The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[On the banks of the great river, swollen and overflowing after heavy rains, the old ferryman lay in his little hut, tired from the day's exertions, and slept.

The ferryman – the lower forces of nature – rests on the far bank – the mental plane – of the river – the astral desire plan.

Then two will-o'-the-wisps come along: people in whom only Kama-Manas lives, that is, the lower mind, which draws its knowledge from the lower material plane. The will-o'-the-wisps want to pay the ferryman with their gold, which they shake out of themselves. He has no use for that; the lower mind cannot control the lower forces of nature. The ferryman gathers up the gold knowledge in horror.

If a piece of gold had fallen into the water, the stream,

— the passion —

which this metal cannot endure,

— gold and knowledge stir up the passions —

rose in terrible waves, engulfing the ship and me. And who knows how it would have gone for you! Take your money back with you,

says the ferryman.

We cannot take back what we have shaken off,

say the will-o'-the-wisps. Quite right too; earthly wisdom cannot pick up what it has let go. The ferryman demands his reward from the will-o'-the-wisps: fruits of the earth; three cabbages, three onions, three artichokes. The will-o'-the-wisps cannot give them to him, but they promise to get them. The ferryman carefully collects the gold in his cap and sails along the river to a rocky area on the same side where the will-o'-the-wisps are, who call to him in vain once more, where the water can never reach it, and pours the dangerous gold into a huge crevice; then he returns to his hut.

In this crevice [was] the beautiful green snake,

— the higher Manas —

which was awakened from its slumber by the coin falling down.

She devours the gold with eagerness, which melts in her interior and illuminates her, causing her joy and pleasure. Then she seeks the giver of the gold, paying no attention to hardships and dangers.

Very tired, she finally came to a damp reed where our two will-o'-the-wisps were playing now and then.

She is pleased to find kinship in them. The will-o'-the-wisps also greet her warmly, but say that they are

only related by appearance.

The snake feels uncomfortable in the presence of her acquaintance; she cannot stretch up to them and fears losing her own appearance. She asks the gentlemen about the origin of the gold, which she believes came down from the sky as a shower of gold. The will-o'-the-wisps shake with laughter and scatter new gold, which the snake devours with greed and thus becomes ever more radiant, while the will-o'-the-wisps diminish and shrink, but always remain merry. The snake wants to show her gratitude and promises to serve them.

The will-o'-the-wisps ask for directions to the beautiful lily – the highest bliss – and learn to their dismay and sorrow that she lives beyond the water, where they come from. They ask the snake to call the ferryman for them so that he will take them back across. To their dismay, they learn that the ferryman is allowed to ferry anyone across, but no one back across. Into the [earthly] world we are transported by natural forces, but back to the higher world, man must transport himself.

The will-o'-the-wisps ask how this can be done. The snake gives them two options: she herself offers to ferry them across at noon. But this hour does not suit the gentlemen. The second option is offered by the giant – Death – whose body is powerless, but whose shadow – sleep, deep sleep, trance –

much, yes everything

can do. His shadow lies over the river in the evening and in the morning, and the gentlemen could use that as a bridge. The will-o'-the-wisps move away, the snake is glad to be rid of them. She returns to her rocky gorge. There she has already made a strange discovery. Through a crevice in the rocks, she had come to a place where she found things that were foreign to her. Until then, she had only encountered natural products, which she could easily distinguish by touch even in underground spaces: the pointed crystals, the

hooks and hairs of solid silver,

and she also brought many a precious stone up to the light. At the mentioned place, now, to her great astonishment, she found smooth walls and things made by human hands; beautiful columns and so on and human figures, around which she had wrapped herself and looked at them. She now wanted to examine these things, too, by means of her sight, now that she had become luminous, in order to get a complete idea of them. With her light she could not quite illuminate the cave in which she had entered by the familiar route, but she recognized the individual objects she came close to. In a niche stood the portrait of a king, made entirely of pure gold. Although depicted in superhuman size, it seemed to

the likeness of a little rather than a large man.

The golden king

asked, 'Where comest thou?' 'From the crevices,' answered the snake, 'where gold dwells.' 'What is more glorious than gold?' asked the king. 'The light,' replied the snake. 'What is more refreshing than light?' asked the king. 'Conversation,' answered the snake.

In the next niche sat a silver king - Budhi -

of long and rather slight build,

adorned with a magnificent robe,

crown, belt and scepter, adorned with precious stones. He wore the serenity of pride on his face and seemed about to speak when, on the marble wall, a vein that ran dark through it suddenly brightened and a pleasant light spread through the entire temple. In this light, the snake saw the third king, who sat there in the mighty form of a god, leaning on his club, adorned with a laurel wreath, and looking more like a rock than a human being. She wanted to look for the fourth king, who was standing at the greatest distance from her, but the wall opened up, with the illuminated vein flashing like lightning and disappearing.

A man dressed in rustic clothes entered, holding a small lamp,

whose quiet flame one gladly gazed into and which, in a wonderful way, without casting even a single shadow, illuminated the entire cathedral.

The man with the lamp is religion.

“Why do you come when we have light?” asked the golden King, the Thinker. You know that I am not allowed to illuminate the dark.

The power of religion only has an illuminating effect when it is met by another power. Religion must be met by faith, otherwise it cannot illuminate people.

“Is my kingdom coming to an end?” asked the Silver King

— Budhi, the spirit of life, the spiritual body.

“It's either that or never,” replied the old man. “When will I arise?”

— that is, gain my sovereignty — the brazen king — the spirit man, Atma —

to ask. 'Soon,' the old man replied. 'With whom shall I unite?' asked the king. 'With your elder brothers,' said the old man. 'What will become of the youngest?' asked the king. 'He will sit down'

- an expression for the laying down of the rule -

said the old man. 'I am not tired,' cried the fourth king in a hoarse, stammering voice.

The fourth king is a symbol for the four lower, perishable basic parts of man; thus:

firstly, the physical body,

secondly, the etheric body – linga sharira,

thirdly, the sentient soul body – astral body, and fourthly, the mind soul – lower manas, kama manas – that is, the mind, the power of thought, which is still and desires, and is therefore incapable of recognizing the higher, the divine, the higher Manas, the real thinker, the true human being, and even less the spiritual man, Atma. Meanwhile, the snake had crept around the temple

and now saw the fourth king near by. He was leaning against a column, and his stately figure was rather heavy than beautiful. Only the metal from which he was cast could not easily be distinguished. On closer inspection, it was a mixture of the three metals from which his brothers were formed. But at the casting, these materials did not seem to have melted together properly; golden and silver veins ran irregularly through a brazen mass, giving the image an unpleasant appearance.

Meanwhile, the golden king said to the man, “How many secrets do you know?” — “Three,” the old man replied. “Which is the most important?” asked the silver king. “The Manifest,” answered the old man. ‘Will you then reveal it to us?’ asked the brazen king. ‘I will do so as soon as I know the fourth,’ said the old man. ‘What do I care!’ murmured the composite king to himself. ‘I know the fourth,’ said the snake, approaching the old man and hissing something in his ear. ‘It is time!’ shouted the old man in a mighty voice. The temple resounded, the metal statues sounded, and in that moment the old man sank to the west and the snake to the east, each sweeping through the crevices of the rocks with great speed.

The rock that is described here is a description of the ancient mystery temples, where the disciples were initiated into the mysteries of existence. The basic parts of the human being were symbolically depicted there. There are still many such temples in India, and since the spiritual life no longer permeates people as it did in ancient times, when the intellect and reason were not yet developed, they have been abandoned and destroyed and demolished by wild hands; even as ruins, they still make a magnificent, sometimes horrifying impression. The figures that are symbolically depicted there and that present a hideous image to our eyes were once, when viewed with the eye of the mind, a means to first understand the higher life and then, after reaching maturity, to see it for oneself. We Westerners see them only as hideous idols; the Oriental sees through the outer form to the meaning of the symbols. They have not yet developed a sense of beauty for form. In ancient times, when the grotesque images were created, the external form was so unimportant to them that they used it only to express an idea, just as we now use language, written language, as a medium to communicate to our fellow human beings the things we have grasped in our minds. The crude way in which we Westerners often judge these things, the proselytizing that sought its mission in the destruction of “idols,” testifies to a complete ignorance of these things.

The snake whispered in the old man's ear that it was ready to sacrifice itself completely, and then the old man cries:

It is time!

whereupon the temple resounds. We don't need oriental wisdom to understand this “resonance”. Goethe gives us an explanation in his “Faust” prologue in heaven:

The sun resounds in the ancient way
In brotherly spheres of competitive song.

Heaven – the Devachan – is the plane where it resounds. Sound has its realm there.

Resounding for spiritual ears
The new day is already born!

The snake, the intellect that seeks enlightenment, goes east, the man with the lamp – religion – goes west.

All the passageways through which the old man walked were immediately filled with gold behind him; for his lamp had the wonderful property of transforming all stones into gold, all wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and crushing all metals. But to show this effect, it had to shine all alone; if another light was beside it, it only had a beautiful, bright glow, and all living things were always refreshed by it.

The old man entered his hut, which was built against the mountain, and found his wife in the greatest distress. She sat by the fire and wept, and could not be consoled. “How unhappy I am,” she exclaimed; “I did not want to let you go today!”

In answer to the husband's question, the wife tells him that during his absence two gentlemen – the will-o'-the-wisps – had been with her and behaved very intrusively.

"And just look around you at the state of the walls; just look at the old stones that I haven't seen in a hundred years: they have licked all the gold off, you wouldn't believe how nimbly, and they kept assuring me that it tastes much better than ordinary gold.

Then they became more and more insolent, caressed her, and called her queen, shook herself so that a quantity of gold pieces were scattered about, and to make matters worse, her pug dog ate some of them, and now he was lying dead by the fireside.

“I only saw it after they had gone, otherwise I would not have promised to pay off her debt to the ferryman.” “What is she indebted for?” asked the old man. “Three cabbages,” said the woman, “

The old woman is the soul, the ordinary sensual life of man. The will-o'-the-wisps – rational science – lick up the gold – historical knowledge – and scatter it again. It flatters the lower nature, but has no invigorating power; the pug that eats of it dies. Natural science denies the power of life, and without the invigorating power of the lamp – the light that religion brings – life dies through dead knowledge. In the first round, the mineral kingdom contains the form for wisdom. Three times three is nine – human sensuality. Three cabbages, three onions, three artichokes. Man has passed through the three kingdoms. The woman pays for the torrent of passions with fruits of the earth. The cabbage, the shellfish, [represents] the leaves; the onion, the essence, which consists of covers, [represents] the root; the artichoke [represents] the fruit. She [the old man's wife with the lamp] has to pay this [tribute] to the stream.

“You may do them the favor,” said the old man; “for they will serve us again on occasion.”

[The old man] extinguishes the fire, carefully collects the remaining gold pieces,

and now his lamp alone was again shining in the most beautiful splendor, the walls were covered with gold, and the pug had become the most beautiful onyx. “Take your basket,” said the old man, “and put the onyx in it; then take the three cabbages, the three artichokes, and the three onions, place them around it, and carry them to the river! About noon let the snake carry you over, and visit the beautiful lily, and give her the onyx! She will bring it to life by her touch, as she kills everything alive by her touch; she will have a faithful companion in it. Tell her not to grieve, her deliverance is near, she may regard the greatest misfortune as the greatest happiness, for the time has come.” The old woman packed her basket and set off during the day. The rising sun shone brightly over the river, which glistened in the distance; the woman walked slowly, for the basket weighed heavily on her head, and yet it was not the onyx that weighed so heavily

, but the fresh vegetables.

She did not feel the dead weight she was carrying; but when she lifted her basket up, it floated above her head. But carrying fresh vegetables or a small, live animal was extremely difficult for her. She had been walking along discontentedly for some time when she suddenly stood still with a start; for she almost stepped on the shadow of the giant that stretched across the plain to her. And now she saw the enormous giant, who had bathed in the river, rising out of the water, and she did not know how to avoid him. As soon as he saw her, he began to greet her playfully, and his shadow's hands immediately reached into the basket. With ease and skill, they took out a cabbage, an artichoke, and an onion and brought them to the giant's mouth, who then went further up the river, leaving the woman the way free.

The old woman considered whether she should turn back and fetch what was missing from her garden, but she kept going until she came to the river and waited a long time for the ferryman. Finally he came. A young, noble, beautiful man got out of the boat.

What do you bring?

the ferryman called.

It is the vegetables that the will-o'-the-wisps owe you,

replied the woman. The ferryman did not want to accept it, as there was a shortage of each kind. Although the woman begged and pleaded to accept the gift, she could not go back the arduous way, but he refused,

by assuring her that it did not even depend on him. “What is due to me, I must leave together for nine hours, and I must not accept anything until I have given a third to the river [...] There is still a remedy. If you want to guarantee against the river and confess as a debtor, I will take the six pieces with me; but there is some danger in it.” “If I keep my word, I shall not be in any danger?” ‘Not the slightest.’ ‘Put your hand into the river, and promise that you will pay off the debt in twenty-four hours.’ The old woman did so, but how frightened she was when she pulled her hand out of the water, as black as coal!

The old woman is very unhappy that her beautiful hand has turned black and is even beginning to fade.

“It only seems so,” said the ferryman; “but if you do not keep your word, it may come true. The hand will gradually fade away, [...] without your losing the use of it. You will be able to do everything with it, only no one will see it.“ — ‘I would rather not be able to use it and not be recognized,’ said the old woman. However, that does not mean anything; I will keep my word to get rid of this black hand and this worry soon.”

Three times three is nine, the number of human sensuality; she has passed through all three realms. The woman pays for the torrent of passions with the fruits of the earth. She must pay the tribute to the torrent. The cabbage symbolizes the leaves, the onion the root, the artichoke the fruit. All three are shell plants.

The soul essence – the woman – loses some of the fruits and shoots that she has acquired through hard work in the garden through sleeping, dreaming and a lack of vigilance. But she has committed to paying the debt of the will-o'-the-wisps – the power of reason. Reason alone cannot produce leaves, flowers or fruits; it leaves that to the soul forces. But the lower natural forces – the ferryman – insist on their right; the stream of passions also wants to be satisfied. However, since the woman lacks the sufficient means to do so, she atones for it with her body. She does not lack the strength, but her body is very disfigured because she has dipped her hand into the stream. If a person gives in to passion, he will suffer damage. It is very indicative of man's low mentality that the woman is much more concerned about appearances – what will people say? – than about the loss of her ability to work, which, according to the ferryman, she does not actually risk.

