Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (born November 5, 1850 in Johnstown , near Janesville , Wisconsin , † October 30, 1919 in Short Beach , Connecticut ) was an American writer.

biography

Ella Wheeler was born on November 5, 1850, the youngest of four children on a farm in rural Johnstown, east of Janesville, Wisconsin. Her family soon moved to the capital, Madison . Ella began writing poetry at a very early age and was a well-known poet in Wisconsin when she left school. At the age of 28 she married Robert Wilcox. They had a son together who, however, died shortly after the birth. Wilcox and her husband became heavily involved in theosophy , spiritualism and the new spirit movement as a result .

Early in their marriage both promised each other that whoever would die first would come back and communicate with the other. Robert Wilcox died in 1916, leaving Ella with great sorrow which worsened from week to week in which she received no news from him. She then traveled to California to see the Rosicrucian astrologist Max Heindel , from whom she expected help and an answer as to why her husband had not yet contacted her.

She reported on her meeting as follows:

“In a conversation with Max Heindel , the leader of the Rosicrucian philosophy in California, he made the effects of grief clear to me. Mr. Heindel assured me that if I learned to control my worries, I would come into contact with my husband's spirit. I replied that it struck me as strange that an omnipresent God could not send a ray of light into a suffering soul when that belief was most needed. Have you ever stood by a pond with clear water, asked Herr Heindel, and saw the sky and the trees reflected in it? And did you ever throw a stone into that pond and see it clouded and troubled <sic!> So that it gave no reflection? But the sky and the trees waited up there to be reflected when the waters calmed down. Likewise, God and your husband's spirit are waiting to reveal themselves to you when the confusion of worries has subsided. "

A few months later she composed an affirmative prayer which she repeated over and over again. “I am the living witness: The dead live: And they speak through us and to us: And I am the voice that proclaims this glorious truth to the suffering world: I am ready, God: I am ready, Christ: I am ready , Robert. "

After extensive meditation, she finally claimed that she had had contact with her husband and that her soul was now calmed.

Wilcox tried to bring occult things to the world. Her work was popular in the Neugeist movement, and by 1915 her booklet What I Know About New Thought had 50,000 copies.

Wheeler Wilcox's poem plaque in San Francisco

The following quote symbolizes Wilcox's unique mixture of new spirit movement, spiritualism and the theosophical belief in rebirth: “As we think, act and live here today, so we form the structures of our homes in the spiritual sense after we leave the earth, and we form the karma of later lives, thousands of years before us, on this earth and other planets. Life will take on new dignity and provide new interests for us as we come to the realization that death is a continuation of life and work on a higher plane. "

The last words of her autobiography The Worlds and I :

“From this mighty warehouse (of God and the Hierarchy of Spiritual Beings) we may gain knowledge and wisdom and receive light and strength as we roam through the preparatory room on earth, which is only one of the innumerable rooms in our Father's house. Remember these things. "

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Her most famous verses begin her poem Solitude :

Laugh and the world laughs with you,

Weep, and you weep alone;

The good old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you,

Cry and you cry alone;

Good old earth must borrow its joy

But has enough worries of its own.

Web links

Commons : Ella Wheeler Wilcox  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ella Wheeler Wilcox Biography and Poems
• Cordula's web poems in German and English
• Ella Wheeler Wilcox - an advanced soul