Book review by Michael Pilarski. 12/12/2014
Interviews with Verena Stael von Holstein. Edited by Wolfgang Weirach. First published in German in 2001. First published in English in 2004. Translation by Brian Stevens. 2008 is the 3rd printing in English.
I highly recommend this book to people who seek to understand and work with the nature spirits. Surprising that this book and Verena Stael von Holstein have escaped my attention until now. This book adds a lot of insights into the relationships between humans and nature spirits. Verena has been seeing fairies since her earliest memories as a child. There is a photo of Verena in the book and I would guess she was 45 to 50 when the photo was taken.
The main story line for this book is that Verena has formed a close talking relationship with a group of 17 nature spirit beings who are linked to her land. Some of them are very specific to that place, Miller, the house fairy, Kollii, the One from the Marsh, Oakbeena, Guardian spirit of the oaks in the village. Others have very large territories, such as Echivit, the Nix (Deva) of the Elbe River. Moonlight, the Silver One, who is connected to the moon and travels throughout the Earth. Knut, the Sandy One, is connected to all the sand of the region. Verena writes very little of the book and Wolfgang Weirach is much more than the editor. The text is composed of interviews of the nature spirits conducted by Wolfgang. Verena receives the nature spirit’s answers and translates them into human words. Wolfgang asks them questions, they respond through Verena, conversations are recorded. There is also a spirit being the nature spirits refer to as The High One who works with the project and is interviewed.
The information is fascinating and thought provoking. The attitudes and feelings of the nature spirits come through. This is a contemporary connection with the fairy realms. The conversations include cell phones, nuclear power, genetically engineered crops and the increasing rate of caesarean births among humans. The book includes a lot of information on how humans are currently affecting the world and the nature spirits. It also gives us some direction as to how individual humans can work with the nature spirits to improve the situation.
Following are some quotes from the book: Nature Spirits and What They Say.
Verena: “These communications are not just a happenstance. These seventeen spirit beings have set out as a kind of advance party in order to speak with human beings. These conversations are extraordinarily important for them, because up to now the angels were their rulers, and taught them their tasks. But the angels are now withdrawing and leaving the elemental beings more and more alone. Human beings are their new masters, but human beings know nothing about them. For this reason the nature spirits are suffering and afraid of humans. That’s precisely why these conversations between human beings and nature spirits are so important, for both sides. Both partners can learn from one another, draw closer to one another and cooperate in a totally new way. “ Page 9
Verena: It is much more the urgent wish of the spirit beings with the help of the people here to awaken the general consciousness of the people of this culture to the fact that our Earth is a living being. It is inhabited by humans, animals, plants, minerals and spirit beings.
At present this living Earth-being faces the danger of being destroyed by its human inhabitants. To avert this danger people have to turn again to facts which are not to be found in the physical world but in the spiritual world. The contents of this book aim to help towards this. Page 11.
Wolfgang Weirauch: Miller, how can a human help the nature beings?
Miller: By being fond of them. Apart from that he can help them by doing them favours by trying to perceive them. But the most important thing for us are the positive feelings of humans, it’s like food for us
WW: Rudolf Steiner talks about how elemental beings slip into a person when he just stares at a tree, and live in him until his death and after his death are not redeemed but are charmed or banished back into the physical world. When on the contrary a human looks at a tree in all its beauty, the elemental beings slip into him in exactly the same way, but are redeemed from the material world after his death. Is that true?
Miller: Yes, that’s one of the fundamental laws of nature and the spiritual world. If you want you can redeem the whole earth by looking at it affectionately and with awareness. If all humans were to carry out this process intensively and over a long period of time, the whole of matter would one day be gone. Page 136
WW: Are there other things we can do?
Miller: Being fond of nature spirits, playing music at home. We love it when humans play music. You can also sing us a song. It doesn’t have to be a complicated aria like the “Queen of the Night.” A simple children’s song will do. It as also important to arrange artistic objects, to create a beautiful home. Spaces in nature should be just as beautifully designed. We eat your sympathies and we become round and happy through love. Page 138.
The High One: “Humans have to begin to perceive the elemental beings and the spirit beings and act with them in the same direction. Otherwise the earth will disintegrate. It will die if humans don’t take up their tasks and their responsibility for the etheric, soul and spiritual aspects of the cosmos. And then – this is very important – humans have to learn what beauty is. they have to learn not to just simply act and produce any kind of objects, but that everything has to be beautifully formed.” Page 186.
The Salt Child: Yes, Humans nowadays eat too much salt. What’s more they eat polluted salt.
Wolfgang: What are you thinking of?
The Salt Child: Iodized salt. Humans are adding an impurity to the spiritual purity which is salt. And it’s quite important to realize that when you eat polluted salt you’re polluting your own self. It’s different when you eat sea-salt, but convincing humans to artificially iodize salt is a great feat of the Ahrimanic beings. ….
The Salt Child: Fluoride is a halogen. Halogens make is simpler for beings to gain access to the human self and possess it. Page 130.
Wolfgang gets the answer to his question “What kind of beings are storm giants, frost giants and fog giants.” Page 190.
Here is a link to some other quotes from the book:
http://www.whale.to/b/holstein.html
Whoa! There are three subsequent books in this series. I’ve just ordered all three of them and look forward to reading them.
Nature Spirits of the Trees: Interviews with Verena Stael Von Holstein Published in 2009. Working with Wolfgang Weirach.Here is a review from Amazon “Not as ‘charming’ as: Nature Spirits and What They Have to Say, but more thorough, and definitely a ‘must read’ if you were left wanting to understand Elemental Beings better, and wanting to build a relationship with them.” Here is the Amazon url:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0863157033/ref=pd_luc_rh_bxgy_01_01_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thoughts that Shine like Stars: Further Conversations with the Nature Spirits. Published onAugust 6, 2012.
http://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-that-Shine-like-Stars/dp/1477697039/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418509873&sr=1-1&keywords=Verena+Stael+Von+Holstein
We Turn Our Hearts To The Earth:
Nature Spirits on Oil and Human Destiny.Published onJanuary 25, 2014.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1490945105/ref=pd_luc_rh_sim_01_02_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1
To put my book recommendation somewhat in perspective here is a bit of my history. I have been assiduously studying the literature on fairies, devas and nature spirits since 1977.
In 2004, I published a bibliography which reviewed 60 books on the nature fairy/deva evolution. This bibliography was an appendix in the book “Forty Years with the Fairies” by Daphne Charters.
Since then I have read and added many more books to my fairy library. I just counted and now have over 150 books in my fairy library. Not being content to be just an armchair theorist, I founded the Fairy & Human Relations Congress in 2001. An event which brings together 250 to 300 people annually, many of whom see, communicate with, or work with the nature spirit and faery realms. Thus I have been able to meet firsthand the authors of dozens of the books in my fairy library and become friends with them. Indeed, I have met hundreds of people who see into, and work with, the fairy realms. And the people I’ve met are, of course, just the tip of the iceberg.
Some people may call me a kook, but there a lot of us. Materialism and its denial of any spiritual realms has a strong hold on a large part of the population. Religions and their denial of nature spirits (or condemning of them) also has a strong hold on a large part of the population. Still there is a part of the population (and appearing to be growing) that believes in, or is open to the idea of, nature spirits (by whatever names a culture calls them).