The woman now picks up the basket again, which floats freely above her head,

and hastened after the young man, who walked gently and thoughtfully along the shore. His magnificent figure and strange attire had made a deep impression on the old woman. His chest was covered with a shiny armor through which all parts of his beautiful body moved. Around his shoulders hung a purple cloak, around his uncovered head waved brown hair in beautiful curls; his sweet face was exposed to the rays of the sun, as were his beautifully built feet. With bare soles, he walked calmly over the hot sand, and a deep pain seemed to blunt all external impressions.

The old woman tried to start a conversation with him, but he barely responded. This bored her and she recommended herself, saying that she had to hurry to cross the river via the green snake and deliver her husband's gift to the beautiful lily. When the young man hears this, he takes courage and runs after the woman.

“You are going to the beautiful lily!” he exclaimed;
“we are going the same way."

On the way, they exchange their fates. The youth describes his miserable state: his armor and purple robes have become only a useless burden and adornment for him, his crown, scepter and sword are gone, he is

naked and destitute as every other son of earth, for her [the lily's] beautiful blue eyes have such an unfortunate effect that they take away the strength of all living beings and those whom her touching hand does not kill feel transported into the state of living shadows.

He envies the pug dog, because it would gain life through her touch.

The youth represents humanity in general. It is sick with longing for life. The eternal feminine draws it on. When man strives for higher knowledge, paralysis overtakes him: without a firm moral foundation, it is dangerous to seek higher knowledge. The stormy assault results in death. Love kills life; but it kills so that true life may arise. Die and become.

He who does not die before he dies, will perish when he dies.

The lower self must die. Thus, death is the root of life.

They now come to the bridge, are amazed at the splendor of the green snake, which sparkles with jewels all over; high arched, it swings over the river. Once across, they notice that several other travelers have crossed over with them – the will-o'-the-wisps, which they cannot see, but whose presence is betrayed by their hissing with the snake, which joins them after the crossing. The woman, youth, and snake now go to the white lily, while the will-o'-the-wisps look around the queen's garden for a while until dusk falls.

The old woman approaches the royal maiden first and is so enchanted by her beauty and her lovely singing to the harp that she breaks out into enthusiastic praise. The lily speaks:

Do not grieve me with untimely praise! I feel only the more strongly my misfortune.

She says that her canary, her greatest joy and delight, was frightened by a hawk, fled to her bosom and died there. She is inconsolable, because the culprit, paralyzed by her gaze, is serving his sentence by the pond, and that cannot help her. Her bird – the prophetic power – is dead and must be buried.

“Be of good cheer, beautiful lily!” cried the woman, [...] “My age bids me tell you [...] that you shall regard the greatest misfortune as a harbinger of the greatest happiness, for the time is at hand.

Then she tells of her misfortune and asks the lily to give her the missing cabbage, onion and artichoke so that she can pay her debt and her hand will turn white again. The lily is happy to give the cabbage and onion [– roots and leaves –], but the garden, in which fresh greenery had sprung up on the grave of her favorite but which never bore fruit, does not have an artichoke – a fruit.

The woman pays little attention to the speech of the beautiful lily; she sees to her horror the hand growing blacker and blacker and fading more and more, and is about to leave when she remembers the pug, which she now gives to the lily.

The beautiful lily looked at the gentle animal with pleasure and, [...] with amazement. 'Many signs are coming together,' she said, 'that inspire some hope in me; but alas! is it not merely an illusion of our nature that when many misfortunes occur we imagine the best is near?'

What good are the many good signs to me?
The bird's death, the friend's black hand?
The pug of precious stone, does it have its match?
And didn't the lamp send it to me?
Removed from sweet human enjoyment,
I am only familiar with misery.
Ah! why is the temple not by the river!
Ah! why has the bridge not been built!'

Impatient with the long song, the woman wants to leave when she is stopped by the appearance of the snake. She approaches the beautiful lily and encourages her:

The prophecy of the bridge is fulfilled!

Much more gloriously than before, it rises above the river, shining with precious stones, says the woman. But the lily does not yet consider the prophecy fulfilled, since only pedestrians can cross the bridge; but the promise is that horses and carriages would also cross a solid bridge – whose pillars would rest in the river – that would rise out of the river.

The old woman, still gazing at her hand, is about to take her leave, when the lily begs her to take her poor canary with her.

"Ask the lamp to change him into a beautiful topaz; I will revive him with my touch, and he, with your good pug, will be my best pastime. But hurry, whatever you can, because at sunset, unbearable rot will take hold of the poor animal and tear apart the beautiful structure of his form forever.” The old woman laid the little corpse among delicate leaves in the basket and hurried away.

The snake continued the conversation:

“The temple is built,” said the Snake. “But it is not yet by the river,” said the Lily. “It still rests in the depths of the earth,” said the Snake. “I have seen and spoken to the kings.” “But when will they rise?” asked the Lily. The Snake said, “I heard the great words resound in the temple: It is time!” A pleasant serenity spread across the face of the beautiful woman. 'I have heard the happy words for the second time today; when will the day come when I hear them three times?'

Now follows the description of her retinue, the three lovely handmaidens. The pug comes to life at her touch, and even if there is only half life in him, he still likes to play with her.

The sad young man approaches, exhausted and pale, he approaches his beloved. He carries the hawk – the symbol of the diviner of the future, prophet of the mysteries – in his hand.

“It is not kind,” cried Lily, “to bring me the hated animal that [...] killed my little singer today.” “Do not scold the unfortunate bird!” replied the youth; “Rather, blame yourself and fate and allow me to keep you company in your misery.”

The young man, jealous of the pug with which the beautiful lily plays and presses to her bosom, awakens the last remnant of his courage. He makes a violent movement, the hawk flies up, but he rushes at the beauty, and the misfortune happens: he falls dead at her feet. In silent despair, the lily looks for help. The snake forms with her body

a wide circle around the corpse, grasped the end of her tail with her teeth and remained still.

The handmaidens, the first of whom brings the chair, approach again, the second lays a fire-colored veil around the head of the mistress, the third brings the harp. The lily had scarcely coaxed a few notes from the instrument when the first servant brought a mirror and held it before the lady, so that she saw her magnificent image, made even more beautiful by her mourning, in it.

Who will create us the man with the lamp,

the snake hissed. The beauty just sobbed. At that moment, the woman came running up, out of breath:

I am lost and maimed!

she exclaimed. Neither the ferryman nor the giant wanted to take her across.

Forget your troubles and help us here. Seek out the will-o'-the-wisps so that the giant's shadow can carry you and you can fetch the man with the lamp.

The lily waited with great sadness, the snake looked impatiently for help. Then,

high up in the air, she saw the hawk with its crimson feathers, whose breast caught the last rays of the sun. She shook with joy at the good omen, and she was not mistaken; for shortly afterwards, the man with the lamp was seen gliding over the lake, as if he were skating.

After he had explained his coming, he said:

“Be calm, most beautiful maiden! Whether I can help, I do not know; a single one does not help, but he who unites with many at the right hour. Let us postpone and hope. Keep your circle closed,” he said to the snake.

He himself sat down on a stone beside it, and let the light of the lamp fall on the corpse.

Bring also the dead canary.

It was laid on the corpse as well. The sun had set; the lamp, the snake, and the maiden's veil shone, each with its own light.

Sorrow and grief were softened by a sure hope.

Only the old woman, who had come with the will-o'-the-wisps, was full of apprehension for her hand. The will-o'-the-wisps chatted with the beautiful lily, and midnight came before anyone knew it.

The old man looked at the stars and then began to speak: 'We are together at a happy hour, each of us performing our duties, each doing our duty, and a general happiness will dissolve the individual pains in itself, like a general misfortune consumes individual joys.

The combined efforts of all were needed to provide relief. Each individual was absorbed in his task and spoke loudly about it, only the three maidservants had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

“Take,” said the old man to the hawk, “the mirror, and with the first ray of the sun illuminate the sleepers and wake them with the reflected light from on high!”

The snake now untied itself and slithered towards the river, the will-o'-the-wisps followed quite earnestly. The old man and his wife stretched the basket, which had its own glow that had not been noticed before, put the body of the youth inside and placed the dead canary on his chest. The basket rose up and hovered above the head of the old woman, who immediately followed the will-o'-the-wisps.

The beautiful lily took the pug on her arm and followed the old woman, the man with the lamp decided the train and the area was illuminated by these many lights in the most peculiar.

When they reached the shore, the company looked in amazement at the wonderful arch that the snake had formed across the river. The gems shone and radiated in wonderful beauty. When everyone had crossed, the snake also moved to the shore and closed the circle around the body again.

The ferryman, who had been looking out from his hut in the distance, gazed in amazement at the glowing circle and the strange lights that passed over it.

The old man bowed to the snake and said:

“What hast thou decided?” — ‘To sacrifice myself before I am sacrificed,’ replied the snake; ‘Promise me that thou wilt leave no stone unturned!’ The old man promised, and then said to the beautiful lily: ‘Touch the snake with thy left hand, and thy lover with thy right hand.’ The lily knelt down and touched the snake and the corpse. In that moment, the body seemed to come to life; it moved in the basket, even rising up and sitting. Lily wanted to embrace him, but the old man held her back, helping the youth to stand up instead and guiding him as he stepped out of the basket and the circle.

The youth stood, the canary fluttered on his shoulder, there was life in both of them again, but the spirit had not yet returned; the beautiful friend had his eyes open and did not see, at least he seemed to look at everything without participation.

When the astonishment at this event had subsided a little, the change that had taken place with the snake was noticed with amazement. The body had crumbled into a thousand and one gems when the old woman had carelessly pushed against them while she reached for her basket. The old man and his wife carefully collected the gems in their basket, carried them to a high place on the bank of the river and poured them into the stream. The old man now led the procession to the sanctuary; he walked ahead with the lamp. The youth followed half mechanically. The lily timidly trailed behind, the old woman sought to bring her hand into the light of the lamp, the will-o'-the-wisps closed the procession. The path led through the rock that opened before them. Soon they came to a large, brazen gate,

whose wings were closed with a golden lock. The old man immediately summoned the will-o'-the-wisps, who [...] busily consumed the lock and bolt with their pointed flames.

The entrance to the higher levels of consciousness must first be sought through the mind.

The ore sounded loudly when the gates quickly sprang open and the dignified images of the kings, illuminated by the incoming light, appeared in the sanctuary. Everyone bowed before the venerable rulers [...]. After a pause, the golden king asked: “Where do you come from?” “From the world,” replied the old man. “Where are you going?” asked the silver king. “Into the world,” said the old man. ‘What do you want with us?’ asked the brazen king. ‘To accompany you,’ said the old man.

The will-o'-the-wisps had approached the golden king. He fought them off and said:

Get away from me! My gold is not for your palate!

After they had lit the silver one, they crept past the brazen one to the mixed one.

“Who will rule the world?” the mixed king cried in a stammering voice. “He who stands on his feet.” answered the old man, “That is I!” said the mixed king. “It will reveal itself,” said the old man; “for the time has come.”

The beautiful lily fell around the neck of the old man and kissed him most warmly. “Holy Father,” she said, “a thousand thanks to you, for this is the third time I have heard the ominous word.” She had hardly finished speaking when she held even tighter to the old man, for the ground began to shake beneath them. The old woman and the youth also held on to each other; only the moving will-o'-the-wisps noticed nothing.

The temple first moved downwards, then passed under the stream, and during the ascent, the debris of the ferryman's small hut fell through the dome of the temple and covered the old man and the youth. The women had jumped aside.

The women screamed loudly, and the temple shook like a ship that suddenly hits the shore. The women wandered anxiously around the hut in the twilight; the door was locked, and no one heard their knocking.

To her amazement, the wood began to resound. Through the power of the closed lamp, the wood had turned to silver, and gradually expanded into a magnificent case of hammered work. Now there stood a small temple or altar in the middle of the large one.

By a staircase that went up from the inside, the noble youth now stepped up, the man with the lamp shone for him, and another seemed to support him, who came forth in a white, short robe and held a silver oar in his hand;

it was the ferryman, the former inhabitant of the transformed hut.

[By crossing the] bridge, which was necessary, the temple should apparently be, that could only happen through the interaction of all forces. Only through the sacrifice of the self was it possible to cross the stream of passions. The will-o'-the-wisps have to unlock the temple; one must have natural knowledge to penetrate the secrets.

The beautiful lily climbed the outer steps that led from the temple to the altar; but still she had to stay away from her lover. The old woman, whose hand

had almost completely disappeared, was very unhappy that with so many miracles, no miracle could save her hand.

Her husband pointed to the open gate and said: 'Behold, day is breaking; hurry and bathe thyself in the river!' – 'What advice!' she cried; 'I shall surely become quite black and disappear altogether; I have not yet paid my debt' – 'Go,' said the old man, 'and follow me! All debts are paid.' The old woman hurried away, and at that moment the light of the rising sun appeared at the crown of the dome; the old man stepped between the youth and the maiden and shouted in a loud voice: 'There are three who rule on earth: wisdom, appearance, and force'. At the first word the golden king rose, at the second the silver one, and at the third the brazen one had slowly raised himself, when the composite king suddenly sat down awkwardly.

The will-o'-the-wisps had been preoccupied with him for a long time and did not rest until they had also extracted the finest veins from his form. But that robbed him of all support and he collapsed, becoming an unformed lump.

The man with the lamp now led the beautiful youth, who was still gazing fixedly ahead, down from the altar and straight towards the brazen king. At the feet of the mighty prince lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The youth girded himself. '

— only for defense, not for attack —

“Right hand free!”

— to give blessings and peace —

the mighty king called out. They then went to the silver king, who inclined his scepter towards the youth. The youth seized it with his left hand, and the king said in a kindly voice: “Feed the sheep!” When they came to the golden king, he pressed the oak wreath on the youth's head with a fatherly, blessing gesture and said: “Recognize the highest!”

