ruins anywhere in the world. Now, looking very much like the central construction in the Louvre, they have been turned into a work of art!

In the evening darkness, with candles burning along the snow-covered pathways, the light was amazing, reflecting off the glass, off the snow and off the water that could be heard lapping against the shore. There was a bitterly cold wind blowing, which dropped the actual temperature by several degrees. The flag on the green beside the house where I am living has been flying in the wind for several days now, and this makes a less pleasant type of coldness. No good for English skin, turning it into sand paper if I forget the moisturiser! It is reminiscent of the lazy east wind at home on the Norfolk coast, which instead of going round you blows straight through you.

A peaceful Norwegian advent

I spent the rest of the evening walking through the fairy-tale streets of Hamar, enjoying the company of my new-found friend and learning a bit of Norwegian.

With the streets full of snow and dimly lit, my imagination was running wild. I expected to see Santa’s little helpers on their scooter-likesledges, hurrying about their business, rushing in and out of the narrow streets.

I think that this must be Christmas at its least commercial. In comparison to England and Germany, with all the hustle and bustle and crowded streets, Hamar was radiating the peace that Christmas is all about. Quiet streets, no bumping shoulders, lots of smiles and time for chatting on the corner.

Trains, train, trains

On Saturday came the “bits in between” that I have been looking forward too since my arrival, actually since I was told about it in Hungary at the beginning of November.

Hamar has a wonderful railway museum, the Jernbanemuseum, and this was my destination on Saturday morning. I was kindly collected from “home” by a colleague and dropped off at the door of the musuem. Being winter and snowy and cold, the outdoor exhibits are not open but there was enough to keep me busy for a couple of hours before the return of the same lady and her most charming boys, who had invited me to lunch.

TLC

The exhibits are lovingly put together and I was transported back to bygone times and away from work, exactly what the doctor ordered. All the aches and pains and tiredness disappeared as I looked longingly at the suitcases embroidered with locos, saw the station clocks and luxurious railway carriages. This all reminded me that one day I will make that journey on the Orient Express.

I am also determined to return to Hamar to work one day, if only to take the boys from work to the railway museum in the summer when we can walk around outside and picnic by the lake.

My Dad

While I waited for my lunch date, the other charming boys, to return from their Christmas shopping I had time to write a postcard to my Dad who is actually responsible for my fascination with trains. He was my childhood hero, as much for being a engine-driver as for being my dad. He drove steam, diesels and electrics, travelling for most of 49 years between Norwich and London.

I used to lovedbeing taken “down the loco”, to breath in the smells of trains, see the turntable and enjoy the general blackness and smokiness of the place. Dad’s old fireman’s uniform (cleaned of course) complete with flat cap with plastic cape at the back, was in our dressing up box. It was always a difficult choice for me, I could never decide between this and the 1920s velvet dresses that had belonged to my grandma and her sisters.

My sis usually went for Mum’s cream crepe wedding dress and I was more often than not to be seen as a British Rail fireman, with the dog dressed as a postman because he loved to wear the hat!

I could be describing our activities in the conductive group on Thursday, dressed up and singing carols!

My Christmas present

Back to today’s “bits in between”. After relaxing with the trains and learning about traditional Norwegian Christmas over lunch, I ventured alone to the Christmas market, following the St. Lucia procession along the high street. The market is not at all like the German ones that I am used to. It is sell nothing but homemade articles, both food and craft-work. I had decided that I would buy my Christmas present here if I found anything thatI liked and needed. I found a lovely cerise and black alpaca shawl which is the warmest article of clothing I now own, apart from perhaps my New Zealand possum socks.

For many years I have made all the Christmas presents that I give to other people and thenbuy something for myself. This year I have given myself something to remind me of this happy time in Hamar.

The angel in each of us

December the 13th is St. Lucia day. I have known the song about her for most of my life but I am ashamed to say that I had no idea who St. Lucia was, until this week when I learnt about it from Ellen the “lady Friday” at the centre. She told me about the light procession, the St. Lucia bread and the concert to be given at the opening of the market. The children braved the cold and sang beautifully looking just like the angels Petö is said to have believed each of us have inside us. I would like to believe it too.

