Santiago Bovisio E-Book

Fabiana Mastrangelo

• Herausgeber: Editorial Autores de Argentina
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 554

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Santiago Bovisio, Master of America contains two parts I) Don Santiago, Life and Work of Mr. Santiago Bovisio; II) Testimonies about Don Santiago.It contains sources used to prepare the biography of Don Santiago. It is a spiritual duty to allow that ALL may read the wisdom expressed by testimonies of his disciples, because the Message of Don Santiago and his Holy Work are Universal Essentially, as an educator, Santiago Bovisio and choose America to carry out his labor. His work reflects this. He created Cafh (1937, Buenos Aires), for Spiritual Development, spread today throughout America, Europe, Middle East, and Oceania. In addition, he established the American Spiritualistic University (1940, Rosario); the Argentine San Martin Educational Union (1943, Cordoba); the Santa Rosa College, later called "Leo Bovisio" College (1948, Embalse, Cordoba); and the School of the Aesthetic Cultural Union in Cuyo (Argentina), among other works. The educational role and teaching of Don Santigo are present in different dialogues and testimonies of his disciples, because a primordial axis of his work was to teach to live and he created a method for it.

Leseprobe

fabiana mastrangelo

SANTIAGO BOVISIO

Master of America

–life, work and testimonies–

Editorial Autores de Argentina

Mastrangelo, Fabiana

Santiago  Bovisio  /  Fabiana  Mastrangelo.  -  1st  ed  .  -  Ciudad  Autónoma  de  Buenos Aires : Autores de Argentina, 2017. 

Digital book, EPUB 

Archivo Digital: descarga y online 

ISBN 978-987-711-831-5 

1. Biography. 2. Spiritual Growth. . I. Título. 

CDD 158.1

Editorial Autores de Argentina

www.autoresdeargentina.com

Mail:[email protected]

Cover design: Justo Echeverría

Layout: Inés Rossano

To my parents for transmitting me their love of Santiago Bovisio and Holy Work through the spiritual truth of his own life

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Explanatory Note

First Part

Don Santiago

Life and Work of Mr. Santiago Bovisio

Warning on Occasion of the Second Edition

By Way of a Prologue

Introduction

Childhood and Adolescence

First years in America

Beginning of the work

The awakening of souls in Rosario

“Rosario, the wheel that set in motion the expansion”

“Years of preparation”

“Do not lose an instant and educate souls”

The “Leo Bovisio” College

A New Stage on the Road

Expansion of the Work

The Teaching of Don Santiago

Don Santiago’s Presence

An Interview with Omar Lazarte, 2001.

Chronology of Mr. Santiago Bovisio’s Life and Work

Second Part

Testimoniesconcerning to Don Santiago

Homage to the spiritual friendship

A Dialogue with Joaquin Bovisio

Carlos Emilio Plüss, “fisher of souls”

Cafh in Argentina

Biography of Mr. Santiago Bovisio

A dialogue with Abraham Gurfinkel

A Dialogue with Amelia Bovisio

A dialogue with Beatriz Caselli

A dialogue with Luis Uhalt

A dialogue with Dora Holzer

Providential Economy

A dialogue with Sara Davidson

A dialogue with Paul Güida

A dialogue with Enzo Casalegno

Presence of Don Santiago

Adita Senzacqua’s Word

Return of Maitreya

Sources and Bibliography

I wish to express my appreciation to:

José Luis Kutscherauer for his support and readiness to promote the Work of the Founder of Cafh.

Joaquin Bovisio for being a permanent and unconditional source of consultation about his father’s Work.

José Eduardo Fadda for being with me in the publication ofSantiago Bovisio, Master of America.

Each of those spiritual friends –of yesterday and today– for having born witness regarding Don Santiago’s Teaching and Presence.

Foreword

Don Santiago’s message1 and his Holy Work are Universal. It is for this main reason that I am publishing Santiago Bovisio, Master of America, which includes the second (Argentinean) reviewed edition of the book Don Santiago, life and work of Mr. Santiago Bovisio and the first edition of Testimonies about Don Santiago. A holy duty consists in letting ALL read the spiritual richness of words uttered by his disciples as testimonies.

Don Santiago said: “Since the year 2000, people will begin to speak of me”. In 2003, I published the first biography of the founder of Cafh, Mr. Santiago Bovisio.2 Its purpose was to commemorate the 100 years of his birth as an attempt to approach his working life. Later, Santiago Bovisio’s life and work, through presentations of the book, traveled throughout several Argentinean cities (Mendoza, Godoy Cruz, Rosario, Tucuman, Tunuyan, Buenos Aires, Salta, San Luis, Embalse, and Santa Rosa de Calamuchita) and countries (Italy, Bolivia, and Costa Rica). Moreover, it was Declared of Cultural Interest by Cities of Mendoza and Godoy Cruz; and editions have been published in Bolivia (2003) and Brazil (2007). The latter has been translated into Portuguese.

Santiago Bovisio, Master of America contains material gathered during my research started in 1996 when Mr. Omar Lazarte called me to carry out the History of Cafh. The initial purpose of this project was to carry out two books; one about the first part of Cafh’s history, related to its first Spiritual Director, Santiago Bovisio; and another part about its Second Spiritual Director, Jorge Waxemberg. Such idea involved the integration of the teaching, life, and work of both Directors. Eventually, the said book has been carried out about the first Spiritual Director of Cafh because Mr. Jorge did not consider appropriate a book about his own person, although he was invited several times before and after Don Santiago had been issued.

The historic time is, as much as life, dynamic and diverse. So, for instance, self-sacrifice and reactions of our grandfathers are different from our own ways. A true understanding of testimonies arises from the visualization of that dynamic dimension in a distinct context of spiritual experiences. As a suggestion for readers, any generalization should be set aside considering that what is helpful to a person is helpful to all. A result of it may be only a partial view of the spiritual phenomenon and also of the rich content of testimonies.