The old man, who had observed the youth closely during the proceedings, saw how, after the girding, his chest rose, his arms stretched and his feet stepped firmer;

By taking up the sceptre, his strength seemed to be softened and made even more powerful by an inexpressible charm; but when the oak wreath adorned his curls, his features came to life, his eye sparkled with inexpressible spirit, and the first word from his mouth was: “Lily.” 'Dear lily,' he cried, as he hastened up the silver steps towards her, [...] 'what more could a man, endowed with everything, desire than the innocence and quiet affection that your bosom bestows on me? Oh, my friend, he continued, turning to the old man and looking at the three sacred statues, 'glorious and secure is the kingdom of our fathers, but you have forgotten the fourth power that ruled the world even earlier, more generally, more certainly: the power of love. With these words he fell on his knees before the beautiful maiden; she had thrown aside her veil, and her cheeks were suffused with the most beautiful and most imperishable of all blushes. Then the old man said, smiling: 'Love does not reign, but it creates, and that is more.'

Unbeknownst to them, day had fully broken and the astonished eyes looked through the open gates:

a large square surrounded by columns formed the forecourt, at the end of which one could see a long and magnificent bridge that reached over the river with many arches.

This magnificent bridge was already teeming with all kinds of people on foot and in carriages. Happy in their mutual love, the king and his wife looked on the people with delight.

“Remember the snake with honor!” said the man with the lamp. ”You are its life; your peoples owe it the bridge by which these neighboring shores are first inhabited and connected. Those floating and glowing gems, the remains of her sacrificed body, are the pillars of this magnificent bridge; she built it herself and will sustain herself.” Just as one was about to ask him to explain this strange secret, four beautiful girls entered the temple gate. The harp, parasol and field chair immediately identified them as Lily's companions. But the fourth [...] was an unknown [...]. “Will you believe me more in the future, dear wife?” the man with the lamp said to the beauty. “Happy you and every creature that bathes in the river this morning!” The rejuvenated and beautified old woman [...] embraced [...] the man with the lamp, who accepted her caresses with kindness. ‘If I am too old for you,’ he said smiling, ”then you may choose another husband today; from this day on, no marriage is valid unless it is renewed.” “'Do you not know,' she replied, 'that you have grown younger too?' – 'I am glad if I appear to your young eyes as a worthy youth; I accept your hand anew and would gladly live with you into the next millennium.'"

The great giant, still recovering from his morning nap and staggering across the bridge, brought a disruption to the general happiness. As usual, he wanted to bathe in the river, drowsy as he was, and suddenly found the bridge, on which he clumsily stepped between humans and cattle. His presence was

by all wondered at, but felt by none; when, however, the sun shone in his eyes, and he raised his hands to wipe them, the shadow of his enormous fists passed behind him so powerfully and clumsily under the crowd that men and animals collapsed in large masses, were damaged, and risked being thrown into the river. The king, who saw this outrage, made an involuntary movement for his sword, but he recovered himself and looked calmly first at his scepter, then at the lamp and the oar of his companions. 'I divine your thoughts,' said the man with the lamp; 'but we and our powers are powerless against this powerless one. Be quiet! He is harming for the last time, and fortunately his shadow has turned away from us. Meanwhile, the giant had come closer and closer, had let his hands drop in amazement at what he saw with open eyes, was doing no more harm, and stepped into the forecourt, gawking. He was just walking towards the temple door when he was suddenly held to the ground in the middle of the courtyard. He stood as a colossal, mighty statue of reddish shining stone, and his shadow showed the hours, which were engraved in a circle on the ground around him, not in numbers, but in noble and significant images. The king was not a little pleased to see the shadow of the monster in a useful direction; [...] Meanwhile, the people had crowded around the giant, [...] and marveled at his transformation. From there, the crowd turned to the temple, which they seemed to have only just noticed, and pushed towards the door. At that moment, the hawk with the mirror hovered over the cathedral, caught the light of the sun and threw it over the group standing on the altar.

The hawk, the herald of the future, also teaches us to understand the laws. When these are understood, knowledge can be borne.

The king, the queen and their companions appeared in the twilight vault of the temple, illuminated by a heavenly radiance, and the people fell on their faces. When the crowd had recovered and stood up, the king and his party had descended into the altar to go to his palace through hidden halls, and the people scattered throughout the temple to satisfy their curiosity. They looked at the three upright kings with amazement and awe,

but when they came full of curiosity to the fourth, the shapeless lump was covered with a precious carpet that no one could lift. The people almost crushed each other in the temple if the will-o'-the-wisps had not attracted their attention. It was fun for them to shake off the gold they had sucked in as they moved away, which is why the people fell upon them with jokes and laughter.

The people ran eagerly back and forth for a while, pushing and pulling each other, since no more gold pieces were falling. Finally, they gradually dispersed, went their way, and to this day the bridge is teeming with travelers, and the temple is the most visited in the whole world.

There is still much to be interpreted. The snake that bites its own tail and encloses the dead youth is the Budhi principle, which must be lived and loved. The radiance of the divine - Atma - is peace, harmony, and universal consciousness. It has been achieved through the transformation of desire into love. Everything becomes young again.

The shattered hut of the lower forces is transformed by the spirit of life; now the lower forces can lead across and across. The giant - the forces of nature - have lost their destructive power; that is the conclusion that will only come after a certain period of time. The last enemy to be abolished is death. Then they [the forces of nature] only indicate the rhythmic measures of time. And the bridge over which the people can go unhindered back and forth to the temple? Is it not faith, independent faith, which has only become possible through the sacrificial death of Christ; faith that blesses, even without seeing the mysteries? But the highest is hidden from the eyes of the multitude. The king and queen descend from their throne and hide. All the glory will only become clear and evident to faith when wisdom is added to faith, only then can perfection be attained.

Let us briefly summarize what Goethe wanted to tell us with the “Fairytale”: It is the symbolic representation of the redemption of the individual as well as of the whole human race; the secret of becoming and passing away and of final bliss.

Many have ventured to interpret the “Fairytale”. People asked Goethe to provide an explanation himself. He promised to do so when a hundred explanations had been submitted. Thereupon all the explanations were collected and counted, but Goethe died before the number of a hundred was reached. Thus, a proper interpretation has been lacking until now. It was probably not yet time. The right interpretation can only be given by someone who knows the mysteries.

In the Middle Ages, we can trace a mystical current from Meister Eckhart to Jakob Böhme. Goethe descended into the depths of mystical wisdom. A merely scholarly explanation of Goethe's works is not sufficient. Goethe was a profound connoisseur of mysticism in all its depth. In his gospel, his “Faust”, he provided a picture of his theosophical or mystical worldview.

The theosophist is convinced that man carries a core within himself that is soul, that is spirit. Giordano Bruno was also convinced that the soul and the spirit have a significance that extends beyond the material. That is the conviction of the theosophist. Theosophy elevates religion to wisdom; it elevates faith to knowledge. That there is a God-man in man, who has emerged from the divine womb, develops and returns to the Godhead, is taught by theosophy. It sees in nature an expression of the divine origin.

From his youth, Goethe sought the God in nature and the reflection of the divine being in his own heart. He saw in natural products an expression of the divine spirit. The other science is concerned only with the sensual realm; it knows nothing of the spiritual realm. Man is placed [in nature] and wages his battle in this physical world. Goethe describes [in “Faust”] the great human struggle that leads man to his higher development, through which man gains insight into the spiritual and intellectual world and recognizes that he is forming a divine self, a divine ego. Goethe wants to suggest that the struggle is rooted in the spiritual world, in the prologue in heaven. The struggle takes place between good and evil. It is the battle of spiritual world powers. When the mystic ascends to the highest world, he speaks of the music of the spheres in the sense of the Pythagoreans; he speaks of the fact that this highest world is a world of tones and harmonies.

In the starry sky, the mystic sees the creative world spirit in resounding harmony.

The sun sounds in the old way,

says Goethe. The world is the expression of the divine world thought. The thoughts of men are replicas of the divine world thought.

What floats in fluctuating appearance
is fastened with lasting thoughts.

Faust wants to recognize the spiritual. Spirits are in the world; the human spirit, the planetary spirit, the spirit of the solar system, Goethe quotes the earth spirit. The physical earth is only the expression of a real earth spirit. Goethe's description of the Earth Spirit is appropriate. If we study life on Earth, in its arising and passing away, we find an Earth Spirit that is very different in nature from the spirits of other planets. Working on the divinity of immortal clothing is actually the task of the Earth Spirit.

When we look at the whole striving Faust, we recognize that he wants to penetrate more and more into his inner self. We can only know ourselves when we go through experience. Faust goes through the whole world scene. This is shown in the first part. Theosophy teaches that man acquires human abilities through experience and ascends to higher levels of existence. Faust has experienced everything that a human being, who is a sensual and intellectual being, can learn about. But he wants to know what lies beyond that.

Goethe was convinced that man can approach the highest source of knowledge only as a prepared, purified human being. Faust first goes through all the individual sensual experiences, through the experiences of the lower self. The tempting forces are now represented in Mephistopheles. Only by overcoming resistance does man make himself perfect, better.

When Faust has gone through the struggle of life, he remembers that the earth spirit is at the same time an expression of the divine spirit. This shows him the kinship of man with all of nature and then leads him to self-knowledge. This is the expression of how man is led from the transitory to the lasting. But man must first gain experience. Faust succumbs to temptation. He becomes the seducer. Afterwards, we see him in the deepest contrition and depression, as the inner self cannot come out.

The second part shows a transition in which the spiritual world moves into the sensual world. Goethe shows us how Faust's inner being is stirred when he listens to the spiritual world. Again, the sounding spiritual world appears, in harmony with all mysticism.

Faust is to ascend inwardly to the heights of humanity. We are led to the imperial court. We are shown how Faust, as a human being, works not only for himself but also for the lower self of many people. Faust creates sensual prosperity for people. Faust undergoes a greater lesson, but still within sensuality. He is to be led higher. Faust should be able to show something that cannot be achieved with the senses. What was originally alive is still present in the spirit. The spiritual archetypes are present somewhere. The tempter has been able to lead him through the sensual world. Mephistopheles has the key to the eternal depths of things, to the spiritual world, but not the power to penetrate it himself. That is why he gives Faust the key to the realm of the mothers.

Mysticism throughout the ages has always described the highest soul as feminine. The mystic imagines the whole world as a fertilizing father. The soul is the eternal feminine, which becomes ever more mature through fertilization from outside. The highest soul-spiritual realm is where the deity originally resided. It is the realm of archetypes, of mothers.

The theosophist recognizes that the deepest essence is expressed in three forms. Faust finds the glowing tripod. It corresponds to the deepest essence of man, which the theosophist calls “Atma, Budhi, Manas”. These are the three highest principles of man.

The realm of the Mothers contains the archetypes of all things. Faust is able to bring up the archetypes of all things. Faust has brought up the spirit from Paris and Helena.

How human beings live together as body, soul and spirit is wonderfully depicted in the second part of “Faust”. One may only approach the spirit in purity, not with desire. Man must first be purified from desires, from longing. Faust must still be purified and gain higher insights. This will be explained in more detail. Faust returns to the laboratory. The homunculus is the soul. The spirit dwells with the mothers, the sources of spiritual life. The soul is presented in the homunculus. The soul dwells in the physical body, [like the homunculus in the glass vial], but is itself immortal. It can perceive through the physical body with the senses. The mystic knows through his practical experience of incorporeal vision.

The soul's eye is clairvoyant. The homunculus lacks physical properties, but not soul properties. The homunculus sees Faust's dream. The vivid way in which Goethe describes the homunculus, how he longs for embodiment, for penetration into the physical world, shows how the soul lives in the soul world with such properties as those possessed by the homunculus. The human body in its connection with soul and body is presented here.

In the classical Walpurgis Night, we are told how the homunculus [begins to embody itself] in the lowest realm and develops through all the realms of nature. As the homunculus develops from the mineral kingdom up to the plant kingdom, it is said, to hint at this:

It grunts so.

Then, when sexual life begins, Goethe lets Eros appear. Finally, Homunculus crashes into the shell carriage of Galathea. He has passed through all the realms of nature and connects with the spirit and becomes human.

Now that body, soul and spirit are connected, Helena can appear in the flesh. In Helena, the feminine is presented to us. In her outward form, Helena is to show Faust the soul. It is a development of Faust towards the soul. Then self-knowledge occurs for Faust, a mystical experience. This arises from the fact that in the moments of celebration of life, man can look into a spiritual world. Then he gives birth to the divine spirit within him. In Faust this is represented by the birth of Euphorion. Man unites with his higher self - the feminine, Helena. The son of both is Euphorion. Euphorion represents the way in which each person, in this or that way, gives birth to the spiritual within themselves. For one person it is poetry, for another mystical contemplation. This knowledge of the higher worlds in the solemn moments of life is individual.

When man returns to everyday life and then remembers what he has born in the festive moments of life, then he hears the words:

Let me not, Mother, in the gloomy realm,
leave me alone!

Faust is still not ready for the mystical life to become the cornerstone of his being. But Goethe himself defined his Faust as a mystic. He said to Eckermann about the second part of “Faust”: “For the initiate, the deeper meaning is noticeable.

Faust finally gains the opportunity to live as a selfless person. He wants to become a messenger of divine cosmic activity. But he still clings to the outer, sensual view. He is not yet above all sensuality. He once again causes destruction - destruction of the hut. Now the last step to ascent follows. He still makes progress in doing so. Even when a person has reached a higher level of development, he is still preyed upon by base thoughts and worry. Through worry he grows blind. His outer, sensory perception fades away. But a bright light shines within. His inner sense has been opened. In Faust, Goethe presents everything that a person can recognize and understand. He shows what the soul will be at the beginning and at the end. At the beginning, there is the innocent Gretchen – at the end, Gretchen is once again the feminine in man, the soul. At the pinnacle of development, there is the inadequate event. Faust can see what cannot be seen with the senses. In Faust, we have the development from the lower self to the higher self.

[In these lectures I would like to give a picture of the theosophical world view that is completely free of any dogmatics, by trying to show what is peculiar to our own spiritual life by looking at phenomena of it.]

Those who know how strongly I have resisted anything propagandistic, any kind of propaganda, will also know how strongly I have opposed the view that Theosophy is about importing some alien, oriental world-view into our time, and how I have emphasized that Theosophy must be life; direct, real life. If Theosophy were something that had only come into the world through the Theosophical Society, then one could indeed have very little trust in it. How could it be that humanity would have to wait thousands of years for the new gospel of Theosophy! Rather, it is the renewal of the spiritual current rooted in the human soul that we are dealing with in the Theosophical Society. But what should interest people of the present time most is to see how their favorite geniuses are completely imbued with what is called Theosophy, the theosophical worldview.

