Europe

A Continent with a Global Mission -- The Illustrated Biography of Europe

by Harrie Salman

Prehistoric tribes, among them the Indo-Europeans, laid the foundations for the new continent of Europe that was born as a child of the more highly developed Asia. Trade connections with the Levant brought impulses leading to the birth of a unique new culture about 4,000 years ago on the island of Crete. This European culture is a project directed at the development of a free personality and a personal intelligence capable of self-reflection and moral judgement. It is an educational project of global significance as it creates a new consciousness that is not the exclusive property of Europeans, but represents a new quality of the consciousness of humanity. European culture became adult when it received the unifying impulse of Christianity, which formed the soul of Europe. It brought the notion of a brotherhood comprising the whole of humanity and it opened a path to our higher Self. Tribes began to create nations and new educational programmes spread over Europe. After the mystery schools of the prehistoric communities and the philosophical academies of Greece, new centres of learning were established: monastic and cathedral schools, medieval universities, spiritual circles and brotherhoods, Renaissance academies, and modern schools and universities. Initiating the changes of consciousness of European man, they have offered ever new ways to realise the full potential of his intelligence. From the end of the Middle Ages, European countries have shaped the modern world, but in the 20th century, the United States has become the leading global power. For Europe this was the century of a deep crisis, a 'midlife crisis', which put European culture on a so-called 'journey to the Underworld', known from mythology. In the language of psychology we can speak of a descent into the unconscious, which revealed the dark aspects of European culture. At the same time, Europe gave birth to a new spiritual consciousness, in which mind and heart are brought into harmony, as manifested in the work of scholars such as C G Jung, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Ivan Illich, politicians such as Dag Hammarskjold and Mikhail Gorbachev, and spiritual teachers such as Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian inaugurator of Anthroposophy, and Peter Deunov, the Bulgarian founder of the White Brotherhood. If their visions can break through, the role of Europe in the world will become a very different one. This would indeed be the beginning of the most important chapter in the biography of Europe.

Europe - Harrie Salman (9789544744632) 20