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Kaspar Hauser. Europe's Child. Why not the World's?

Kaspar Hauser
Europe's Child. Why not the World's?
by David Donaldson.

At the onset of the Industrial Revolution, despite all the grotesque and evil attempts to suppress it, a bright star shone out in Central Europe, a sort of counter-force to the materialism increasingly dominating people’s outlooks. Kaspar’s political destiny may have been brutally suppressed but the essential human/divine spirit so clearly witnessed by Pastor Fuhrmann has continued to shine ever since despite all attempts to defame it. In this sense, the tragedy enacted around this individual and the ‘unrealised history’ that can be traced through the succeeding centuries down to the present, if recognised from a spiritual point of view, transforms into a seed containing the fullness of our potential human future along with the clearest indications of the forces opposing that future. As Karl Heyer concludes in his seminal study of Kaspar Hauser, it is this ‘future promise that we must focus on’.

'There gleam like stars
In the heaven of eternal being
The God-sent Spirits.
May all human souls
In earthly evolution
Glimpse their flame of light.'
Rudolf Steiner

Contents
Preface
Prologue:
Setting the Scene
The Imperial Way
Rising Wealth
The Year without a Summer
Mt. Tambora
Schloss Beuggen
The Experiment
1. Imprisonment and Release
Stolen at Birth
Tallow Square, Nuremberg, May 1828
From the Riding Master to the Police
Kaspar is Examined
News Spreads
Interrogation
Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach
Feuerbach’s Visit
Feuerbach’s Testimony
Who is Kaspar Hauser?
The Party is brought to a close
2. Professor Daumer
A World to be Recovered
Immediate Hostility
The Higher Dignity of Man
Georg Friedrich Daumer
3. Recovery
The Daumer Sanctuary
Extended Rest
Step by Step
Learning to Walk
Coming into Focus
No less incomprehensible…
Lessons Resume
That Summer (1829)
4. Kaspar’s Awakening and Fall
Kaspar’s ‘Paradise’
Separating Out
Question after Question
Progress Reversed
Sunday, October 17th 1829
Assassination Attempt or Warning?
All too much for Daumer
Kaspar’s Well-Wishers
5. Winkled Out
Leaving Daumer
No longer the Rare Sensation
Kaspar the Man
Kaspar’s Last Safe Haven
6. Enter Lord Stanhope
A Present Help for a Soul Beset?
Being a Secret Agent
The Message in the Bottle
The Message in the Bottle Resurfaces
Galvanised!
A Reception
The Worm at Work
7. Snared
Winkled out once again
Why Ansbach?
The Pace Quickening
Kaspar’s New Tutor
Meyer Expects
Nothing very Extraordinary?
The Rainbow Arc of Kaspar’s Development
8. Kaspar Comes of Age
1833: The Final Year
Johann Simon Heinrich Fuhrmann
Future Possibilities?
No Holding Back
Preparation for Confirmation
A Late Unfolding
A New World
Confirmation
The Saving Mystery
Put out the Light
May 29th 1833
Coming of Age
Kaspar’s Mother
Kaspar’s Murder
Cloud of Doubt
The Testing Time
A Mysterious Person Mysteriously Killed
Munich, 25th December
9. A Matter of Urgency
No Delay
A Matter of Urgency
Stanhope’s Last Visit
As if Pursued by the Furies
Only Suspect
Kaspar Hauser
Epilogue
Blood and Iron
Europe’s Child. Why not the World’s?
Notes and Acknowledgements