Apart from all the rest, there is one great German personality whose work, especially the work of his later life, is completely rooted in this worldview: Goethe. The combination of Goethe and theosophy may initially come as a surprise; but anyone who, like me, has been studying Goethe for more than twenty years, in particular the profound Goethean “Faust” poetry, will become more and more familiar with what I will try to explain today. Over the years, I have come across many explanations of Faust, many Faust researchers, and many attempts to penetrate the marvel of this Faustian poetry. What I will present to you has come to me alone, in the most unforced way, all by itself. In the first of the two lectures I will speak about Goethe's gospel, proceeding from Goethe's “Faust” poetry, and in the next lecture I will give some views of Goethe from this point of view. We will then try, after I have inserted a lecture on the basic concepts of theosophy, to grasp Goethe where he reveals himself to us most profoundly and is least understood: in his fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily, which one only has to understand to get a deep insight into the wisdom of the world on the one hand and into the innermost nature, into the innermost soul of Goethe on the other. In a casual way, these Goethe lectures can be followed by reflections on the great initiates of all times and on Ibsen. I will then try to insert a lecture on the significance of Siegfried, Parzival and Lohengrin.

Goethe was a theosophist by nature, by the innermost meaning of his life. Above all, he was a theosophist because he never accepted any limits to his understanding, any limits to his knowledge and work, but was deeply imbued with the idea that there is no human point of view from which we cannot advance to a higher one, from which the world reveals itself not only in a broader context but also in a more meaningful way. Goethe's entire makeup was determined by the world view we are discussing here. His world view assumed that man stands in a deeply related relationship to the rest of the world and that this rest of the world is not merely material, not merely outwardly physical, but equally spiritual, that a divine, creative, active spirit expresses itself in the whole world. This, one could say, is pantheism. But pantheism assumes that an indeterminate divine essence spreads throughout the world and also animates man. The theosophical world view, however, assumes that it is not an indeterminate, incomprehensible essence, but a spiritual essence to which we can ascend more and more, and that we can enter into a relationship with this spiritual essence; [ascend to a living relationship with the great God].

Goethe was suited to this kind of relationship by his very nature. Even as a seven-year-old boy, he sought out the god. He built an altar with plants and stones and incense on top, took a burning glass, and when the first rays of the rising sun shone in through the window, he collected the sunbeams so that they ignited the incense. Thus this compilation was an altar for him, on which he performed a service to nature, a service to the gods. [He wanted to ignite a sacrificial service from the fire of nature], so innate was this world view for him. When he then got to know more and more about the world itself in Leipzig and delved into the individual sciences, an insight came to him that is entirely theosophical. He tells us about it in “Poetry and Truth”. He says: “When we survey the various religions and philosophies of the world, we find something in common everywhere, a common core of truth. Wherever religion, philosophy, or worldview has emerged, whether in mythical-allegorical or philosophical form, everywhere man seeks to find the connection between his lower self and the deepest part of his soul, which is called the divine and through which he can gain a connection with the divine itself. Thus the wise of all times have shown the pendulum swing between the lower and the higher self, and we see how this is expressed in fairy tales, myths and legends; it can be found everywhere.

When Goethe himself passed the threshold of death after his studies in Leipzig and had returned to Frankfurt, he devoted himself to mystical studies. You can read in “Poetry and Truth” what kind of impact Goethe had from that time, and what emerged in him when he had become thoroughly familiar with natural science during his time in Strasbourg. This is expressed in no better way than in the fact that he decided to express the whole human urge for wisdom and for oneness with the divine nature in a great poem, the “Faust” poem. In doing so, he draws on the world of legends through which the late Middle Ages suggested the contrast between the old and the new era.

Faust is the kind of person who wants to free themselves from all tradition, from the basic ideas of the Middle Ages, and to penetrate from their own breast to a higher knowledge. Goethe did not let Faust perish, as the sixteenth century still did, but rather he redeemed him through the power of his own striving soul. In doing so, he placed the entire problem on a new footing, so that even today we must feel every word of this poem as an expression of our own thoughts and feelings. I will discuss some of the details in the following lectures. For now, I must lead you directly into what this is about.

First of all, after Goethe had presented Faust as a striving human being in his youth and brought his “Faust” poetry with him to Weimar, and had risen to a purer knowledge and worldview, he placed his “Faust” on a new foundation in the 1890s. At the beginning of Faust we find the Prologue in Heaven. Here Goethe wants to show us what his Faust epic is about. He wants to tell us nothing other than this: human destiny is not determined only in this physical world, it is determined in higher, spiritual worlds. If you remember my lectures this winter, I said at the time: the physical world that surrounds us is not the only world; there are higher worlds, the world of the soul or the astral world and what we call the devachanic world, the spiritual world, heaven. That which undergoes a struggle in the outer world is not only significant for the outer world, but is a reflection of forces from the supersensible worlds. When we penetrate into the soul world, we enter into a world of colorful existence. The astral world can be perceived by those whose spiritual senses are open as a world glowing with colors, of a beauty and sublimity, but also of a dreadfulness and cruelty that are never found in our physical world. The devachanic world can be described as a sounding one. The Pythagorean music of the spheres can truly be heard by those whose spiritual ears are open; it is not merely an allegory, but a reality.

It is therefore extremely interesting that Goethe, quite appropriately, I would say using a technical term of the mystic or theosophist, describes this world of Devachan in his “Prologue in Heaven”. The planets and the sun are endowed with souls. Goethe speaks appropriately in the sense of mysticism; so he must also express that he finds that sound in this world. And so he really does begin this “Prologue in Heaven”:

The sun resounds in the ancient way
In brother spheres of competitive song,
And its prescribed journey
It completes with a thunderclap.

The sun does not sound in the physical sense, and anyone who says that it is only an image is saying a superficiality. You can see where Faust, having gone through the purification, is to be raised to Devachan, how precisely Goethe speaks of this devachanic world:

For spiritual ears the new day is already born

Here Goethe speaks of spiritual ears, of the sounds of the spiritual world. We describe it not in the form of poetic images, but in the language of theosophical science. In the “Prologue in Heaven,” almost every word can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with our worldview. In this, we see an important principle of human existence. You all know about the law of karma. You know that when a person passes through the gate of death, they take with them the experiences they have had in this world, and that they then take the fruits of this world with them in such a way that they extract, so to speak, something eternal from this earthly world. Because his thoughts are a reflection of the spiritual world, he can take the fruits with him into the spiritual world. It is entirely in keeping with the law of karma when God calls out to the angels:

And what floats in fluctuating appearance
Attach it with lasting thoughts.

Of course, anyone who wants to can say that these are poetic images. But anyone who, like Goethe, not only dealt with mysticism practically for decades before writing these things, but also became thoroughly acquainted with medieval mysticism, knows that Goethe drew these things from mystical thinking and perception. We know that the theosophical worldview traces its basis back to the great sages, to higher spiritual individuals who have already reached the level that the average person will only rise to in the future. These great sages are the great teachers of humanity. It has been criticized that Theosophy speaks of such unknown sages. Goethe also speaks of such unknown sages when Faust, imbued with the vanity of knowledge in the first monologue, wants to grasp the source of life and has already glimpsed a reflection of divine life.

Only now do I recognize what the wise man says:
'The spiritual world is not closed;
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Rise up, disciple, and bathe unflinchingly
The earthly breast in the dawn!'

This is an expression that occurs in the mystics of all times. Jakob Böhme called the work with which he began his mystical career “Aurora”. Goethe puts “dawn” in quotation marks. He expresses something that he knew from his practical mysticism as an inner experience, not a general phrase, a general saying; he speaks entirely in the technical mystical sense.

If we take a look at Faust, what do we see in the first part? You know that we distinguish between a lower self, the self that experiences the world through the doors of the senses and, purified through many paths, finally ascends to the higher self. If you read through the first part, you will find a description of the struggle of the lower self of man with the surrounding world. Faust must first pass this struggle before he can come to the truly mystical realization within himself. From the very beginning, he strives for this realization. And again, we are faced with some sentences that only those familiar with the theosophical worldview can understand. When Faust recognizes his connection with the higher self, he turns to the earth spirit. This is a masterpiece of the description of the soul's life; [the astral body of the earth, spiritually wrought and woven from the fruits of the immortal soul's garment].

In the flood of life, in the storm of action
I surge and surge, weaving to and fro! Birth and grave, an eternal sea, a changing weaving, a glowing life, so I create at the whirring loom of time and weave the living garment of the Godhead.

This description, especially the last line, is very meaningful for every mystic. It expresses how the soul, from the earlier experiences of this self, works and weaves a form that remains eternal.

Faust must turn away like a timid, twisted worm. He is not yet mature enough to penetrate to the sources of life. He must guide his self through the world by the hand of the tempter Mephistopheles. Goethe gives this a form in the sense of ancient Hebrew mysticism. “Mephis” means “corrupter”, and “Tophel” means “liar”. These are the forces and entities that are always present in the world as obstacles. While man strives forward, they hold him back, and in the moral world they become the tempters. The tempter is Mephistopheles. He leads Faust through the regions of the lower self, through all kinds of experiences of our lower self.

We see how Faust is unsatisfied by the science of the mind. The highest learning can be no more than an occupation with the sensory world. He is then led through passion and so on to purification. Faust now wants to approach the spirit from whom he had to turn away. He encounters this spirit again in the scene “Forest and Cave”. He can now address the spirit in such a way that he can express a fundamental belief, as you can find it in any theosophical book. It appeals to him that this spirit can show him that in all beings we find our brothers, as we are connected to all, and that when we find our kinship with all brothers, we find our own divine self. In a beautiful way, Goethe describes in images the ascent of man in his knowledge.

Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, gavest me everything,
why I asked. Thou didst not in vain
turn thy face to me in the fire.
Gavest me the glorious nature for my kingdom,
the strength to feel and enjoy it. You do not allow cold, astonished visitors, you grant me the privilege of looking into their deep chests, as into the bosom of a friend. You lead the line of the living before me, and teach me to know my brothers in the silent bush, in air and water.

It is wonderful that Goethe led his Faust to this confession of looking into one's own self. After going through a series of temptations, Faust, who in his lower self sees the transience of life, gains insight into the possibility of truly recognizing the higher self.

Faust, after having been deeply crushed by the misfortunes of life, is now to be led up to higher levels. Before that, he only experienced what can be experienced by the lower egoism. Now he works at the imperial court for the lower self of others. In the midst of this work, in the midst of the transience of the world, Faust is brought to an immediate mystical point of view. Goethe himself rejected the view that the second part of “Faust” is anything other than the purest expression of truly mystical soul life. He was asked by a friend whether he wanted to end his “Faust” as he wrote in the first part:

A good man in his dark urges
Is well aware of the right path.

Oh no, replied Goethe, Faust ends in old age, and in old age one becomes a mystic. But that would be enlightenment. Once Goethe had attained a worldview that allowed a free view into the spiritual world, he could no longer let Faust end in the sense of the Enlightenment. So in 1827, he said to Eckermann about the second part of Faust: I have conceived Faust in such a way that the images are also interesting, dramatic for the mind. Everyone can take pleasure in the images. But for the initiate, there is something quite different in my “Faust”. You will see that many a riddle is hidden in it. Although Goethe did not include anything inscrutable in the second part of “Faust”, there is something that cannot be found for the superficial mind.

At court, the emperor demands that Paris and Helen appear before everyone. We are confronted with a problem that takes us beyond the physical world. Goethe captures it in its deepest sense. Faust must descend to the “mothers”. The scholars have interpreted many things into it. For those who are endowed with mystical knowledge, it is clear what is meant here. In all mysticism, the highest soul of the world has always been described as something feminine. This is quite appropriate, because what man calls knowledge, higher life, arises in his soul when he allows himself to be fertilized by the forces that work in the universe. Knowledge is a fertilization process; that is why all mysticism has sought the eternal in the feminine, in the “mothers”. The theosophical world view sees the highest that the human soul can achieve in the higher, upper trinity, in Sanskrit: Manas, Budhi, Atman; spirit self, life spirit and actual spirit of man. This higher trinity must be developed in man if he is to come to true self-knowledge. But then he attains the connection with the eternal sources of existence. Goethe indicates that this is a trinity by having the tripod set up among the mothers, with fire flowing out of it. Mysticism knows this fire as the primal matter. Faust can use it to bring up the spiritual essence of Paris and Helen. The spiritual essence is not above or below, which is why Mephistopheles says:

Sink then! I could also say: rise!

This shows how that which is eternal, brought up by Paris and Helena, is brought up from the soul-spiritual world.

But in order for man to rise to this pure spiritual level, it is crucial that he is so far purified that the desires of the body, the lower qualities of the soul and the instincts are purified, that man no longer craves this highest spiritual, but that he relates to this highest in a selfless way. When Faust brings it up, he demands it passionately, and that causes an explosion. Faust still needs to be purified and cleansed. He must learn the secret of how human nature is structured, how the three members of body, soul and spirit work together to form a whole. Established psychology only recognizes body and soul. It is a science that has stopped at two-thirds of the human being because it does not recognize the threefold nature of the human being. School psychology may feel very learned, but to anyone who sees through things, it is the most amateurish thing imaginable. Faust is meant to recognize how body, soul and spirit connect, this deep secret of human nature. At this point, we can eavesdrop on Goethe at his most profound, as he has become a complete mystic, as he has immersed himself in the knowledge that is also found in our theosophical textbooks.

First, Faust is to get to know the soul. This is presented to us in a peculiar but appropriate way, by leading Faust back to the laboratory where he was before and where the homunculus is now being created. This homunculus is nothing other than an image of the human soul. And it is wonderfully understandable every word, if you touch the homunculus as a soul without a body, as a soul that has not yet incarnated. The homunculus

does not lack spiritual qualities,
But it is all too lacking in the tangible and practical.

