The Stella Matutina & Edith Maryon

[Bruce Michael]

Hello Friends,
Dr. Felkin, an original member of the Golden Dawn - later to form the Stella Matutina offshoot - was a student of Dr. Steiner. He worked in a different way from Steiner, but some of his students became anthroposophists. Steiner had given written instuctions to Felkin regarding his Rosicrucian ritual work.

A famous member of the Stella Matutina is one Edith Maryon, a very talented sculptress, who at one time saved Steiner's life when he fell from some scaffolding. The anthroposophical work in Havelock North, New Zealand was seeded from Dr. Felkin's group (who arrived there first and set up a temple- the "first in the Southern Hemisphere".)

Robert William Felkin

"Ara ben Shemesh. This was a discarnate Arab who claimed affiliation with the desert-temple visited by Father Christian Rosenkreutz on his Middle Eastern pilgrimage. Felkin, realising a magical sodality's need for contact with the inner planes, accepted Ara ben Shemesh as his teacher and the latter's 'Sun-Masters' as his Secret Chiefs. [Ben shemesh encouraged Felkin to keep learning under Steiner.]
"He and his wife undertook several journeys on the Continent with this end in view and their contacts with Rudolf Steiner there coloured henceforward the égégore of all Stella Matutina Lodges in varying degrees. A cognate quest also undertaken by them was the search for Christian Rosenkreutz's tomb described in the Fama Fraternitatis; but this proved a wild goose chase"

"On yonder hill you will pitch your tent' prophesied the daughter of Golden Dawn founder Robert Felkin to Herbert Sutcliffe, as she pointed out towards Te Mata Peak. It was about 1940 and he was staying at her home, Whare-Ra [Matutina Temple], in Havelock North..... "Peloha's grounds with its large citrus orchards and organic gardens made the property almost self-sufficient. By the late 1980s, after the deaths of Dr Sutcliffe and his wife, Peloha was no longer economic to run and was sold to Weleda, makers of herbal and homeopathic medicines in the Steiner tradition."
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Maryon was a very talented sculptress- more talented than Dr. Steiner (much to the chagrin of some anthroposophists). I once heard John Wilkes talk on this. He had prepared an exhibition at the Goetheanum, placing the marquettes for the "Representative of Man" sculpture with Edith Maryon's being the first. Some misguided enthusiast changed them around to make Steiner's models the first in line!

Greetings,
Br.Bruce