As in “Plato’s Dialogues”, his teacher Socrates is present, likewise Don Santiago is present: essentially he was an educator and chose America to carry out his work. Thus it is reflected in his work: he created Cafh (a path of inner development), the Spiritualistic American University in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, the “General San Martin” Educational Union, the “Leo Bovisio” College (Embalse, Cordoba, Province), and the “Merceditas de San Martin” School (Mendoza, Province), among other works. By self-definition, Santiago Bovisio was “a teacher of didactic”). This discipline is made up of strategies, of which the teacher makes use to transmit or promote a significant apprenticeship in the pupil. In other words, through didactic the teacher can approach the suitable word, method and silence for the development of the disciple. The educational role and teaching of Don Santiago are present in different written dialogues and testimonies because a primordial axis in his work was to teach to live, and he created a method for such purpose.

My father Hugo Humberto Mastrangelo was one of those blessed by a dialogue with Don Santiago. My father entered Cafh on June 1959, in Rosario, Santa Fe Province. Here is his comment about the first time he met Don Santiago: “That happened in 1958 and I was accompanied by my Superior who previously had prepared me. He talked much about him, and that day he said: “You will get to know a saint”. I carried a letter of an aspirant3 and Don Santiago asked of me to read it to for him. While reading it, he looked straight at me very intently. Later he said: “Gringo, now I know whence I know you”. I immediately asked: “Don Santiago, what do you say? What do you mean?”. He replied: “Sorry forthe comment”. This was our first meeting, at least in this life.”

It is very likely that the reader may consider that this brief testimony about my father is “subjective”, and he would by right. In my view, it is an act of spiritual thanksgiving because, since I have reached the age of reason, my father has spoken of Don Santiago. My father had a black and white picture of a Lord of calm face and wearing a suit. This image was on his bedside table. This question was ever raised in my childish mind: “Who is that man?”. And he replied: “You will know it when you grow up”.

Already “grown up” –during my adolescence– I began to enter “the holy history of Don Santiago”, starting from stories related by my father, which in my opinion belonged to a heavenly world. I listened just at my father, my mother, and relatives of both. Tradition and oral testimony were the common spaces of these relates. There were no books or documents to consult as to know more things, and this widened the legend.

I was attracted by the “enthusiasm” of my parents who explained to me not only his life and work but especially his essential teaching and doctrine. They taught me how go beyond personal insights that prevent from knowing and living deep verities. They taught me how to see the light behind Don Santiago and not to stop just on the physical side of Don Santiago, whom I never met because he died before I was born. But I feel I have known him all my life.

I must express especial thanks to Mr. Omar Lazarte for having been convoked has a historian to work on the History of Cafh. Such work enabled me to discover holy files which enriched my spirit and led me to a period of time where the force of the transforming past was present so as to dissolve those temporary variables which restrict the human understanding.

An integral vision of history encourages me, in this sense, to write these lines. Each stage has a teaching which completes and complements previous teachings. Far from being opposite, they are integrated and included like parts of a hologram. In this regard Michel Foucault4 describes the history of truth in general differentiating demonstration-truth from event-truth.

The first is based on scientific practice; it is the truth discovered through method, and in it there is a subject-object relation. It is at the doctrinal order and may be based on experience. Since Renaissance this truth has been increasing its prestige through scientific-rational thought, by overshadowing the event truth; according to Foucault, “the knowledge-truth (…) has parasitized the event-truth”.

The event-truth is revealed. Such truth is not repeated, and has its geography, his time, and his privileged, exclusive messengers.5 That truth has strength to connect with the divine, and those who are connected with that force are immediately transformed because they receive the strength of a holy lightning. This truth passes as fast as a ray, and is linked to kairos: occasion or opportunity which should be taken. For this reason, a truth like this should be held, explained, and written. Here is the purpose of writing about Don Santiago.

A demonstration truth and an event truth are not opposed but complemented. This insight of the truth and history not only integrates but opens the way to diversity. According to our particular characteristics, we are able to live one truth more than the other, and also to be in harmony with those who live more another truth. If we stay at a stage or aspect of reality, we become paralyzed and dogmatized because we do not understand that a stage after the event derives from the former and explains it. It is a further development of the initial idea. Moreover, if we confront a truth with another truth, we come back to the past of opposite poles, which closes the human understanding and the path to diversity.

An event acts in the area of a historic and meta-historic plane. The first is lived by those who were witnesses and main actors of the past. The second plane is projected on those who were not contemporary with the event but experience and are identified with the force of the idea and feeling of that moment. Thus, in meta-history, an event is updated and transcendence of the historic fact is confirmed. It is important to make it clear that not every action of the past acts on the meta-historic plane. The latter occurs in significant facts which are beyond particular or personal interests or situations, and spatial and temporary variables are broken by the force of their ideal.

For example, during more than 2000 years, men and women were subjects of the King and had no individual rights. The French Revolution transformed this situation establishing ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity, and the condition of citizen without any distinctions of creed, race, or social rank. These ideas spread all over the world influencing the Constitutions and forms of government of new States. The force of those ideas and their scope for expansion go beyond space (France) and time (year 1789), and are still in force. In the spiritual aspect, we may mention, for instance, Saint Francis of Assisi, who 1200 years after Christ, has lived the ideal of “being a poor among the poor” and has experienced the Christic transformation.

In both cases –French Revolution and life of Saint Francis of Assisi– an event is updated, that is, the past becomes present through force of ideas made lives in different spaces and times. This situation occurs in the meta-historic plane.

Taking up those truths classified by Foucault, the purpose of this book is to affirm the truth revealed by Don Santiago. In Testimonies it is demonstrated how that truth gives a force kept by a person who internalizes it and identifies with it. “Force, calm and love are the world’s salvation”, Don Santiago stated.

We are all a part of the truth. Those who have lived under the miraculous aura of his life and work had the privilege of being eye-witnesses of truth. Those who have as their mission to affirm that truth are receiving energy from that transcendent, unique time: from that heavenly ray. Those who are developing the doctrine derived from the event vivify a true knowledge transformed by them into experience.

During a Spiritual Self-Communion hour timetabled for Teaching, several Superiors of Cafh were called to speak, and at the end Don Santiago said: “Mr. Jorge has the doctrine of Cafh”, because it had been integrally interpreted by him alone. This was confirmed the following years because, as Spiritual Director of Cafh, Mr. Jorge has extraordinarily continued to expand the doctrine. He was a necessary and transforming complement for developing the Work created by Santiago Bovisio.