When the soul is free of the body, when it appears without the covers of physicality, then it is clairvoyant, not dependent on seeing through the senses. It sees into the innermost part of human nature. It does not just perceive what has an external color, sounds in external tones, but it perceives the impulses, the most intimate thoughts of the person. This is something that can be perceived clairvoyantly, the extra-physical world. Goethe lets the homunculus be clairvoyant. The entire dream of Faust is described by the homunculus, who sees into the depths of the human soul. We can go through the entire second part of “Faust” in this way: the soul is expressed in the homunculus.

The third part of the human being, the body, is that which has developed from the most imperfect to the most perfect, not only in the sense of natural science, but also in the sense of mysticism. But mysticism does not just look at how the physical has developed from the most imperfect to the most perfect, as modern science does. Mysticism also shows how the physical has developed through the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and finally to the human being. The body has developed along this path until it has become capable of connecting with the soul. In the second part of Faust, Goethe presents this gradual development of the physical body in magnificent images. He has the homunculus Mephisto and Faust led to the fields of the 'Classical Walpurgis Night'. There he is brought together with Proteus, who guides the transformation of the physical form, and with the wise men Thales and Anaxagoras, who know how the physical transformations take place. It is shown how this homunculus, as a soul, can acquire a body by living through all the kingdoms of nature. It must begin at the bottom, with the mineral kingdom, and then slowly move on to the higher realms. Goethe describes in a wonderful way how this embodiment rises from the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom. Goethe coined an expression to describe this so wonderfully vividly:

It grunet so

- the plant structure!

Only at a certain stage of development, what is called sex life, that this connects with all the formative forces that were present earlier. Goethe expresses this by letting Eros connect with the homunculus struggling for design at this stage. This is how Goethe described how the soul is structured until it is ready to receive the spirit. We have reached the end of the second act of the second part of Faust. Faust has learned the secret of how the three parts of human nature are connected: the immortal, the eternal, which is in the realm of the “mothers”, the soul and the body. This is how a person can incarnate. This is how that which also lived physically in the external world and belonged to times long past, Helen, can also incarnate again. We meet her again at the beginning of the third act. She has incarnated, Helen is standing before Faust in the flesh. Thus Faust has passed through mystical knowledge, he has experienced the secret of becoming human.

I have said that in every mysticism the soul in man is presented as something feminine. Then the struggle for the higher, the striving for the higher is expressed precisely in Faust's striving for Helena. Faust unites with Helena. This is initially the symbolic expression of an inner experience. Faust seeks the higher, and there the spiritual is born. Poetry expresses this symbolically through the union of the soul's masculine and feminine, whereby higher spiritual knowledge is begotten: Euphorion. Euphorion represents how the spirit in human nature comes to life in mystical moments. The mystic knows these moments. But there is one thing he still has to learn: At first, what he experiences is only a fleeting moment, only a celebratory moment in life, a moment of mystical insight; then he must return to his profession, to his everyday studies. These mystical insights are celebratory moments; but celebratory moments die quickly: Euphorion dies quickly. What follows is drawn deeply from mystical consciousness. Euphorion, after he has disappeared again into the spiritual realm, calls out to his mother Helena:

Do not leave me alone in the dark realm,
mother!

This is a voice that everyone who has experienced mystical moments has heard at some point. The spiritual always calls to the soul, the “mother”: “Do not leave me alone, seek me!” Here theory cannot speak, only direct experience can speak, in order to recognize the full depth of what is at stake here. The mystical moments of celebration are represented by Euphorion. Faust's serene worldview, in comparison with what has happened at the imperial court, now comes to light. Faust is now to be led to experience not only individual moments of celebration of mystical contemplation, for that is still an imperfect state. The perfect mystic works from the spiritual world; he works selflessly, like a messenger of the deity, as if the deity itself were creating. This is how it is with Faust when he has reached higher levels.

But Faust is not yet so far that he is above all the temptations that the lower self suffers. Nothing must speak to the mystic's senses anymore; the senses must become a gateway for the spiritual. Once again, for the last time, Faust succumbs to temptation. Something disturbs his eye, so he has the hut of Philemon and Baucis removed. That was the last external temptation; henceforth he can no longer be tempted by his senses.

But there is still something in man that appeals to his lower self, that is the memory that still clings to his lower self, that repeatedly pulls him down into this lower world. This is symbolized by the fact that worry approaches Faust. But this trial also comes from him. Faust goes blind. Now it is suggested that, by going blind, Faust becomes a seer: a bright light shines within, while it becomes dark and gloomy on the outside. He has become a mystic in the most beautiful sense, he has become a clairvoyant, he sees into the spiritual world.

Faust has gone through a struggle through the stages of the lower and higher self to the depths of the mystical worldview. This struggle between the lower and higher is a struggle between good and evil. Now, in a spirited riddle in the second part of the first act, Goethe has just hinted at how good and evil work together to allow the human fighter to pass through the middle for purification. Commentators have tried in vain to explain this line.

What is both dreaded and always welcome?
What is longed for and always chased away?
What is constantly defended?
What is harshly scolded and accused?
Whom may you not summon here?
Whom does everyone like to hear named?
What approaches your throne's steps?
What has banished itself away?

You will hardly find a solution to these riddle words in Faust commentaries. But for those who know the deeper meaning of “Faust”, they will be resolved naturally. We can go through line by line and need only say “evil” for the first line and “good” for the second, and we have the complete solution to the riddle. This is how Goethe describes the battle between good and evil in man, and he has Faust become a mystic.

Goethe can only hint at the last stages of development, and he uses mystical symbolism. Every line is deeply significant for the mystical path, the mystical stages that the mystic goes through in practical development. And then, at the end, Goethe indicates to us that this is what he really meant in the second part of “Faust”. He stood there alone when he came to this mystical realization.

If you read “Faust” in your youth, you will find a lot, later you will find more and more and even later still more. Today, I too have been able to describe only a glimpse of what is in “Faust”. The second part of “Faust” is something quite different from what was intended in the first part. The old Goethe is only understood if you take it so deeply. He knew that there were many people around him who would defend the young Goethe against the old one. In a moment of resentment, he spoke out about those who only want to accept the earlier works and what is otherwise easy to understand, saying, “Goethe has grown old.” To them he cries:

They praise Faust
And what else
In my works roars
In their favor.
The old Mick and Mack
That is very happy;
It means the pack of ragamuffins,
One would not be more!

Goethe knew that “he still was it,” also knew that he could not be understood.

In the second part of “Faust”, Goethe has hidden many secrets for the initiate who wants to hear them. And then, to suggest that he wants “Faust” to be understood in a mystical sense, he has closed the second part with the “Chorus mysticus”. There he shows us how he sees nothing in the ephemeral but a parable for the imperishable, for the eternal. That is the view of mysticism or theosophy, that what is present in the senses is only a parable for the imperishable. That which man can never attain in the sensual world, that which he strives for in the sensual world, to recognize the real meaning of life, this “inadequate” becomes an “experience” in the higher world through practical mysticism; and what cannot be described can be experienced. Then the spiritual powers slumbering in man are awakened; he not only perceives with his senses, but is led up into the higher worlds. That which is “indescribable” for the sensual world is done, now in the higher worlds. And that which the mystics of all times have called the 'feminine', the highest, that to which the lower strives, that which Goethe sought in the 'mothers', in the 'feminine', the 'eternally feminine', the highest in the human soul, that draws man upwards. This is the fundamental confession of Goethe, the mystic, which he has expressed here and which shines back on all that he has mysteriously incorporated into his “Faust”:

All that is
transient is but a parable;
The inadequate
Here it becomes an event;
The indescribable
Here it is done;
The eternal feminine
Draws us on.

Eight days ago, I tried to explain Goethe's world view through his “Faust”. We saw that Goethe presents the great struggle of the universe, the spiritual universe, between good and evil, as it unfolds in man and around man, in the way it is in the sense of mysticism or what we call theosophy. We have seen that where Goethe points people to worlds beyond the sensual, he does so in such a way that we can clearly see from his expressions his intimate knowledge of what we in Theosophy hold as our conviction. We have seen this in “Prologue in Heaven” and in the way he lets the Earth Spirit speak, but also in what we can see as a reference to the spiritual world and as a juxtaposition of the lower and higher self. We have taken a closer look at the address to the Earth Spirit and seen how Goethe introduces his Faust to the world, which we have called the world of higher knowledge, by showing how the human being is composed of the physical, the soul and the spiritual. We have been able to show this by the descent of Faust to the “Mothers”, by the characteristic properties of the homunculus, which cannot be made plausible in any other way, and then by the re-humanization of Helena in the “Classical Walpurgis Night”. We have seen how he ascends to knowledge, ascends to the heights of a spiritual Montserrat, to the heights of knowledge and mystical experience, concludes with the words that he has the Chorus mysticus say, and in doing so suggests the sense in which he wants Faust to be understood.

What Goethe expressed here is not a figment of his imagination, nor is it meant in a merely poetic sense, because Goethe has always seen the expression of secret natural laws in art, which he expressed at another time as follows: Art should be based on the deepest foundations of knowledge. There is no doubt that if we follow Goethe to the height of his life, if we look up and look up to the spiritual worlds, then we will be able to demonstrate a continuous increase to truly mystical heights in Goethe himself. Last time, I already pointed out that the direction of Goethe's gaze to the spiritual was not only in his nature, but was already present when he had already established a world view for himself, when he tried to make clear to himself when he entered Weimar, how things in nature are connected, when he sought a spiritual essence that underlies all nature. Last time I already spoke about the “Nature” hymn that he wrote in Weimar. In it, he addresses nature directly, but in such a way that it becomes a direct expression of a spiritual essence for him. You can see from every word in this prose hymn that he addresses nature as a being of a spiritual nature. In the book “On Natural Science” in General, he says about nature:

Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by it, unable to step out of it or to get deeper into it. Uninvited and unwarned, she takes us into the cycle of her dance and carries us away with her until we are tired and fall out of her arms [...] She has thought and is constantly pondering; but not as a human being, but as nature[...] She has no language or speech, but she creates tongues and hearts through which she feels and speaks [...] I did not speak of her. No, what is true and what is false, she has spoken it all. Everything is her fault, everything is her merit.

Thus he places himself in this nature, which he has conceived entirely spiritually, and speaks of nature as the external expression of a spiritual essence. Since Goethe addressed nature in this way, he was bound to ascend. For this is how he presents the physical incarnation: He imagines that the soul is above nature. It is true that it belongs to the great whole of the world, and he therefore also speaks of a higher nature. But by speaking of the lower nature, of the various changes, of the metamorphoses of nature, he builds the world view in the sense of the mystical. To give an example, I mention Paracelsus. Without him, Goethe is inconceivable. Through Paracelsus, Goethe is more understandable. I do not want to claim that Paracelsus' teachings can be adopted wholesale. Do not think that I want to speak in favor of those who today want to speak again as Paracelsus spoke. But we could still learn an infinite amount from such a highly chosen spirit. Goethe also learned an infinite amount from him. Just one word to show how Goethe strove in the spirit of Paracelsus: Paracelsus places himself before the true essence of man, soul and spirit, embodying himself in the archetypes of nature, in the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, where it is expressed in a one-sided way, in order to finally express itself in the most versatile way in man. In the various minerals, plants and animals, letters have been created with which the great All-Spirit has ultimately written the human being. This shows the depth of Paracelsus' insight into the human being. When Goethe sets out to study the development of the world's creatures from the imperfect to the perfect, he expresses himself in a similar way to Paracelsus. Every day, Frau von Stein received answers to questions about how his thoughts were maturing. Once, when he thought he was on the trail of a particularly important discovery, he said to her, “My spelling has helped me.” He meant that he had tried to get to know the plants and animals, which, like Paracelsus, were letters for him in solving the great mystery that man represents for man. In this way, Goethe wanted to proceed from the beginning of his study of nature, in order to seek the great spiritual connection in all beings. So, from the outset, he sought what he called the “primordial plant”, which was said to live in all plants and which, in essence, is the spirit of plant existence. Then he rose to the “primordial animal” and sought to prove the “primordial animal” in the animals. Metamorphosis of Plants and Metamorphosis of Animals – you only need to read them to have the most beautiful theosophical treatise on plants and animals you could ever find. It was precisely this attitude that led Goethe, soon after his arrival in Weimar, to an important scientific discovery. Until the time when Goethe became involved in the study of nature, the fact that humans are superior to animals had to be found in the existence of special individual organs. That humans differ in their physical constitution from the higher animals, however, was already addressed by Herder in his “History of Humanity”. Herder was Goethe's teacher to a significant extent. It was said at that time: All higher animals have the upper incisors in a special intermaxillary bone. Only humans do not have such an intermaxillary bone. Goethe said: The difference between humans and other beings is of a spiritual-mental nature. But the difference cannot be found in such a detail, which is why humans must also have an intermaxillary bone. Researchers have long resisted recognizing this discovery by Goethe. But today it is taken for granted that the discovery is based on a full fact. So even then, Goethe made this great scientific discovery out of his own convictions. In Italy, he studied the plant and animal world with the aim of finding ways and means of gaining an overview of these beings. In his Metamorphosis of Plants and Animals, he produced a masterpiece in this regard. The idea that Goethe carried out is an idea that can already be found on a large scale in Giordano Bruno. Giordano Bruno, for example, as is to be expected of anyone who truly sees into the depths of nature and the universe, is one of those who assumes that humans go through various incarnations, who assumes that humans have often been here before and will often return. The body of man, as we see it before us, shows us how soul and spirit expand in space. And when man dies, soul and spirit contract, they become, as it were, punctual, in order to expand again and then contract again. Thus existence alternates between expansion and contraction. Man ascends by becoming more and more perfect with each new expansion, only to contract again and pass through the purely spiritual realm. These thoughts were conceived by Giordano Bruno and were extended by Goethe to include plant and animal life. The whole metamorphosis shows us that the plant consists of the flower and the root in contraction and unfolding. This can also be found in Swedenborg's books, where he noted down the fundamental discoveries he made, which then bore fruit in Goethe and come to us again through him. Now some scholars from the Nordic academies have joined forces to publish Swedenborg's writings, and it remains to be seen how much science in all fields of natural science can be found in Swedenborg. Goethe studied Swedenborg, and there is an interesting doctoral dissertation from the University of Berlin by Hans Schlieper, in which the connection between the writings of Goethe and Swedenborg is demonstrated. If you want to gain insight into how Swedenborg developed these ideas, then you need only read Emerson's “The Representatives of the Human Race” and look up the article on Swedenborg. There you will find the ideas that bore such extraordinary fruit in Goethe. But you will also find that the various kingdoms of nature must ultimately find their culmination in the human being, that ultimately it must be shown how the soul emerges from the small world in order to find its unity in the larger world, in the cosmos. Schiller also expressed this in a magnificent way. In his correspondence with Goethe, Schiller writes on August 23, 1794:

For a long time now, although from a considerable distance, I have been observing the course of your mind and have noted the path you have set out on with ever-renewed admiration. You seek what is necessary in nature, but you seek it by the most difficult route, which any weaker force would do well to avoid. You take all of nature together to get light on the individual; in the totality of its manifestations, you seek the explanation for the individual. From the simple organization, you ascend, step by step, to the more complicated ones, to finally build the most complicated of all, the human being, genetically from the materials of the entire structure of nature. By recreating it, as it were, you seek to penetrate its hidden technology. A great and truly heroic idea that amply demonstrates how your mind holds the rich totality of its ideas together in a beautiful unity. You could never have hoped that your life would be enough for such a goal, but even just embarking on such a path is worth more than any other ending – and you have chosen, like Achilles in the Iliad between Pythia and immortality.

