Joan and the English colonization of America

Rudolf Steiner had this interesting take on how Joan of Arc affected world history, from a 1915 lecture.

At that time it was indeed the Christ impulse acting in Joan of Arc, through its Michaelic servants, that prevented a possible merging of France and England, causing England to be forced back onto its island. And this achieved two things: first, France continued to have a free hand in Europe. This can be seen if we study the history of France over the following centuries — the essential element of the French spirit was able to influence European culture entirely without hindrance. The second thing which was achieved was that England was given its domain outside the continent of Europe. This deed, brought in through Joan of Arc, was a blessing not only for the French but also for the English, compelling them to take up their domain.

The reason the English later built an empire in America and elsewhere, Steiner implies, is that Joan had prevented them from building an empire in Europe.

This is synchronistically interesting. On December 29, 2020, after the sync fairies had brought Joan to my attention and just three days before my direct encounter with her, I noted that Joan's surname was sometimes written as Dare rather than Darc and connected that with the name of the first English child born in America.

Dare as an alternative form of Joan's surname is interesting because it suggests Virginia Dare -- whose given name, Virginia, has the same meaning as La Pucelle.

On March 30, 2022, I noted that John Dee also had a name suggestive of the Maid's.

According to Wikipedia, John Dee's surname comes from the Welsh word for "black." In other words, his name was John Dark.

At the time, I didn't know what to make of this link. Dee, a spy and magician, seemed to have nothing to do with the purity of Joan, and associating the two seemed almost blasphemous. Now it makes a bit more sense, if we accept Steiner's idea that Joan's defeat of the English set in motion the chain of events that resulted in the creation of the British Empire. John Dee was the one who coined the term British Empire, well before any such empire existed, and then pushed Queen Elizabeth to make it a reality by colonizing the New World -- a colonization which symbolically began with the birth of Virginia Dare in 1587.

My recent posts about John Dee have focused on the event of April 27, 1592. I learned of the Steiner lecture quoted above through an email I was sent on April 27, 2022 -- but which I didn't discover until last night because it had been sent to my spam folder.

The white doe

My last post connects Joan of Arc with Virginia Dare. Virginia means "maiden," as does Joan's traditional title La Pucelle, and some contemporary documents give Joan's father's surname as Dare rather than Darc. Virginia Dare was, according to legend, transformed into a white doe -- and the female name associated with Doe is Jane, another form of Jeanne/Joan.

Them I thought, wait, isn't there something in Plutarch about a white doe? Well, yes, there is. The following is from his Life of Sertorius.

Spanus, a plebeian who lived in the country [of Lusitania], came upon a doe which had newly yeaned and was trying to escape the hunters. The mother he could not overtake, but the fawn — and he was struck with its unusual colour, for it was entirely white — he pursued and caught. And since, as it chanced, Sertorius had taken up his quarters in that region, and gladly received everything in the way of game or produce that was brought him as a gift, and made kindly returns to those who did him such favours, Spanus brought the fawn and gave it to him.

Sertorius accepted it, and at the moment felt only the ordinary pleasure in a gift; but in time, after he had made the animal so tame and gentle that it obeyed his call, accompanied him on his walks, and did not mind the crowds and all the uproar of camp life, he gradually tried to give the doe a religious importance by declaring that she was a gift of Diana, and solemnly alleged that she revealed many hidden things to him, knowing that the Barbarians were naturally an easy prey to superstition. He also added such devices as these. Whenever he had secret intelligence that the enemy had made an incursion into the territory which he commanded, or were trying to bring a city to revolt from him, he would pretend that the doe had conversed with him in his dreams, bidding him hold his forces in readiness. Again, when he got tidings of some victory won by his generals, he would hide the  messenger, and bring forth the doe wearing garlands for the receipt of glad tidings, exhorting his men to be of good cheer and to sacrifice to the gods, assured that they were to learn of some good fortune.

By these devices he made the people tractable, and so found them more serviceable for all his plans; they believed that they were led, not by the mortal wisdom of a foreigner, but by a god.

Sertorius's white doe was supposed to be an envoy of Diana -- a virgin goddess whose symbol is the bow and who might therefore be called La Pucelle d'Arc.

Maiden name

Who was Noah's wife? Joan of Ark.

Who first said "Real women have curves"? Joan of Arc.

It's a funny name. Most people, including myself until I looked it up, would probably assume that there is a place somewhere in France called Arc and that Joan or her family hailed from there. There isn't. Apostrophes were not used in those days, and Jeanne d'Arc is likely just as much a mistake as, say, Jacques of Fenbach or Jefferson d'Avis. Her father's surname (never applied to herself during her lifetime) just happened to begin with the letter d and was later misinterpreted. Joan's father is most often called Jacques Darc in contemporary sources, but variant spellings include Dare, Dars, Dart, Darx, Day, Tarc, and Tart.

I mentioned in a comment to my last post that d'Arc suggests the black (dark) rainbow (arc). The variant Dart is also interesting, since an arc is a bow and a dart is an arrow.

Dare as an alternative form of Joan's surname is interesting because it suggests Virginia Dare -- whose given name, Virginia, has the same meaning as La Pucelle. Legend has it that Virginia Dare was transformed into a white doe. An unknown woman is referred to as Jane Doe -- Jane being nowadays more common than Joan as the English form of the name Jeanne.

And of course no post like this would be complete without a guest appearance by our favorite bird. When Virginia Dare and her fellow colonists disappeared, one of the only clues they left behind was three letters carved on a tree: CRO.