Serenity Prayer & Oetinger

[Bruce Michael]

Dear Friends,


I think most of you will recognise this prayer:

"God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference;

Living one day at a time;
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it:

Trusting that you will make all things right
if I surrender to your will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with you forever in the next."​

What you probably didn't know is that the author was one F.C. Oetinger- this is one version, some disagree. Indeed, F.C. Oetinger was a spiritual scientist, a master of Christian Chemistry, a student of the Cabbala and Jacob Boehme; a theosophist in the true sense of the word. When he died at the age of eighty in 1782 F.C. Schubart wrote:

"For Oetinger, the teacher of a world, is dead.
He, who with seeing eyes gazed on immensity,
He, who, undazzled by delusion's gleam,
Adorned himself with true simplicity....
Yes, Oetinger soared high among that company.
Lower him, weeping, to the lightless tomb!
For he the Christian! noble soul and wise!
Was himself alone and liberal school."​

Here is one of Oetinger's experiments where he demonstrated the reality of the etheric forces:
He describes how he chopped up a bushel of sage, poured rainwater over it & then distilled the paste.

First the water in the prepared retort was precipitated, then the greenish yellow sage oil. It was remarkable that the oil floating on the water, as thick as the back of a knife, should take the form of countless sage leaves, with the veining complete.

I have a longer article by Emil Bock on Oetinger, from which I've culled these little snippets.

-Br.Bruce