As I wrote in the first paragraph, ALL of us are enabled to receive and vivify the event truth transmitted by Don Santiago and the demonstrative truth developed by Jorge Waxenberg. I repeat the word ALL because it reflects the proposed opening up and expansive participant love convoked by the third Spiritual Director of Cafh, Jose Luis Kutscherauer.

Fabiana Mastrangelo, 2008.

1 The first disciples of Santiago Bovisio began to call him “Don” Santiago as a sign of loving respect. This expression has remained in the oral tradition of the Cafh’s members in relation to its founder.

2 “Mr.” or “Mrs.” in the context of Cafh’s history as respectful words relate to those who have reached a high grade of commitment with the Work.

3 An aspirant is a person interested in joining Cafh.

4 FOUCAULT, Michel. El poder psiquiátrico, F.C.E., Buenos Aires, 2007, pages 265-274.

5 Geography of Don Santiago’s event is Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba, and Mendoza; his time: 1939-1962; and his privileged, exclusive messengers: testimonies.

Explanatory Note

The first part of Santiago Bovisio, Master of America, is, according to the Foreword, made of a biography based on a historic research published in 2003 under the title Don Santiago, life and work of Mr. Santiago Bovisio. Now such biography appears as a second reviewed edition and its purpose is to let new readers have access to the spiritual richness of this especial being, since the first edition is sold out.

The second part, Testimonies on Don Santiago, is published for the first time and formed by writings and dialogues of Mr. Bovisio’s disciples. The latter is a compilation of dialogues picked up by myself as a historian during that research.

Testimonies and interviews made with disciples are partial insights screened by time and personal approaches. Therefore different perceptions can exist about the same topic or event. Here is a rich testimony in order to open a diverse and free range about experiences of life. Sources of historic research are precisely those experiences eventually corroborated by a historian through other sources, and incorporated into a biographic account close the historic truth.

On the other hand, readers of Life and Work of Mr. SantiagoBovisio have asked me, in several occasions and cities, about the meaning of terms related to the Work of Don Santiago. Moreover, in this edition testimonies are included containing expressions which are akin to the tradition and organization of Cafh. This is why explanatory notes have been necessarily included –as footnotes– when the said concepts appear for the first time.

Cafh is established in 1937, in Buenos Aires city, by Santiago Bovisio (1903-1982). Its second Cafh’s Spiritual Director is Jorge Waxemberg. In 2005, its current Third Spiritual Director is chosen –Jose Luis Kutscherauer– and performs his duties between 1963 and 2005. The Cafh’s Work expands in diverse Argentinean provinces and in the following countries: Germany, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, United States, France, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Switzerland, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The term Cafh is not an acronym but an ancient word of several meanings, among them: efforts made by a soul so as to reach the union with God, and self-control implied by such efforts. The primary Cafh’s task is the integral development of a human being through self-knowledge, and construction of harmonious relationships with life, the world, and the divine. From a social approach, its purpose is to promote the development of society through participation, team work, and daily actions that each individual may perform so as to relieve the suffering of thousands of human beings, and to work for the common good.

Santiago Bovisio

Master of America

First Part

Don Santiago

Life and Work of Mr. Santiago Bovisio

Warning on Occasion of the Second Edition

This book has focused a historic investigation in which all those who knew Mr. Santiago Bovisio have a prominent role, and also certain writings left by his first disciples, Mr. Carlos Plüss and Mr. Abraham Gurfinkel.

If we reduced the historic approach using in this work a simple chronologic and schematic list, we could incur a too much objectifying work, missing out on the chance to capture the spirit of Mr. Santiago Bovisio. Such spirit, in contrast, comes to occupy the center of the book thanks to the above mentioned testimonies, which are elaborated from the biographic method: “it gathers the experience of people, just as the latter are able to process and interpret it”.6

This means recognition: that the subjective is, in a historic work, part of the historic truth and, just as such, cannot be omitted in the investigation process. So, from an encompassing approach, neither the subjective can be removed from the objective, nor the text from the socio-cultural encompassing context and its vibrating facts. Edgar Morin proposes this global view of the human event stating: “Our point of view counts on the world and recognizes the subject (…). So, subject and object appear as two intimate emergences, which are inseparable from the relationship self-organized system/eco-system”.7

The absolute neutrality in an author through his statement has been something intended by ancient approaches. Today, an indispensable objectivity is complemented by the self-consciousness of the author who is aware of his own viewpoint and interpretation, and also is to explain himself in the work. This healthy balance prevents from falling into any panegyric, namely, from carrying out an apologetic work about a person who is studied, and even from offering a simple chronologic, schematic enumeration, just as it has been mentioned above.

Based on the foregoing, I must say that, while I did not personally know Mr. Santiago Bovisio, I am born at a home where day by day his life and work were topics of conversation and reflection.

The foregoing reasons force me to warn the reader about different “voices” which he may find throughout these pages: the investigator’s voice pointing to exactly tell and base through sources the historic event offered by her; the voice of testimonies bringing us closer to feelings and interpretations of the principal actors of the time; and finally, the voice of her who tries to construct and explain historic events within the frame of life philosophy which sustains the path of human development established by Santiago Bovisio, namely, Cafh.

Interpretation plurality and limits of this work

One of the fundamental notions, which Santiago Bovisio has taught, was this: “to give the soul doctrinal freedom”8, respecting the freedom of conscience of every human being. For this reason, I have respected the diversity of testimonies, which about Santiago Bovisio’s life and work I could find. It is my intention to make the reader freely reflect about life and work of this exceptional being without any attempt to impose a simple frame of thought (la pensée unique). We should not confuse history with doctrine, testimonies with proposals, or past with present. Also it is important to understand the “philosophy of history”, namely, the origin and evolution of ways of thinking in certain socio-historic contexts.