I could read on, and you would find that every single word of Schiller is aptly applied to Goethe. Goethe himself spoke beautifully about the relationship between man as a microcosm and the rest of nature, showing with tremendous power of words how not a single detail but the whole spirit of nature lives in man, how this whole spirit comes to the realization of itself. Whoever remembers the beautiful words spoken by the German mystics will know, among others, the saying: “The Godhead lives in man, and in man God has created an organ to behold Himself.” In his book on Winckelmann, Goethe says, where he speaks of antiquity:

When the healthy nature of man works as a whole, when he feels in the world as in a great, beautiful, dignified and valuable whole, when the harmonious comfort gives him a pure, free delight - then the universe, if it could feel itself, would exult as if it had reached its goal and would admire the summit of its own becoming and being.

What does Goethe say here that is different from what he presents in his “Faust” as the transition of all realms through nature? Goethe was never satisfied with the materialistic view of nature. And when Holbach had created a particularly crass expression in this regard, he opposed him as a young man. Goethe says about it, he [had] found nothing in it but a barren speculation, but not a real explanation of nature. Furthermore, matter was supposed to have existed from eternity, and from eternity it was supposed to have been in motion, and through this motion it was supposed to have produced the phenomena of existence. Thus Goethe dismissed materialism. Goethe always strove to find harmony between what he calls spiritual nature and what the incorporation of spiritual nature represents. Therefore, he was a follower of the doctrine that sees the embodiment of the spirit in our physicality, in the outer forms of nature. Goethe held this point of view throughout his life and elevated this point of view to ever clearer forms. Now, however, this point of view requires something else. It requires that we recognize that the human being is not complete. The realms of perfection must continue beyond the human being. This is the theosophical worldview. Thus, as Theosophists, we do not take the view that the human being is somehow complete. But just as there are also more imperfect beings, we also recognize that we have more perfect and more imperfect human brothers, and that there are some who have progressed far beyond the measure of other people. These are the great teachers who endeavor to lead people up to ever higher and higher worlds. This is a realm from the lowest beings to the gods. We recognize that man will one day rise to divinity, and we already recognize an order today that begins with the lower spirits and does not end until physical existence is exhausted and we look up to heights and beings that fill the gap between human beings and beings that humans only have an inkling of. In this sense, that he looked up to higher spiritual entities, Goethe spoke his poem from the first Weimar period, the well-known poem “The Divine”:

Noble be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all beings
We know.
Hail to the unknown Higher beings We intuit! Man shall be like them! His example teach us Those believe.

This is the poem in which Goethe spoke of the stages of ascent to higher beings. Those who have heard the theosophical lectures here before will know that in theosophy we recognize an unbroken succession of beings, from today's average human being to the higher beings, that we know that among us there are brothers who have reached high levels, who are our teachers, but who have withdrawn from the hustle and bustle of people because they need to have freedom. Only a number of disciples are able to see them. Those who rise to the fervor of deep truths, to a corresponding realization, which must be a free one, can hear these elevated human individualities. Goethe then speaks of these higher individualities. I only need to quote the poem “Symbolum”. In it, he speaks of the holy awe that must permeate us in the face of the truth and the spiritual world. Goethe is therefore speaking here of the voices of the spirits and the masters. This will show you the profound agreement between Goethe and what we call the theosophical world view. Now I would also like to show you that such an agreement really goes very far in Goethe. You know that in the theosophical world view we speak of the fact that human beings do not only have a physical body. This physical body is a subordinate body of the human being. Then we have the etheric double body. This can be seen by those whose psychic organs are open. It can be seen when the physical body is subtracted. Then the same space that the human being occupies is filled by the etheric body. It looks like the color of a peach blossom. Then comes the astral body, the expression of feelings, instincts, desires and passions. The Theosophical worldview calls this body “kama-rupa.” These three superimposed bodies are spoken of today. It is said that there is a parallel in our physical nature. The so-called occultist says that the physical body has an external parallel in what we call solid bodies, that what we call the etheric body has a similarity to the liquid, and that the astral body has a sensual parallel in everything that appears gaseous and airy. Everything that takes shape in the life of the senses and the life of the instincts is referred to as an image of the astral body. In mystical form, we speak of a deity that creates these formations. This is nothing other than 'Kama'. When studying cloud formations, Goethe spoke, entirely in line with this world view, of the fact that for him, too, the expression of the formation of water reveals an image of the soul, a KamaRupa:

When the deity Camarupa, high and holy,

Gathers the folds of the veil, disperses them,
Delights in the changing forms,
Now freezes, then vanishes like a dream,
we marvel and hardly believe our eyes;

With the exception of the term “Camarupa”, you can rediscover Goethe's theosophical worldview. The question now is: How is Goethe connected to what we really call the theosophical movement and how it was not created only by the Theosophical Society. The Theosophical Society merely popularizes the old theosophical teachings that have always been present. Before 1875, the principle was strictly adhered to that the theosophical teachings must be secret, that only those who profess very specific prerequisites and conditions can learn them. In my magazine Luzifer-Gnosis, you will find something discussed that can lead you to higher things. In earlier times, the theosophical teachings were only practiced in the narrowest of circles, in the so-called secret schools. Only those who had attained certain degrees could receive certain teachings. A certain degree of secrets was only imparted to a person when he had attained certain degrees. The most important society was that of the Rosicrucians, a top secret society. Whatever you find about it in books, you can call a hoax, as far as I'm concerned. What can be found in literature and what is accessible to scholarship is not Rosicrucianism. The brothers only knew each other. At the top were twelve initiates. Only the thirteenth was the leader. The outer symbol was the cross with roses. The society had, despite being a secret society, a great influence on the course of intellectual development. In the time when materialism did not yet dominate the major circles, a very great intellectual influence could still be exercised. The Rosicrucian Society is the one whose tradition and inner significance Goethe also knew. He became acquainted with it at an early stage. During the time when he was staying in Frankfurt after a very serious illness during his studies in Leipzig, he was initiated into the secrets of the Rosicrucians by a certain personage. More and more, this mysticism became absorbed in Goethe. Now he wanted to express what he had to say in this regard in a very profound poem. At the time he wrote this poem, he proved himself to be a practical mystic in that he understood life as practical mysticism. Only under certain conditions was he taught the most intimate things. Mrs. von Stein was one of his intimates. He could not imagine this connection any differently, as if he had already belonged to her in a previous life. That is the important thing. Not the dogma of reincarnation; the main thing is to understand life from this point of view. So Goethe once said, to make clear to himself his deep connection, his relationship with Mrs. von Stein: In times gone by, you were surely once my sister or my wife. That is the way he interprets reincarnation here and in other ways. Of course, Goethe regards this as his secret. He speaks of it only to his intimates. That is why you can quote some things from Goethe that seem to contradict him. You can also find this with other mystics. We know that this is the case. Now Goethe has expressed something of an ascent, of a spiritual order in the Rosicrucians in the aforementioned poem. This poem has become so dear to Mrs. von Stein that it is called “The Secrets”. It was never finished. The greatness of the poem should have been much more extensive. He might have been able to express himself if it had had as many verses as there are days in a year. But he did express the following clearly: firstly, this basic idea and, secondly, the view that a kernel of truth can be found in all religions, that all great religions contain a basic teaching, the so-called wisdom religion, and that the various wisdom religions are embodied in individual great initiates who are connected to one another in a brotherhood, that they differ according to their inclinations, the nature of the country and so on. Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, the teachings of Hermes, Judaism, Christianity; they all contain a common core of truth. They are different because those who truly grasp the human being in his spiritual essence know that it is not a matter of implementing an abstract dogma, but that one must speak to each person in his own way. You only have to possess the core of truth, then you can clothe it in the customs of every country. You will find that our theosophical teachings have rebuilt the ancient teachings of the rishis within the Hindu religion, just as they have in Europe. Even in a form that will again be able to withstand science. So we can speak to every people in their own language. But a common core of truth lives in all these languages. This was also the view of the Rosicrucians, as expressed by Goethe in the poem “The Mysteries”. You will see how much mysticism and theosophy lives in Goethe when we consider his secret revelations in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily. But now let us look at this Rosicrucian coloring in his poem, which has remained a fragment. Goethe knows that there will not be many who will be able to understand this poem “The Mysteries”. He also knows that this poem contains so much that no one should dare to believe that they can fully understand it. But he expresses it clearly that he allows us to see into his deepest soul:

A wondrous song is prepared for you;
Listen gladly, and summon everyone!
The path is laid through mountains and valleys;
Here the view is restricted, there it is free again,
And when the path gently slips into the bushes,
do not think that it is a mistake;
We want, when we have climbed enough,
to reach our goal at the right time.

Then he shows how Brother Mark walks to a lonely monastery. In this live twelve hermits, the initiates, led by the thirteenth, whom Goethe calls Humanus, who encompasses all of them. In each of these twelve, one of the great world religions is embodied. Depending on the diversity of countries and times, the different religions are different, and in each of the initiates, each of the religions is different. In a college, however, they work for all of humanity. The leader Humanus is called that because he is such a late incarnation that the highest truth and knowledge is expressed in him in a peculiar way. Those people who are in relatively early incarnations, who have not yet undergone many embodiments, receive the lessons of life and ascend to such an extent that they carry the deepest core of truth within them as a matter of course. Then they do not need to study in the new incarnation, then they are such — through certain signs of their birth this is symbolically foretold — that they, as must be said of the great initiated of humanity, radiate the wisdom of the world. One such incarnation is Humanus. After he has spread the spirit around him in his environment, he ascends to higher spheres. Brother Markus is another such incarnation. When he appeared, Goethe said of him that he gave the impression, for higher reasons, that a higher wisdom must come into the world. Brother Markus appears to be simple. But he is a late iteration of human existence. At the same moment, as Goethe says, Brother Markus is led into the brother lodge, where the twelve are united, when Humanus is allowed to leave the twelve, where only his spirit remains in them, where the spirit ascends to the higher spheres. Brother Markus takes his place. This is the government of humanity that Goethe wanted to depict here.

He sees the emblem gloriously erected,
Which stands for the consolation and hope of the world,
To which many thousands of minds are bound,
To which many thousands of hearts have fervently prayed,
Which destroys the power of bitter death,
Which waves over so many victorious banners:
A fountain of refreshment permeates the weary limbs, He sees the cross and lowers his eyes.

From the very beginning, this poem shows us how Goethe has the spiritual guidance of humanity carried out by the twelve. Thirty years later, a number of students approached him with the request that he provide some explanations. He also tried to say something about this poem. I will only mention a few things to you. He spoke entirely in the theosophical sense:

In order to confess the further intention, indeed the plan in general and thus also the purpose of the poem, I reveal that the reader should be guided through a kind of ideal Montserrat and, after taking his way through the different regions of the mountain, rock and cliff heights, occasionally return to wide and happy plains. Each of the knightly monks would have been visited in his home and, through the climatic and national differences, it would have been learned that the most excellent men from all corners of the earth might gather here, where each of them would quietly worship God in his own way.

Now he shows us how Brother Mark is led into the forecourt. Goethe did not live to depict the actual interior. But then we are shown who Brother Humanus is:

And if you ask me what is the name of the one chosen,
Whom the eye of caution chose?
Whom I often praise, but never enough,
On whom so many incredible things happened?
Humanus is the name of the saint, the wise man,
The best man I have seen with my own eyes:
And his gender, as the princes call it,
You should also know along with his ancestors.

He also shows here how such a leader has risen to such heights. The lower self must have sacrificed itself. We will see this in the sacrifice of the serpent when we speak of the “fairytale”. But here we see how the leader of the twelve chosen ones saves his higher self, his soul. How he has gone through this dying and becoming, and has not remained a dull guest on the dark earth, but has awakened the God-man in himself. He tells us clearly and distinctly that he sees this higher self as a feminine. To save it, the lower self must be killed. In the beautiful symbolism of the poem “The Secrets”, Goethe describes the upward development of a being like the thirteenth. He expresses it like this:

As the third man, I tell more and more freely,
How a spirit of the mother promised him early on,
And how a star at his baptism celebration
shone more brilliantly in the evening sky,
and how a vulture with outstretched wings
settled in the courtyard among the doves;
not striking fiercely and, as usual, doing harm,
he seemed to gently invite them to unity.
Then he modestly kept from telling us
how, as a child, he overcame the adders
Which he found entwined around his sister's arm,
Tightly wound around the sleeping girl.
The nurse fled, leaving the infant lying;
He strangled the snake with a sure hand:
The mother came and saw with joyful trembling
Her son's deeds and her daughter's life.

The sister is the innermost part of the soul, the same as the eternal feminine that draws us in. The adder is what must be shed. He adds the following explanation to the symbolum:

When nature has elevated a person,
It is no wonder that he succeeds in many things;
We must praise the power of the Creator in him,
Who brings weak clay to such honor:
But when a man, when a man, in the hardest test of life,
Conquers himself;
Then we can show him to others with joy
And say: 'That is he, that is his own!'

When the God-man is born in the soul, then all power rushes forward into the distance:

For all power rushes forward into the distance,
To live and work here and there;
On the other hand, from every side, the stream
Of the world narrows and hinders and sweeps us along:
In this inner storm and outer strife,
The spirit hears a word that is hard to understand:
'From the power that binds all beings, Man frees himself who overcomes himself.'