Notes

En, tu, tre, fire, fem – one, two, three, four, five.

NICE angels – my nick-name for the conductors I am working with who were trained at the National Institute for Conductive Education, Birmingham, UK.

Church ruins under glass - Domkirkeodden http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domkirkeruinene_p%C3%A5_Hamar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_Ruins_in_Hamar

Railway museum, Hamar - Jernbanemuseum

http://www.norsk-jernbanemuseum.no/index.htm

TLC - tender loving care

St. Lucia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lucy

Angels and souls, to me it's one and the same.

The angel on the no. 2 tram route by Susie Mallett, April 2008

We all have angels in our Seele!

Of course we do. I think that is what I have been saying for ages!

There are all sorts of angels within us and I think the one that Dr András Petö talked about was part of what I call the conductive Seele. Of course we all have an angel within us and of course Petö would have believed this too! And maybe now I can write about it and not get carried off by the men in white coats!

After reading Andrew Sutton’s posting about Petö and his angels I immediately did two things. I looked out the photo that I have of the plaque in Balassi Bálint u. with its angel and I stuffed my copy of the Unfug in my bag to read on the tram , as I knew I had read something in there about angels, then off I went with my treasure chest to work!

All day at work there were more angels tugging at my memory bank and I have just discovered the one that will be action number three. I called on a Hungarian to help as I hadn’t believed in my own translation, but I was right: I had found the words again referring to the angel inside us.

Three actions and three results

The result of the first of my early morning activities is at the top of this posting, the photo of the angel in Balassi Bálint u. that I took on my visit to Budapest last year.

The second of the actions was to get the book out of my bag on the tram and open it up to begin my search for angels. This search turned out to be nowhere near as difficult as I imagined it would be, as the book fell open on exactly the page where Dr Bärnklau (alias Dr András Petö) mentions angels! Maybe not a coincidence at all but perhaps it was the angel within trying to communicate with me. I think that it is the only mention of angels in the whole book, but I could be mistaken and I will continue the search. Dr Bärnklau’s book is, however, full of references to the soul and, as I said at the beginning, I think as far as Dr András Petö is concerned the "angel within us" is a part of our souls.

This is what Bärnklau wrote:

If an illness comes into the realms of God’s influence, the Ens Dei of Paracelus, we enter the area of mercy, grace and favour and of healing through belief and prayer. The saints of the holy sites of pilgrimage, such as Lourdes, belong to this category as do theologists who believe in and speak about the work of the angels, together with that of the saints, in their sermons. Many people pray for the healing properties of these angels and saints.

He continued with references to the equivalent in eastern religions, in Indian belief, the Karma, the fate that man prepares for himself, how man can train his soul, his inner self, through Yoga and moral changes throughout the wheel of each successive life, and how he should be able to avoid or heal, by implementing these methods, the inevitable, pre-destined illnesses.

In this passage I think that Dr Bärnklau was using reference to the Christian angels, and our own predestined fate as spoken about in the Karma, as one and the same, the inner voice that speaks to us.

Angels, karma and Buddha

Now on to action number three. I was sitting here at my desk so tired that I was wondering if I should go to bed, and I had one of my “eureka” moments. I remembered where I had read about Petö and angels. I knew that I had read almost the exact words that Andrew used in his posting, “We all have an angel inside us”.

I rummaged around for another article that I have, thinking “It was not only Németh Ándor who was acutely depressed and who met Petö, I have a reference to someone else somewhere”. I dug out an article that Gill Maguire had given me in the library at NICE and I found a story that is almost identical, so either someone somewhere got the name wrong or someone told the story twice with different names. Who knows, it isn’t really that important here.

I have the paper in my hand. It is written by Popper Péter, a Hungarian psychologist who is very popular in his homeland. His books are to be found on the bookstalls in Moszkva Tér today (they were there on Saturday when I looked).