Santiago Bovisio was a human being with beliefs and errors, a language and way of perceiving reality. Every reader is entitled to feel it is a belief what for another person is an experience or evidence. I should give however a new warning: this presentation is not complete, since still it is much to investigate and reflect about his life and teaching. In the first edition of Don Santiago (2003) we had set a target: to commemorate the centennial of Santiago Bovisio’s birth with a book trying a first approach to his personal trajectory. We have accomplished that objective.

6 SAUTU, Ruth. El método biográfico. La reconstrucción de la sociedad a partir del testimonio de los actores. Belgrano Publishing House, Buenos Aires, 1999, page 23.

7 MORIN, Edgar. Introducción al pensamiento complejo. Gedisa, Barcelona, 2000, page 64.

8 National Register of Cults, Form #2, Annexe 3, page 8, Buenos Aires, April 20, 1989.

By Way of a Prologue

Mr. Jorge Waxemberg, a continuer of the work founded by Santiago Bovisio, and Second Spiritual Director of Cafh, has written, in 1969, some words in honor of the Founder, On this occasion, we are transcribing and putting them by way of a prologue, because they are relevant and synthesize the life of Santiago Bovisio and his work in their spiritual depth: Cafh.

“Seven years is a sufficient period of time so as to value the life of a man: but in the event of Santiago Bovisio, still we are too much close to his figure and his personal memory and, especially, we are determined by the same time in which he has lived. These factors are to some extent limiting the necessary horizon in order to place an existence which, just as his own existence, has been life, teaching, and work.

We are not motivated by the intention of writing a panegyric; we do not believe in any homage of this kind. On the other hand, the close link that connected us with Mr. Santiago Bovisio and our affection for him place us at risk of moving his figure from his own temporary framework and making it ours, thus reducing his dimension to the influence that he had on us. Therefore, even we do not try to pass judgment on him; we are not the ones to do so.

But our commitment comes from his particular, extraordinary way of awakening us and guiding our concerns, from the area of inner freedom in which he has taught us to develop spiritual possibilities, and the ability to think, feel, and carry out it.

If Mr. Santiago Bovisio had been just a friend, a guide, or an advisor, our commitment would be only with recalling circumstantial events, or those remarkable gifts of the spiritual director, which he poured over a small number of disciples; the direct influence of a person cannot go beyond a small circle. But an influence of this kind does not count. The value of an existence is not conditioned by any anecdotic memories, personal characteristics, or small life stories. A life of the one who is committed with the human being is outside the framework of his time, and is projected on a dimension that today we are not able to ascertain.

Mr. Santiago Bovisio’s commitment with every human being is committing us today with our time and our world. It obliges us to make of it and of his teaching a property, and to interpret his life and his thinking according to our particular approaches.

We have some few data to make a biography. He did not use to speak of himself; in his relationship with us he acted in such way that it did no occur to us any questions about his past.

Actually, data of a personal story cannot entirely explain how a person is. Life cannot be enclosed in a file card. When such life is just the supporting point of an idea, biographic notes reduce that idea denaturalizing it.

Mr. Santiago Bovisio is born in Bergamo, Italy, on September 29, 1903; educated in Torino and Venice, he embarked to America on January 10, 1926.

In America, he would carry out his mission, would find his disciples, and would cast his ideas on a spiritual work. But the chosen land opened its arms many years later; it gave him his children after severely testing him. He did not bring with him economic means so as to facilitate his labor; even he did not make use of his intelligence to amass goods and wealth. They were not few, however, those who came unto him and translated into material wealth that exclusive, spiritual guide offered by him.

Life does not offer several roads and chances. But so as to carry out an everlasting work, we are to focus our efforts living just for one objective, one idea.

Mr. Santiago Bovisio founded Cafh on 3 March, 1937. Apart of that date, his life identifies with Cafh; his thinking, with the teaching; and his destiny, with the destiny of his spiritual sons.

His objective was spiritual, but years of work and patience were necessary so as to break down, through understanding and aspirations of his disciples, really spiritual concerns, of wishes of particular and personal realization. He neither belonged to a dogma nor led in any way to reverence his own person or to believe in his teaching. But he stated it was indispensable a supporting point in order to achieve any realization.

He offered the teaching as each one was in the position of assimilating and realizing it. He taught to think, to discern by oneself what one actually wants and which his means are available to achieve. He cleared the concept about the spiritual from its emotional and sensitive meanings, and even from its magical and hidden implications, differentiating what is mpossible from what is demonstrable, what is reachable by the intellect from what is beyond our ability to understand. But over and above all, he guided each one to achieve his spiritual vocation with the widest inner freedom. He left the confirmation of basic assumptions to the area of the individual experience. It is not important to debate what cannot be evidence, but to find the way of developing ourselves for the sake of our long-awaited fullness.

He did not made use of his moral authority, personal realization, knowledge, or respect inspired by him as a resource for being followed, but he taught each one to move forward by his own means, and to achieve on his own that insight only revealed from within the being.

He identified with one in such a way that we felt how the teaching was emerging from ourselves.

He distrusted spiritual realizations that are not translated into practical deeds. In this sense, he was eminently practical and objective. He was deeply respectful of all ideas, but judging them by their evident results. Every idea that is not rooted in experience, any aspiration that is not translated into realization, is just Utopian idealism, lost time leading to confusion and skepticism.

He studied different philosophical doctrines and experienced fundamental spiritual paths. He taught to respect every being that, through different paths and confessions is ion search for the divine union according to his faith. Above differences of creeds, he especially showed the fundamental unity of the revelation that supports them.

He taught that renouncement is the loftiest expression of that love, and made of renouncement the path of love.

Cafh is the expression of that love; it is synthesis of the idea, work, and message transmitted by Mr. Santiago Bovisio.

Cafh is a gathering of souls searching for self-development and inner freedom through a method suitable for individual characteristics.

Cafh it is open to all beings; but it does not feel to be the necessary path for all of them. It would mean to ignore the human nature, and different vocations and chances of the individuals. Human history teaches this: there is no social structure or institutionalized religion that, until now has been universal, despite tireless efforts of his adepts to reach it.

Each one of different social theories says that it possesses the truth, but only knows one thing: to conquer mankind breaking it to pieces.