I. Report in the “Mühlheimer Zeitung” of March 20, 1905

On Saturday evening, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, spoke on 'Goethe's Faust in the Light of the Theosophical World View'. The speaker explained that Goethe cannot be grasped in the full depth of his life's work if Faust is seen only as the poetic expression of the outer life around us and of the soul life in its outer phenomena. Faust offers infinitely more; it aims to provide a picture of the development of man and his place in the world and the universe. Goethe had insight into the teachings of mysticism, which coincide with those of theosophy; in the sense of mysticism, he had given in his Faust a picture of the human being, his development and ascent. He had reproduced the ancient teachings as only a poet could reproduce them, namely in the representation of a poet, and in doing so, he had made use of mystical terminology. Goethe was familiar with the ancient division of the universe into a physical, a mental and a spiritual world, and it was clear to him that man is also composed of three parts: a physical, a mental and a spiritual one. He therefore understood the human being as a microcosm in which the image of the universe, the macrocosm, was reflected. The ancient wisdom teachings of the Indians, Egyptians, Persians and Greeks understood the development of the human being in the same way as Goethe. He paid homage to the view that the human soul was there from the very beginning, that it had developed through all the realms of nature and become the creator of these realms, that on this journey of development through the most diverse states, it had created man in his present form and was now striving to spiritualize him further. To make clear this view of the work of Goethe, the speaker pointed to the many expressions of mystical terminology scattered throughout Faust, such as the passage in the prologue in heaven, which cannot be understood in any other way than in a mystical sense:

The sun resounds according to ancient custom
In the song-contests of the spheres of the brothers,
And its ordained journey
It completes with a thunderclap.

These processes, which can only be perceived in the world of the spirit, where the ear of the spirit listens and the eye of the seer can no longer follow, not to mention the physical eye – they are referred to in mysticism as sounding or resounding. In the first act of the second part, Ariel calls the organ that is to be understood as the organ of perception in these worlds the “ear of the spirit”. Ariel speaks:

Hark! Hark! The hoar-hounds howl!
The new-born day is breaking
For the ears of spirits.
The gates of rocks are creaking and cracking;
The wheels of Phoebus are rolling and clattering;
What a tumult the light brings!
It trumpets, it trombone;
Eye blinks and ear astonishes,
Unheard of does not listen.

The first part of the tragedy, as Dr. Steiner explained, presents man to us in the struggle with the lower physical passions. In the second part, we are shown the development of his soul and his ascent into the purely spiritual. Mephisto is the principle of desire and longing until the soul incites to higher life. The realm of the mothers is understood to mean the spiritual realm, to which Faust descends to attain the spiritual archetypes of things (Helena as a symbol of beauty). In Homunculus, the soul's journey of development is shown through the realms of nature; in Euphorion, the moment of higher enlightenment, which comes to us in happy hours and suddenly disappears again, etc. The captivating explanations, of which we have only been able to reproduce a few here, were met with much applause.

II. Report in the “Kölnische Zeitung” of March 22, 1905

On Saturday evening in the Isabellensaal of the Gürzenich, Dr. Rudolf Steiner of Berlin gave a lecture on “Goethe's Faust, a Picture of His World View from a Theosophical Point of View”. The speaker often uses a mystically opaque mode of expression; in the course of his hour-long speech, he wove into his inwardly spiritualized presentation, which developed in broad strokes into a journey through Goethe's life's work, viewed from a theosophical perspective, reflections on the history and essence of Theosophy. Even though the Theosophical Society as such has existed only for 30 years, the spirit of the world view had already been active first in esoteric Buddhism and later in the most important minds of the Orient and the Occident at all times. From individual basic ideas of the theosophical doctrine, Redrier spread, as in earlier lectures, over the three worlds of theosophy, life, soul and spirit. Regarding the subject itself, he said that Goethe's poem of life could only be understood if one illuminated it with what the theosophical world view meant, which he had expressed in a special way in the secrets and fairy tales of the green snake and the beautiful lily. With advancing age, he had become more and more absorbed in this world and realized that when we know the world, we also know the fragmented details of our being; there is no end to knowledge, only degrees. That is why Goethe had to end Faust as a mystic, after saying in his youth, “A good man in his dark urges is well aware of the right path.” After the speaker had considered the prologue from the mystic's point of view, he described Faust in the first part as tired of the sensual world; all the sciences of the mind did not satisfy him, in his innermost being there was a yearning for a spiritual world in the sense of mysticism. That is why Goethe lets Faust reach the earth spirit in the flame and recognize at the end of the first part that true self-knowledge is knowledge of the world. In the second part, he lets Faust get to know the three worlds of the theosophist. The imperial court embodies the great sensual world – Mephisto, “the impulse of development,” repeatedly draws him back into it – the mothers are the soul principle that is fertilized so that the higher human being may be born in the human being. The mystic also said to the materialist: “In your nothingness, I hope to find the All.” The homunculus, which can also only be understood mystically, is the representative of mystical clairvoyance, the birth and downfall of Euphorion are the mystical moments of celebration that quickly fade away. Finally, it was explained how Faust becomes completely independent of the sensual world, how he goes blind, how darkness is around him, but there is bright light within him. The “Chorus mysticus” is a Goethean creed. The lecture was very well received and was followed by a stimulating discussion.

My dear friends!

On January 29, 1827, Goethe said to his friend Eckermann about the then already advanced second part of “Faust”:

But everything is sensual and, when presented on the stage, will catch everyone's eye. And that is all I wanted. If only the crowd of spectators take pleasure in the appearance; at the same time, the initiated will not miss the higher meaning, as is the case with The Magic Flute and other things.

In this way, Goethe expressed that he himself allows a deeper meaning to be recognized in his works. It is well known that explanations of Goethe's deeper worldview are met with the objection: You yourselves put all sorts of things into the works that Goethe did not mean at all. This objection could easily be refuted. Only someone who does not want to apply all the powers of their soul to get behind the meaning of the poem can say this. We will counter all these objections with what Goethe said in his conversation with Eckermann. Goethe appears to us as one of those artistic figures who did not allow themselves to be inspired by the arbitrariness of fantasy or the randomness of external experience, but rather strove to recognize and explore the great riddles of existence. Goethe was a serious and profound seeker. The direction of his quest can be seen in his very earliest childhood disposition. Nowhere can such a direction confront us as powerfully as in what Goethe told us about the time when he was seven years old. He takes the best minerals and rocks from his father's collection of natural objects and arranges them in a regular form on a music stand. This is the altar on which he wants to offer sacrifices to the god of nature. At the top he places incense cones, which he ignites with the help of a burning glass through the collected rays of the rising morning sun. For him, natural products are the expression of the primal divine forces of nature. Through the rays of the morning sun that he had captured, he had kindled a natural fire, a sacred fire through the essence of the divine forces of nature itself. With this, he wanted to make an offering to the god of nature; in this way, he wanted to come closer to the great god of nature. In this childlike way, Goethe's entire spiritual relationship to the cosmos is expressed. On higher levels, we see young Goethe's confession again in his prose hymn “Nature”, when he was already working in Weimar:

Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her – unable to step out of her, and unable to get deeper into her. Uninvited and unwarned, she takes us into the cycle of her dance and carries on with us until we are tired and fall out of her arms.

Then he addresses all the beings of nature, how they are revelations of the spirit that is present in nature. Finally, he says:

She has brought me in, she will also lead me out. I trust her. She may do with me as she pleases. She will not hate her work. I did not speak of her. No, what is true and what is false, she has spoken everything. All is her fault and all is her merit.

And before that it says:

With a few draughts from the cup of love, she indemnifies for a life full of toil.

After his student days in Leipzig, Goethe had an important inner experience: on his sickbed, he learned to feel the seriousness of life. In Frankfurt, he then undertook all kinds of strange studies with friends and delved into many mystical and alchemical works. He met people who were involved in mysticism and who sought the God, the Christ, within themselves. Then in Strasbourg he met the other great mind, Herder, by whose side he gained a keen eye for nature, which was then expressed in his scientific studies and writings. When Goethe had moved to Weimar, we often find him in Jena, like a student, listening to the lectures of Loder and other scholars in order to get closer to the divine power in nature. He always sees a manifestation of the spirit in everything that presents itself materially. While he was still in Strasbourg, he came across a book by a materialistic French encyclopedist. It made a great impression on him. He says about it in “Poetry and Truth”:

But how hollow and empty we felt in this dreary atheistic half-night [...] Matter was supposed to have existed from eternity, and moved from eternity, and now, with this movement, right and left and in all directions, it was supposed to produce the infinite phenomena of existence without further ado.

Then he continues:

But he knew as little about nature as we do: for having nailed up a few general concepts, he immediately leaves them behind in order to transform that which appears in nature as higher than nature, or as higher nature, into material, heavy, and indeed moving, but directionless and formless nature, and thereby believes he has gained a great deal.

This is a critique that Goethe could also make of today's materialistic science. Those who immerse themselves in Goethe will soon notice that when he talks about nature, he speaks from great depths, from the spirit that we call the theosophical worldview. It was in the fourteenth century when this was already being cultivated in the Rosicrucian current. Nothing reliable about it has been reported by outsiders. Only the initiates knew what really mattered.

There is a poem by Goethe, “The Mysteries”, where a personality comes to a kind of monastery and meets a gathering of enlightened personalities, twelve in number. A thirteenth is with them, who is about to die. His twelve brothers speak of him in the most beautiful, appreciative terms. Some traits of this great man, who stands as the knower of the world, are then told. It is said that as a boy he had already killed the adder, which signifies the overcoming of the lower nature. Then, after many meaningful words, the lines follow:

From the power that binds all beings,
The man who overcomes himself is freed.

One who has overcome himself is presented in this poem “The Secrets” by Goethe. The whole situation in which the brother, to whom this greatness is being told, is led into, appears to the knowledgeable as the Grail or Parzifal situation. Goethe could not complete the poem, the material was too great. He once gave a student an explanation of it. He hinted at a league of enlightened people who had joined together in a brotherhood. Each of them represents one of the great religious systems of the world. The great emissaries of these are united in a brotherhood, where there must be one of the leaders who sees the unity, the core of wisdom, in the religions. What Goethe says here could be made the principle of the theosophical movement. Goethe points here to what every initiate knows, that there is a secret union. Goethe lets the newcomer see the mysterious symbol at the gate: the cross with the roses entwined. Goethe wanted to point out that there is such a mystery within the modern world, as there have been such initiates in all times.

Goethe then sought God further as an artist during his Italian journey. He sought God in the universe, in all his creations that breathe the divine greatness; he also sought him in the creations of men, in art, which was a continuation of nature for him. He wrote on September 6, 1787 in the diary of his Italian journey:

These great works of art, which are also the greatest works of nature, have been created by man according to true and natural laws. All that is arbitrary and imagined collapses; there is necessity, there is God.

Of Greek art, Goethe says:

I have a suspicion that they proceeded according to the very laws by which nature proceeds and which I am on the trail of.

He expresses the connection between man and nature beautifully in his book about Winckelmann:

When the healthy nature of man works as a whole, when he feels himself in the world as a great, beautiful, dignified and valuable whole, when harmonious comfort gives him pure, free delight – then the universe, if it could feel itself, would exult as if it had reached its goal and would admire the summit of its own becoming and being. For what is the purpose of all the effort of suns and planets and moons, of stars and milky ways, of comets and nebulae, of worlds that have come into being and are still in the process of becoming, if not ultimately for a happy human being to unconsciously enjoy his existence?

That which lives in man, in the depths of man, as a spiritual-mental entity, that is Nature herself, and for man she becomes conscious in the soul of man. It was this intuitive perception that guided Goethe when he attempted to shape the legend of Faust in a new form. This legend expressed what a number of people felt at that time. In the medieval Faust, we see a man who wants to recognize the divine in nature itself. In the Middle Ages, the search for the divine in nature was seen as apostasy. The divine was only to be found in the religious record of the Bible. On the other side was the legend of Faust, who seeks the divine in nature and makes a pact with the devil. On the other side was Luther, who, as the legend goes, threw the devil's inkwell at his head. Faust falls prey to the devil; he became a worldly man and a physician who wants to recognize the great God in nature. In the Middle Ages, such people were called “sons of the devil”. Goethe brings something new to the Faust idea; his guiding principle is:

Whoever strives, we can redeem.

A striving person who seeks the sources of nature, who seeks the spirit of nature, must reach the goal. Goethe is serious about the interpretation. Where man not only seeks something soulful and spiritual in himself, but where he rises to the realization that everything around us is ensouled, there he is on the right path. When we look at the human being, we have to say that our finger, for example, is only conceivable as a limb of our entire organism. Man lives under the illusion of personal self because man devotes himself to the idea that he is independent and self-sufficient, and not a member of the whole earth organism. But if man were to be lifted several miles above the earth, he would no longer be able to live; he would have to [suffer a miserable death by] suffocation and wither away like the finger of my hand if it were to be cut off. Goethe recognizes the earth organism. There is a deep recognition in his desire to let Faust penetrate to the sources of life and to characterize the spirit of the earth with the words:

In the flood of life, in the storm of action
I surge up and down,
weaving back and forth!
Birth and grave,
an eternal sea,
a changing weaving,
a glowing life,
so I create at the whirring loom of time
and weave the living garment of the Godhead.

How Goethe has placed himself in the spirit of the cosmos, how he feels and senses the spirit in the cosmos, and how he also lives in the human heart, is shown when he has Faust speak with the same Earth Spirit elsewhere. There we recognize that Goethe sees the same work in every tree, every plant, as in man:

Exalted Spirit, thou hast given me, given me everything
I asked for. Thou didst not turn thy face to me in fire in vain.
Thou gavest me the glorious kingdom of nature
and the power to feel and enjoy it. Thou dost not
allow only cold, astonished visitors,
granting me to look into her deep chest,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the line of the living
past me, and teach me my brothers
in the silent bush, in air and water.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
the giant spruce toppling, crushing neighboring branches
And neighboring trunks squashing down,
And her fall dull hollow the hill thunders,
Then you lead me to the safe cave, show
Then myself, and my own chest
Secret deep wonders open up.

