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Kaspar Hauser Festivals in the US

 California:

Now West, Kaspar Hauser
A touchstone for Humanity

September 30 to October 2, 2016

And following on in MARCH 2019!

New York State:

November 1 to November 5, 2017

And following on in October/November 2019

Dr. Eckart Böhmer
Director of the Kaspar Hauser Festival, Ansbach

Richard Steel
Director of the Karl König Institute

For Details see:

www.kaspar-hauser.net
 
 
 
 

Why should you come?

Kaspar Hauser’s story of childhood incarceration and recovery has inspired many thousands in the attempt to unravel the mystery of his life and his death. Why is Kaspar Hauser’s story so compelling? Why does he continually prod at our conscience? Here in America it appears that we have lost the middle; we cannot so easily count on a basic common ground of human understanding from one to another. Fear, paranoia, siege mentality all seem to carry the day, forcing individuals and groups apart from one another. In this election year all those tendencies have been magnified to a frightening degree.

What has happened to the humanist founding ideals of this country? Kaspar Hauser’s childhood was cut short very early in his life by imprisonment in a darken cell. When he was released about twelve years later his childlike soul had become amplified. It radiated perfect trust and innocence. In a very short time he became a touchstone for the best of humanity, a living example of purity, sensitivity and gentleness. As such he became a wonder and was named the Child of Europe. So many themes come up: How are we educating our young? What is the result of over institutionalization? What is a healthy government? What has happened to the social ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood, the rallying cries of the French Revolution, which had its roots in the founding of America?

Kaspar Hauser’s mission was to have been to carry forward this humanism in the southern German state of Baden-Wurtenburg, balancing the militaristic tendencies of Prussia in the north and opening the way to a peaceful Europe that would have upheld the humanity of all. Instead he was murdered and history unfolded. One hundred years after Kaspar Hauser’s murder Adolf Hitler came into power. He took up, not the inspired humanism of America’s founders, but the cold science of eugenics that began in the west. He perfected it into institutional genocide.

Europe and America are bound to one another like twins, both dark and light. By bringing Eckart Boehmer, who established and directs the Kaspar Hauser Festival in Ansbach where Kaspar Hauser died, to America for Michaelmas festivals of insight and exploration of these themes, we hope to provide a soul/spiritual counter balance to these troubling times.