Successive wars and social and religious conflicts had left us more and more alone and confused, not knowing who can help us, or where we can find support. The most beautiful spiritual, social, and economic doctrines have systematically and factually made mockery of the being, forgetting that it is that being who can give them sense. Meanwhile, a climate of violence and insecurity is exacerbated still further. The easier way is to seek outside those who are responsible for our evils, and propitiatory victims for exempting ourselves from feelings of guilt.

Mr. Santiago Bovisio did no believe that the success of Cafh could consist of having some day a large number of members. What really matters is to grow in direct experience, since through the latter a theory may become a reality.

Cafh chooses a hard and sometimes painful path, namely, each one seeks within himself the root of evil, ignorance, and confusion, discovering through the same way a better attitude towards life, and values that enable us to understand as a whole what we are, our possibilities, and our path.

Renouncement is the idea behind the teaching of Cafh. The term renouncement fails to define the idea of renouncement that is transmitted by the teaching of Cafh, but we are unable to find another term more suitable for expressing it.

From an attitude of renouncement comes a behavior, a location in front of life and the world, and also a vision enabling us to expand our state of consciousness.

While opposing individual and society, personal rights and social responsibility, subjective reality and objective work; while separating spiritual world and material reality, and spiritual values being just a scaffolding to cover a reality in which we live and fight without morality and God. Also the world will be divided, unavoidably leading its troubles to further suffering and destruction.

Cafh is offering us its teaching against another solution added to a long list of remedies for mankind. Human problems are not cured with solution, when for solution one understands a system opposed to another system. We feel that today we need a new inner dimension that enables us to understand the nature of these troubles that we are suffering; in one word, necessarily we should internally grow and reach a state of consciousness translated into a new individual and collective reality. In one way or another, at present all human sectors at are seeking that development, groping and suffering.

For our inner development and a wider state of consciousness we need suitable tools and technique of inner work. The renouncement path begins seeking in ourselves the root of evil, which we want to solve outside, and even to solve in our relationship with ourselves, with those around us, and with society.

If we focused our attention on ourselves, we would live an unreality; a personal happiness disconnected from the collective reality is non-existent. Our renouncement is to be openly expressed in our attitude, our behavior, and those effects caused by us in the area in which we live as a whole. As attitude and perception, we might say that renouncement gets manifest through presence, participation and reversibility.

Presence, because we focus our attention on the present and total reality, without fleeing to a particular separate reality: we are present.

Participation, because in remaining present, our inner reality expands and covers the whole reality; human being, world, and universe.

It is good that we notice the human problems; but mere knowledge is not enough for responding to them in a suitable way. Only when we participate we realize that we are not able to isolate our problem from everyone’s problem. Therefore, we assume the responsibility.

On the other hand, we cannot separate that which we are from that which we make. Extraordinary technical advances show our remarkable external conquests, while separateness, destruction, and violence reveal our inner reality.

Participation implies expansion of our consciousness of being: to be means to be in all. Such participation might be just a dream of visionaries if it is not expressed as a consequent behavior in all human beings and in their lives and problems.

Reversibility in practice implies to overcome our tendency to reduce our vision, looking only at a side of things. Our thought works in pairs of opposites: to be or not to be, and to win or to lose. In this way, we assimilate renouncement with loss. But life has more sides that the front and back. The reversibility reveals us that to lose is to win, that not to be is to be, and that renouncement is liberation. As we put our perception in a wider context, we achieve and get a wider and wider sense of being, possessing, and realizing.

Mr. Santiago Bovisio –usually as we called him– never tried to endure through fame or wealth; but he left us an inner wealth which neither depends on vicissitudes of life nor fades with time.

Jorge Waxemberg

Buenos Aires, July 3, 1969.

Introduction

This first part deals with the life and work of Santiago Bovisio, the founder of Cafh. His disciples lovingly called him “Don Santiago” and in this way we are to refer him. His life was a message about a new way of thinking, feeling and acting, and he has chosen Argentina to sow that message. Thus, his initial sentence in the first course written down in 1937 was: “New ideas and works are prepared for the world”. And what about the new? A universal thought, for all human beings, which encouraged capturing what is good, real, and applicable of new ideas and different philosophies.

His universal thought led to eclecticism in the widest sense of this term,9 in other words, to distinguish what is estimated better in each doctrine. This should not be understood as mere accumulation or mosaic of ideas, which would be the case in syncretism, but like complementary, dynamic visions enabling to construct the historic scenery of the reality and, in this way, to avoid any type of dogmatic crystallization and fragmentation of the human coexistence.

Don Santiago made of respect and deep understanding of diverse philosophies his style of life. That understanding arose from his empathy with souls and with the world and life. The teaching transmitted by him through his daily deeds, or that he synthesized through his writings arose from concrete needs required by the very society. That was the basis, riches, and universality of his teaching. For this reason, he took from each philosophy or holy universal tradition what a being o human beings as a whole needed for that time. He never wished to publish his writings in books or magazines because he felt that it could become a dogma and forget real needs of the souls and of mankind as a whole. His incredible inner freedom and his love to beings were stars guiding his thoughts.

This immediate grasping of what the human beings need arose not only from his deep spirituality but even from his “rare intelligence” as Jorge Waxemberg wrote (1969). Don Santiago had the gift of clairvoyance, of knowing the type of illness that the sick were suffering, of visualizing the past of persons, et cetera. Testimonies about these and other gifts can be found in accounts of disciples and relatives and, in a wider proportion, among those who knew him in the first stage of his life.

I felt necessary to select and include some of these testimonies because this type of data came out in ninety percent of interviews in depth. Therefore, those accounts were a reality for the higher percentage of witnesses of the past and, in order to elaborate a biography closer as much as possible to the historic truth I felt that they should the included beyond any explanatory statement that science may give today about these paranormal phenomena.

Thus, when the first unmanned space vehicle got out –the Sputnik– Don Santiago said: “I will not see the marvels of the space age, but you and your children have no idea of what you will be seeing”.10 On this point, his disciples told him how much they had enjoyed his last writings, to which he replied; “Yes, but it is not there what I might really be able to write”. His disciples were amazed and asked why, and he said: “Because you could make fun of me (…) imagine if I spoke of cities in space… pressurized”.11 Let us remember that in those days (1962) the concept of “pressurization” still was not common and there were no experiences of long stays of human beings in space as it is occurs today.

