Mellie Uyldert was a female Dutch New Age writer, alternative healer, occultist, and astrologer who published about 30 esoteric books, selling over a million copies, making her a recognized person in the Netherlands. Of a conservative, peculiar, poetic, eccentric character, she was also controversial because of several unsettling claims that caused antagonism. In the 1970s she became a celebrity on Dutch television. Her publications cover fairy tales, herbal medicine, stones, metals, health, and gnomes. She also wrote poems.
Biography
Uyldert was the daughter of Marie Calisch, a teacher, and Emil Uyldert, both vegetarians who were followers of the back-to-nature Chaste Life movement. In 1912 her father Emil deserted the family, going to the United States and leaving Mellie’s mother the task of raising their daughter. At eighteen years old she became interested in astrology, taking her first lessons with a Freemason called Mr. Ram in Hilversum. In 1928 she joined the Dutch Philosophical Society but at age twenty-first she left it for lessons in esoteric philosophy including Theosophy and Indian-style astrology. In the same year 1928 she began teaching astrology, and in 1934 she published her first book, the vegetarian cookbook Manual for the Modern Kitchen, and in 1942 she started giving courses on herbs and lectures. From around 1947 she began writing in the "De Kaarsvlam", a bimonthly magazine produced in both English and German for some years by herself, years later published by Mellie Uyldert Foundation. Also for several years she was a journalist for the "Onkruid", a widely read Dutch New Age magazine, and wrote for the magazine Surviving the right Ecological Movement. Meanwhile, she was a teacher at naturopathic institutes such as the Academy of Natural Treatment, and "De Kosmos" in Amsterdam. However, in 1984 she was discredited by a booklet which accused her of alleged racist theories. Following these events Onkruid magazine ended its relation with her. She then moved to Kalmthout in Belgium, where eleven years before she had established the Oasis Mellie Uyldert Foundation, which was a center directed for natural therapeutic treatments. At a country house belonging to her foundation, Uyldert continued to write books, teaching courses, organizing workshops and giving lectures up to age 96. She lived her last years in the "Leendert Meeshuis", an anthroposophicalnursing home in Bilthoven until reaching 100.
Literary work
By 2008 Uyldert registered about 30 books with a total circulation around one million, with translations in German, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Danish. Uyldert reveals that the major interest over her work came when the World War began, turning people’s attention to spiritual issues, but in fact it dates from the nineteen sixties, helped by her involvement with environmental writings, and because it was a period of a belief in a new, peaceful, romantic world accompanied by numerous protests against the emergent and global mechanized world and belief in a New Age. She early discovered esoteric astrology, claiming it as a base of all sciences and regularly citing the East as source of ancient wisdom. According to her, people have only a short free will, and most of time the celestial bodies rule their destinies. Uyldert commonly focuses on some aspects of physical and spiritual diseases, regarding them as consequences of neglect of ancient knowledge and of the estrangement between man and nature. For instance she asserts that Chinese have had rules by 6000 years for which place a house should be built because the soil must provide good energy. As for herself, she claims to remember things from her past lives and have psychic abilities since childhood, although she states "The important thing is the understanding coming from within - clairvoyance is just a trick". However she claims esoteric knowledge for her writings about herbal medicine and nutrition where she argues the influence of nature spirits over the plants. Uyldert writes about healing, mystical, cultural, and magic properties of metals, stones, colors, and their influence over religions and traditions. She delivers her own interpretations of folkloric tales, human behavior, and many subjects, merging all with her astrologic knowledge. Sometimes producing very questionable assertions, she seems to balance the issue with many mystical verses and bucolic poems like those in her book "Het Levensritme". Ultimately she affirmed that her life was dedicated to rescuing contact between the occult world and living people.