This article is called Buddha Budapesten ( Buddha in Budapest) and it is an account by Popper Péter of his encounters with Dr András Petö, some of which comprises the interview in Forrai Judit's book Memoirs of the Beginnings of Conductive Pedagogy and András Petö.

The first reference that I found there to angels was when Popper was describing a conversation between Dr. Kun Miklós, a psychiatrist, and Petö. Kun Miklós had done Petö a great favour and Petö offered him anything he wished for in return, Kun Miklós said he would keep it in mind and return to collect on it later. This he certainly did turning up in Vienna just before the war started asking Petö to return to Hungary with him. I have read that there are several versions of this story about how Petö actually decided to return but it still remains a bit of a mystery, as do a lot of things to do with Dr András Petö and his life!

Of concern here is how Popper tries to explain Petö’s quite rash on-the-spot decision to go with Kun Miklós to Hungary. Popper says that Petö had once told him that the most important thing in life is that man must always follow his destiny (probably meaning as in Indian belief that one forms ones own destiny and must follow it). Popper asked Petö how can one know what is one’s destiny, or fate. To this Petö had replied

"There is always a voice saying to do this and to do that and you must not close your mind to the idea that an angel is speaking from within you”.

So there it was almost exactly the words of Márgit Balogh, librarian at the Mária Hári Memorial Library, as reported in Andrew’s blog, but that was not all. This was not what I had remembered in my eureka moment. Where was the story about the depressed patient? I continued reading the aticle and translating, with a little help from some Magyars, and in the next paragraphs I found this:

The news got around that Márai Sándor was depressed, he was being treated by Dr Kun Miklós with little success so Petö, who didn’t know Mária Sándor, was summoned. Mária was lying in a darkened room , groaning, as Petö stopped by his door and said in a firm voice

“ Sándor, get up and write! For that is your destiny in this world.”

Sándor replied “When God sends an angel to me then I will get up.”

To which the bold, fat Petö, with his hernia and banging his chest, retorted so loudly that the walls shook, “Here is the angel".

At which moment Sándor looked up at the angel and got out of his bed.

All this time that I have been searching for links between Petö and angels and, especially after re-reading the piece in Unfug about the theologists,the saints and angels from the Christian religion, I have been asking myself why did Petö not stick to his ideas from eastern cultures, with its Karma and destiny and souls?

Could it be that in those times the Communist Party would not have looked favourably on Petö and his belief in angels and saints but maybe tolerated better an interest in eastern cultures? Did a head full of angels strain relationships with the powers-that-be who ran his institute and make them less than productive?

As I read further in Judit Forrai's book I found here too a reference to something that Petö said which had caused embarrassment at a time when the Communist Party disapproved of the practice of religion. He asked for Kiss Ferenc, a professor and also the head of the Free Church to “Bless this house”, meaning his institute. This caused red faces but he got the building blessed!

András Petö remains a man of mystery surrounded by tales of scandal and eccentricity but as I discovered earlier in the year when I first read his book Unfug he was a man with a soul and maybe he was also a man with an inner voice, his angel talking to him and to others.

Notes

Seele – soul

Unfug - Unfug der Krankheit-Triumph der Heilkunst, Dr.Med. Karl Otto Bärnklau, (Dr András Petö) Karl Schustek Verlag, Main, Hanau

Ens Dei of Paracelus - this is the fifth cause of illness in man according to Paracelsus, God-given health and illness, the other four being astral (influenced by astrology), poison, bodily and spiritual.
Ens/entien – cause/ reason for the illness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

Popper Péter
http://www.artlimited.net/image/?id=89200

Márai Sándor- 1890-1989

Awarded Hungary's highest award for literature, the Kossuth Prize, in 1989.

NICE - National Institute for Conductive Education

http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/

Forrai Judit's book Memoirs of the Beginnings of Conductive Pedagogy and András Petö.

ISBN 963 85499 2 0