On another occasion, a person told Don Santiago that he was going to have a surgery, and in that instant the latter requested a pencil and paper. Drawing a picture, he said: “Here is your illness, this is bothering you”. That person brought the paper to the doctor and nothing said about the drawing, and the doctor said: “This drawing has been made by a great radiologist; your illness is exactly there!”.12

Don Santiago was aware of how his “powers” could lead to fascination or skepticism in some people. In this last case, here is the testimony of his son Joaquin: “I remember the time when we went to the wake of a friend and Daddy told me: His astral body was, in his lips, with his desire to live. So I asked: “How do you know that you see those things that you see, and that they are not a product of your imagination? He replied: I will know it never in my life, but for me those things are as real as when I see you”. About this point, Joaquin reflected: “My father accepted my skepticism”.13

But he stopped gradually referring to accounts of this type; for this reason, those who knew him in his last years of life, did not hear on these testimonies. When asked about topics dealt with by the first members of Cafh, Jorge Waxemberg replied: “When I joined Cafh, I heard on topics related to supra-physical phenomena. But those topics I heard from Don Santiago from then on had nothing to do with it. Specifically we dealt with topics related to the spiritual development of a person”.14

At a certain point, Don Santiago interrupted and said: “I stopped practicing clairvoyance when I realized that my margin of error was thirty five percent”.15 Miss Beatriz Caselli commented on this topic: “He had the gift of clairvoyance and conscious contact with the astral world. He gave evident proofs of his powers to the founders of Cafh. But practices of this kind were outside the mystical asceticism of Cafh. This is why he discontinued his demonstrations and never spoke again of them; he did not give importance to his own gifts”.16

Once, a group of members of Cafh were reading a book written by Paul Brunton about masters of India. These young men were marveled at paranormal phenomena of every type experienced by those masters. Don Santiago listened to them in silence through the entire period when those young men were reading such book; finally, Don Santiago broke the silence in a very particular way, as Jorge Waxemberg commented: “I remember an afternoon when he was writing on a piece of paper, and gave it to one of us to be read in one of our conferences. Such piece of paper had a series of sentences of this kind: ‘Such day, such month, and such year I did this: such day, such month, and such year I did…’ In this list was contained everything that he had done, an enormous amount of unbelievable things done by him. For example: ‘For so long I checked the heart rate,17for so long I stopped my breath, I did this… I did that…’. At the end, he said: ‘But I realized that all that I did could not bring me closer to a true spiritual realization because I was losing power in the event of halting the exercises’. So, the pathway was another one. This was as far as it went, and we said no more about it”.18

According to Don Santiago, it was vitally relevant to make of developing the human being an evident, demonstrable, and permanent truth. He taught that one had to find support in true facts, that the spiritual life had to be demonstrated by evidences, and that only an evident knowledge can be taken as a truth. He was ever encouraging his disciples so that the spiritual development could become a reality, even on the metaphysical side. He taught to take as real only those metaphysical phenomena that are evident or demonstrable. He felt that already there were chances to demonstrate some of those phenomena, but that until that may occur, they should be understood as possibilities, not as reality.

He intended that those coming to Cafh should try to find, by his own means, the path towards themselves. He said in a letter sent to Carlos Plüs: Previously I withdrew from friends in theworld because I noticed they were looking for my psychical gifts, but now I have to hide from many persons (from spiritual friends) so that they may learn to walk by themselves”.19

According to Don Santiago, one reaches inner freedom only when a human being has found by himself the sense of his life, and even means for reality to be true. Along these lines of work, he was a true pedagogue adapting didactic strategies to needs of the souls so that the latter could discover their pathway and travel through it.20

He was a free being, and for this reason it is not easy to write a biography about a person who spoke little of himself and “did not seek fame”. According to his disciples, Don Santiago was committed to developing souls. Oral testimonies mostly remember the following sentence repeated by him on different occasions: “Don’t follow me, but the light that is behind me”. He taught not to follow a person but the vocational feeling and the ideal which shines within each human being. For Don Santiago, the spiritual life was a fantasy in the event of not being translated into an evident and demonstrable truth. For him, the truth flowed from experiences. For this reason, as we said earlier, systematically he refused the publication of his writings despite suggestions made by his disciples in this sense.21

On this occasion, the publication of his life and work is made from a historic approach because of a hard task of compilation and documental analysis as basis for reconstructing the past. In addition, historic data here presented are not open to a mere schematization and chronologic enumeration, but are interpreted and analyzed with one purpose: to understand their dynamic and links.

From this approach, you can visualize a global prospective of history, which integrates events of the past into the warp and weft, not in a fragmented and sporadic way, but paying attention to their co-relations and projections in time. Thus, investigated topics have edges which are beyond any historic date in strict sense. Among those edges, and among the most outstanding, we find a philosophical, mystical, pedagogic-didactical, social, and economic edge. This weft of relationships necessarily leads to an interpretative plurality which enables that global conception about the historic event.

The evidence is based on oral and written sources. The latter have been elaborated appealing to the biographic method which consists of “the systematic use of vital documents, which describe moments and inflection points in the life of individuals. In these documents, self-biographies, biographies, personal diaries, letters, necrologies,22 stories, accounts of life, and chronicles of personal experiences are contained.

Among oral sources used in this work, you can find interviews in depth made by his disciples and relatives. Especial care has been taken, during interviews, to faithfully write down those ideas said by Don Santiago, but not their interpretations. An oral testimony always has, however, a margin of subjective contribution; for this reason, quotations appear in all cases as footnotes. Relevant historic data have been corroborated via as much written as oral.

Written sources are of diverse origin. Firstly, you can find his dreams and meditations, and his letters transcribed by his disciples. Second, there are writings of his first disciples, Carlos Plüs and Abraham Gurfinkel, who had written, in 1978 and 1979, respectively, with the purpose of giving a testimony about life and work of his friend and master. Also, we have consulted the institutional archive of Cafh Foundation and periodic publications: Corriere di Vigevano, La Capital and Tribuna, newspapers from Rosario, Santa Fe Province, and La Nacion, from Buenos Aires.

On the other hand, the contribution of Joaquin Bovisio’s family archive deserves especial attention. Thus, for example, much photographic material as possible, herein published, belongs to this archive.

Documentary sources, far from being exhausted, will surely continue to be investigated. The opening of new files will enable to widen the range of life and work of Don Santiago.

Finally, I should define who “Don Santiago” is. I believe, however, that there will be as many definitions as many readers can read these pages. Even, after re-reading them, a new vision nicely shall be found about how ‘Don Santiago is’. I am able only to bring some definitions given by those who knew him, and even to venture my own definition, not intending to exhaust it, because as Croce says, history is “related to present needs and to the present situation in which those events vibrate”.23

Don Santiago’s “expressions with each one were different (…) responding the receptiveness of someone else. He was a person with a janitor, he was different with Plüss, and even different with me. He did not change his voice or manners but treatment and type of relationship established by him as Spiritual Director (…) was according to one’s needs.”24

These words of Jorge Waxemberg are an example of being impossible to draw the figure of Don Santiago because his relationship was not precisely from personality but from his free, loving, and participative being.

The experience of the souls before his presence was of a deep spiritual communion and, at the same time, awakening to a different reality. They sensed how veils (prejudices, limits, attachments, pains, et cetera) which covered them, disappeared at that time, establishing a real “re-union of souls”. This was his outer and inner work. Outer one because he founded Cafh, which “is a re-union of souls seeking their inner liberation through an outer individual method”, and inner one because he made of his life this truth. Every oral and written testimony is expressing in different ways that atmosphere of freedom, participation and love inspired by his presence. His disciples and friends were intentionally seeking that encounter because it was “the best” that each being possesses. Latent potentials of the souls were patent to them; thus, they recognized by themselves their own chances to travel through the path of human development.

Next, I cite selected testimonies replying to these questions: What did they feel during their first meeting with Don Santiago? What did they internally experience before his presence? These testimonial accounts have this purpose: to widen the prospective of Don Santiago as he is.

“(…) to be with him involved to remain entirely alert about myself (…). It is as if being with him, even thinking of him, sets an alert about oneself, as if one is permanently looking at his own inner X-ray” (Jorge Waxemberg, Buenos Aires, 1998).

“Through his own life, he taught us the realization technique which basically consists of disappearing as an isolate person, breaking labels of separativity, which only alienate each other. He showed us this through his relationship with his disciples, since in his relationship with us he disappeared to such an extent that never it occurred to us to put him questions about his past” (Carlos Plüss, Buenos Aires, 1978).

“He was the Master of net spirituality. To such an extent his inner freedom and his free teaching reached that his disciples came from most different religious and philosophical areas, and the master-disciple relationship was immediately established and flowed from his inner freedom without any obstacles (…)” Abraham Gurfinkel, U.S.A., 1979).

The first time that I saw him I did not perceive anything that in particular might distinguish him, except his shining eyes and his penetrating glance, which however was sweet and mild when he looked at the aura or when he told us about some astral presence, which had visited us (...). His way of being was extremely simple and natural (…). This natural behavior in his deeds responded always to the need of those around him (…). His manners were always polite but not simulated. His clothes were modest and impeccable (…) He was a presence before which one dropped his eyes because one felt to be in front of something enormous and at the same time one came closer to his paternal heart like his more human being (…) he neither was nor felt on a pedestal, he was beside us with humility and simplicity” (Miss Beatriz Caselli, Embalse, Cordoba Province, 1998 and 2001).

“Without talking to us, he said a lot of things. As a 50 year-old man, I never saw again something like that; he was a Sun. Also, his figure was pure energy; we saw him and we did what we had to do, without telling us anything”. (Enzo Casalegno, Embalse, Cordoba Province, 2001).25

In the event of reducing a definition of Don Santiago as he really is, it would mean to forget the message of universal love which was his legacy of life. He gave his own life without limits and conditionings; even without requesting anything in return. Each one picked up that which his being required at that time. For this reason, as much those who lived beside him as those of us who have studied his life, are picking up that personal side of Don Santiago according to our interpretations and spiritual needs. This is called cognitive and propulsive retrospection so as to project ourselves towards the future in a permanent awakening according to the spiritual tuning in other times.

In short, and can say that Don Santiago came to Argentina to propose a new way of thinking, feeling and acting. His mission as a fact was gradually unveiled as he was developing his soul, entering the Argentinean idiosyncrasy, and listening at his disciples and their yearning beating in their hearts. All this meant an enormous human effort in him. His work was a process comprising his whole life, and his beginning was slow. Later, during the last years of his life, there was a dynamic process projected through the expansion of his work. This work has been continued and multiplied by the Second Spiritual Director of Cafh, Mr. Jorge Waxemberg.

Today, in continuing this expansive movement, I publish the biography26 of Don Santiago, carrying a rich message. A suggestion to the reader: please, try to discover that message avoiding any type of reductionism that certain limits of language might try to impose.

9 FERRATER MORA, José. Diccionario de Filosofía. Alianza, Barcelona, 1982.

10 Waxemberg, Jorge. Oral source, 1998.

11 Ibidem.

12 BOVISIO, Amelia. Oral source. Buenos Aires, 1978.

13 BOVISIO, Joaquin. Oral source. Buenos Aires, 1997.

14 Waxemberg, Jorge. Oral source cited above.

15 BOVISIO, J. Oral source cited above. Jorge Waxemberg has heard an account like this and with the same percentage from Don Santiago’s lips. Oral source. Embalse, Cordoba Province, Argentina, December 2001).

16 CASELLI, Beatriz. Oral source. Embalse, Cordoba Province, Argentina, 1998 and 2001. Miss Caselli entered the path in 1945, and the Community of Embalse in 1949. She was a school-teacher and principal in the Leo Bovisio College. For this reason, she was very close to Don Santiago and his wife Amelia, sharing with them the initial times when College and Community were established and placed at Embalse, Cordoba Province,

17 About this topic, Joaquin Bovisio remembered that when his father was at the Estancia of his great friend José Madariaga, the latter questioned the paranormal phenomena. Don Santiago told him then that he did not feel well, and José, who was a physician, took his pulse and found that he had no pulse. Alarmed, he wished to take him home, but Don Santiago, quite normally, said that he had voluntarily changed his own heart rate. (BOVISIO, J. Oral source cited above).

18 Waxemberg, J. Oral source cited above.

19 BOVISIO, Santiago. A letter to Carlos Plüs. September 10, 1948. Cited in: PLÜS, Carlos. Cafh in Argentina. Buenos Aires, 1978.

20 About it, you can read the interview to Mr. Omar Lazarte.

21 GURFINKEL, Abraham. Biography of Mr. Santiago Bovisio. U.S.A., 1979.

22 DENZIN, N.K. Interpretative Biography. Qualitative Research Methods. Newbury Park: Sage publications, 1989, Volume 17. Cited by SAUTU, Ruth, Cited Work, page 21.

23 CROCE, Benedetto. Historia como hazaña de la libertad. FCE, Mexico, 1960, page 9.

24 Waxemberg, J. Oral source cited, 1998.

25 Enzo was a member of the first Group of pupils in the College, situated at Embalse, whose founder was Don Santiago. Therefore, this testimony reflects the perception of a child, which today, sifted through time and experience, remains within him. Also, when Don Santiago went with Jorge Waxemberg to Italy (1959), Enzo was the only child whom Don Santiago sent a personal letter. (This account is enlarged in the chapter about the “Leo Bovisio” College.)

26 In this biography, its narrative style along with its method are according to Leonor Arfuch’s definition (2002): “The biography will move in an imprecise area between testimony, novel and historic account, adjustment to a chronology and invention of narrative time, detailed interpretation of documents, and figuration of reserved spaces only theoretically reached by one’s ego”.

Santiago and his mother Ester. Milan, 1911.

Source: Joaquin Bovisio

Childhood and Adolescence

Santiago Bovisio is born in the city of Bergamo, Lombardy region, South of Italy, on September 29, 1903. His father died when Santiago was an infant. Her mother’s name was Ester, and few years after being widowed she remarried a military. Santiago refused to go with them to different military destinations in Europe where her mother’s husband was sent. For this reason, he lived with his grandmother and his aunts Antonietta and Maria most part of his childhood in the city of Vigevano also belonging to Lombardy region.

Grandmother “Doña Delfina”. Source: Joaquin Bovisio

The grandmother’s spiritual influence

His grandmother fundamentally influenced the soul of Santiago. She was called Doña Delfina, and belonged to a traditional family from Vigevano: the Bocca Corsico Piccolini, probably some nobility title. His disciples recall that Don Santiago referred to her as “the grandma”. As an extraordinary, generous woman she was famous in that city because of her charity and generosity. On one occasion, in Christmas, she had prepared until late the food and table. The rest of relatives had gone to the midnight Mass, on Christmas. Santiago and his grandmother stayed at home to care of the house. The child looked at the illuminated and adorned pine tree in contrast with the opaque kerosene light and the reddish reflections of the large traditional fire. The grandma told him that the little Christ was born and rested on the manger adorned in green and exposed on the high altar with his little hands open and his arms outstretched as if he were inviting everybody. The child imagined how beautiful the church of the city would look that night. On this point, Don Santiago remembered: “In my little head, the large naves of the church were drawn full of lights, songs, incense, and serenity”. The peace of that instant was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Santiago was scared and hid in a corner of the dinning room because he knew that a very dangerous prisoner had escaped from jail that afternoon, and also that day an unknown and very suspicious man had been begging for alms. Then, her relatives had told grandma to let nobody in for any reason. But ignoring such recommendation, the old lady went to the door without fear, and serenely said: “Here is our Lord”. She opened the door and noticed that the man was that very dangerous, murderous fugitive. He was a little man with big eyes hidden behind thick eyebrows. Don Santiago remembered: “I know only one thing: my grandma serenely made him sit down at the table and served him a meal as if he were the householder”. Also, he washed his feet; this was traditionally done with the first one to arrive at the house on Christmas Eve. Later, with a parcel of supplies said goodbye to the visitor: “Now I will give you some few pesos, but later you will surrender to authorities”. Doña Delfina dialogued with him transmitting her love. The fugitive embraced her and cried. As soon as he opened the door, he did not hesitate to follow the grandmother’s advice. He gave himself up and confessed that his intention was to kill her, but when he saw her he was unable to do so. Never a person had treated him with such affection.

When the relatives arrived, the child told what had happened. The cries of them rose to the sky. But the grandmother just replied smiling “The poor may have remembered his mother!”. For a moment, such “poor guy” broke free of his burden and recovered his dignity as a human being. His entire being was invaded by that grandmother’s love.

Usually Doña Delfina gave everything she had, to such an extent that her daughters had to lock the wardrobes because when a person in need asked her someting, she gave out what was therein. It was the same with food: she did not hesitate to give a lunch prepared and ready to serve for one who knocked at her door and asked for something to eat.

Santiago and his grandmother. Turin, 1925.Source: Joaquin Bovisio

The Santiago’s aunts Antonietta and Maria at the house in Vigevano.

Source: Joaquin Bovisio.

Opening to the divine in his childhood

Love and deep trust in the divine was transmitted by Don Santiago’s grandmother. The love of God formed him in a real love of neighbor. It is this example that guided Santiago in his childhood and adolescence. That deep trust in the divine made of her grandmother a very believing person. Thus, among her wishes was that of seeing his grandson as a priest. Santiago attended a College of Passionists,27 as a boarder, in the town of Cameri, Novara province, Italian Piemonte region.28

It was at that College that Santiago studied from nine to fourteen-year old. Therein and in those days, life was very austere and ascetical. Their habit was of a fabric as rough as o hurt his legs, forming calluses on them.29 In that place and during his early adolescence, Don Santiago was aware of the contemplative life and an aspect of the mystical asceticism.

To feel the pain of others as our own pain