We will find the theosophical ideas in Goethe again, without compulsion.

There is talk of Pythagorean music of the spheres. At higher levels of human development, there are experiences that are similar to those of a person born blind who undergoes a successful operation and suddenly gains sight – only much more magnificent and powerful. Such a spiritual operation does exist. In it, we learn about things and beings that are all around us in the world. The world of the spirit, of which Fichte spoke to his audience in 1813, then opens up for us. He says: “A new sense is needed for this.” When one speaks of these worlds to people, it often happens to those who speak as it happens to a seeing person among a group of blind people, to whom he speaks of color, shine and light. Everything that is said theosophically about this spiritual world is spoken entirely in the spirit of Fichte. The theosophist does not speak of a beyond. How many worlds we perceive around us depends on how many organs we have for perceiving these worlds. As many dormant abilities as are awakened in us open up as many new worlds for us. For the human being of today, there is initially a level of consciousness through which he perceives sensual and externally perceptible things. Then there is another level of consciousness for those who have attained the ability of higher vision. A new world of color, splendor and light opens up before their mind's eye. This world is called the astral world. An even higher world can be perceived when one attains continuity of consciousness, where the manifestations of a higher world manifest themselves in a way called sounds. The devachanic world is a sounding world. This world is then taken over into everyday consciousness so that one can also perceive it when walking among everyday things, among tables and chairs. The theosophical worldview speaks of a world of the soul, the astral world, and of a devachanic world, the world of the spirit, which can be perceived by those whose spiritual eyes and ears are open. Where Goethe has Faust placed between the forces of good and evil, he lets the words resound:

The sun resounds in the ancient way
In the spheres of the brothers' song,
And its prescribed journey
It completes with a thunderclap.

When most people say that this is a poetic image, they misunderstand the poet if they think he is making up a phrase. A true poet does not do that. The physical sun does not resound. But if we look at the sun as the expression of a spiritual organism, then we can speak of the sun resounding. In the second part of Faust, Goethe lets him encounter a similar situation. It says:

Hark! Listen to the storm of the hours!
For spiritual ears,
The new day is already being born.
Rock gates creak and rattle,
Phoebus' wheels roll and clatter,
What a roar is brought by the light!
It drums and trumpets, eye blinks and ear is amazed,
unheard-of things are not heard.

These are the depths of wisdom from which Goethe draws. Those who do not know that Goethe sought to draw from the sources of esoteric wisdom do not understand Goethe well. He himself said that the deep meaning of his poetry would not remain hidden.

The second part of “Faust” has always been a big problem for people, also the fact that Mephistopheles, the representative of evil forces, is associated with Faust. Goethe researchers have also written an infinite amount about Mephistopheles. The word is composed of “Mephis” – is equal to Verderber – and “Tophel” – is equal to liar. At the same time, this leads us to the fact that Goethe was able to draw from sources where exactly this meaning of Mephistopheles could be found. We get to know the esoteric Goethe from the second part of “Faust”. People have thought a great deal about the homunculus. Some interpreters of Faust suggest that the homunculus represents humanistic research. Faust scholars can also be seen grappling with the question of what the “mothers” represent.

Occult teachings have always distinguished between the physical, mental and spiritual nature of the human being. Even today's materialistic science regards the physical nature. The soul world belongs to what we have characterized as the astral. The spirit belongs to the devachanic world. As in all mysticism, for Goethe the physical body is the transient one. The soul is that which forms the connection between what is transient in time and the spiritual eternal. For Goethe, the human being is also composed of three parts: body, soul and spirit. For the one who thus considers the structure of human nature, what happens to him when a person enters this world? He comes from the eternal sphere of Devachan. The source of spiritual existence is spoken of as the “Mothers”. The threefold source of the human being is with the Mothers. The eternal corresponds to the spirit. The soul also has an eternal archetype. In Theosophy, this is referred to by the Sanskrit words: Atma, Budhi, Manas. This is referred to as the divine trinity, which is with the mothers, of which man is a threefold image. Goethe wants to depict this, the way in which the threefold nature of man is composed of spirit, soul and body. A long-dead person is to stand before Faust: Helen. The example of Helen is to be used to illustrate the development of humanity. The re-emergence of the spirit in a new form is to be shown there. The three parts of the human being are to come together again.

Goethe depicts the soul itself through the homunculus, which is the astral body of the human being; it longs to be embodied. The spirit must join it; it is with the mothers. Now Goethe actually describes the journey to the mothers in a very appropriate way. Mephisto says to him as Faust enters the realm of the mothers:

Sink away! I could also say: rise!

There is no difference between up and down in Devachan. Then he shows him the tripod, which shows him the way to the mothers, the threefold nature of man. Faust succeeds in bringing up the ghost of the deceased Helena. Faust is not yet ready to fully understand this. When he wants to embrace Helena passionately, an explosion follows.

Homunculus is created; this is precisely the human astral body. This astral body is to receive a physical body. Goethe has him guided down to the ancient Greek philosophers. He wants to have the “thoroughly practical” for the astral soul. Now he is to learn from the Greek philosophers how to come into being and develop. The entire development through stones, plants and up to the human being is then described. The process of passing through the plant kingdom is aptly described as “it grunts so”. Finally, we see the possibility arise that the body connects with the soul when Eros comes. Homunculus is dashed to pieces against the shell carriage of Galathea; as a spirit he no longer exists, he has connected with the elements.

In the great world poem, we see how Goethe embodied his view in it. Goethe describes his view differently in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily. The way the “fairy tale” was created should make it clear that what is expressed here is possible. During the time of their friendship, Goethe and Schiller published the Letters on Aesthetic Education as a kind of dowry. Schiller asked Goethe to make a contribution. Goethe wrote to him that he could not express what he had to say in a philosophical way, but that he would present it in a pictorial form. So he wrote the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily. If we want to understand what Goethe meant by the “fairytale”, we only need to read what Schiller wrote to Goethe at the time. Schiller sees in the realm of beautiful appearance, in the realm of artistic appearance, an intermediate realm that elevates people from the realm of necessity, of sensual nature, to inner freedom. He sees in the artist the person who finds the spiritual in the physical, so that the sensual is spiritualized. In this way, art can help people to rise above the sensual world. It is a means for them to purify and spiritualize their instincts. People may then follow their instincts when they have been so purified that they no longer go against the spirit, so that people cannot help but want the ideal. Goethe presents this in a great image, but one that is drawn from infinite depths. In the will-o'-the-wisp in the fairy tale, who cross a river and have to promise the ferryman to pay for their journey with three onions, three artichokes and three cabbages, we recognize the lower self of man , the ego nature, which has the potential to develop the three-part, higher, future nature, namely the wisdom nature or manas, the kind nature or budhi, piety and the strength nature or atma, strength. The development of man to this higher trinity is called initiation, which is carried out in the mysteries. Gradually, in the great process of evolution of humanity, all people will become initiates.

In all esotericism, water is used to describe the astral world.

Human soul, how like thou art to water!

says Goethe. There are two types of human nature: one that acquires wisdom in selfishness, the other that acquires wisdom by working from experience to experience. If the astral — the river — is to accept the gold, the wisdom acquired in vanity, then it will flare up. In esotericism, the original is represented by the lotus flowers, by something that can be peeled off so that a germ remains. The will-o'-the-wisps represent the human ego that only wants to shine; the snake represents the human ego that identifies itself with wisdom. Goethe once said:

If the eye were not solar
How could we see the light?

When the snake glows from within, it can enter the temple, where humanity acquires the three highest goods, which are represented by three kings: wisdom, piety or beauty and strength. The old man with the lamp represents the way in which most people are now enlightened. Religion is symbolized by the old man's wife. The beautiful lily represents the eternal, which man can only attain when he has been purified. The highest kills all that is living and immature. But through mystical death, man attains the highest spiritual gifts. In this fairy tale, Goethe has embedded the deepest truths of esotericism. In it, he shows how man attains the highest goods of humanity through the sacrifice of his lower nature. The same idea is expressed in the saying that appears in the West-Eastern Divan, in the poem that begins:

Tell no one, only the wise,
Because the crowd would scoff.

In the end, he speaks of the sacrifice of the lower nature and the spiritual rebirth of man:

And so long as you do not have this,
this: Die and become!
If you are only a dull guest
on the dark earth.

Medieval Christianity has the three wise men from the East represent the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. Just as such things are linked to great truths in esotericism, so too is the illusion that one king is a Moor, the second a European and the third an Oriental. The three wise men from the East are connected with great cosmic truths. Just a fortnight ago, we said that Theosophy would restore to man direct perception, a correct understanding of what happens in the course of a year, so that changes show us how our spirit coincides with cosmic events.

Just as we do not see merely a physical movement when a human eye looks at us, but rightly draw conclusions about the inner state of a human soul from the outer gaze of the eye, so the theosophist realizes that in every thunder and lightning, in every breath of air, in every sunrise and sunset, only the physical expression of spiritual entities is to be sought. And just as everyday events give beings a sense of the beings behind them, so the regularly recurring phenomena of the year reveal the deeds of a divine spirit that works according to law. We see how the power of the sun grows more and more from spring onwards, how the sun regains its power from the shortest days, how it awakens the veiled life of the earth and lets it sprout anew, how the power of the sun is expressed in external deeds. From a certain day on, the power of the sun decreases again, the days become shorter and shorter. When the least physical power of the sun reaches us, life withdraws below the surface of the earth. Man can feel and experience that behind all the deeds of outer nature stands the spiritual creation of spiritual beings.

If he penetrates even deeper, the teachings that were cultivated within the mysteries tell him that not only does this take place, but that with the increasing solar power, the activity of the solar beings decreases, that at the time when the external solar power is weakest, another power increases. In the shortest time, another, a spiritual power is strongest. When the darkness is at its greatest, there is a light during the course of the year that shines most brightly; the traditions of the mysteries have always expressed this. Christmas is connected with the deep wisdom of the world. All legends tell us that the gods sleep at midday. There are regions where the churches are open all day, only closed at noon; this is based on the same premise. What Christian humanity celebrates as Christmas can only be understood from the mystery teaching. The disciple was shown the sun and the moon, as they alternate in their normal course. They were especially pointed out to the fact that during the night the earth itself veils the sunlight. At Christmas, in the deepest silence, the disciple is shown a transparent earth through which the sun can be seen. “To see the sun at midnight” is the ancient custom of Christmas. Those for whom matter is no obstacle can see through the earth to the sun on the other side, namely the sun beings. Contrary to the tradition that the gods sleep at noon, it was believed that the gods watch at midnight, because at midnight the spiritual light can be seen best. This should be done with particular solemnity at Christmas. We can understand that this has continued to have an effect into our time, since Christmas is in this season. Esoteric Christianity also sees a body in the sun, and just as man is not content to merely observe the body physically, so the Christian is aware that through the sun the body of a spiritual entity becomes visible and that Christ is the head of spiritual entities.

Now the physical fact that the moon reflects sunlight is an expression of a spiritual fact that underlies the physical one. Even in the Hebrew era, people said: Before the power of Christ works and creates in the earth itself, it works in an indirect way. The Jewish law before Christ was the spiritual background of the moon. As long as the people of the Earth were immature and not ready to receive the power of Christ, they had to receive the reflected light of the moon. Through Moses we received the law; the law was spiritual sunlight in the reflection of the moon. Initiates could see the power of Christ through the Earth at Christmas. With the coming of Christ into the Earth, the spiritual power of the Sun united with the power of the Earth, and that is the origin of the Christian Christmas. It celebrates the moment in the evolution of the Earth when man has matured to receive the inner sun, and now man should be able to see through the transparent Earth. What used to be a mystery festival became Christian Christmas. Now man should also feel the power of Christ in the daytime and in the Earth, not only in the sun. This says a great deal. People sensed the spiritual sunlight in the reflections of different religions and world views. These religions and world views represent the three wise men of the Orient. Now the time has come when the sun penetrates the earth as a unified force, when one should sense the basic power in all religions.

Then the religions arrive, led by a star, the star of Christmas. Only the wise men are shown the transparent sun, which is the star of Bethlehem itself and has led them to where Christ appears in the flesh. They bring gold, that is, their wisdom, which has taken on different forms; now the star has arrived that unites them. Frankincense is the symbol of reverence for the power that brings peace in all human deeds, opinions and questions; myrrh is the symbol of immortality, for the spiritual power of the sun. Through beholding through the earth, the disciple receives the realization, the inner guarantee of the soul's immortality. Furthermore, myrrh signifies resurrection and preservation. The establishment of Christmas on the shortest day — it has been moved slightly — is not an arbitrary act, but an expression of human development. The Christian tradition knows what a profound fact underlies this. During the midday hour the gods sleep, while at midnight the gods are awake. What works externally, physically, is indicated by the myth through the figure of John, namely, the physical power of the sun alongside the direct power of Christ. When the sun is at its strongest, the spirit is at its strongest. John's birthday is when the sun is at its strongest: I must decrease, but he will increase. From summer towards winter, the physical power of the sun, like John, decreases, and the spiritual sun, like Christ, increases. Those who work in the sense of the esoteric Christ have felt this idea of peace and harmony.

This poem is so great, the deepest trait of Christianity, of esoteric Christianity, lies in it. A pilgrim is sent to the monastery with a special mission. Twelve individuals are found there, with a thirteenth at the top. Brother Mark is led through many regions and his character is described to us. This is deeply significant, we are told, which forms external intellectual power, education and training. Brother Markus comes close to his goal after many wanderings. He strives for serious wisdom training. [That lonely, strange wanderer does not possess the science of the mind, but he does possess wisdom that speaks as if from children's lips. It is the wisdom that speaks through the transformed science. He speaks from the naive feeling of his wisdom, and it does indeed sound as if it comes from children's lips.] We must again take re-embodiment as our starting point. A person who has learned much in a previous life, who has a world of ideas and content for contemplation, will then be re-embodied. These ideas do not have to appear in the form of ideas. He seeks serious training in wisdom. [His wisdom is a mature and transformed knowledge from previous embodiments. He has not learned much new knowledge in his present incarnation, but he has accumulated wisdom from previous lives.] Now it is love, kindness, compassion, and

Brother Mark appears not as a sage who has learned much, but as a mature sage who has learned in previous incarnations; whose wisdom has become gold. At the entrance to the monastery, which he enters, he encounters a strange symbol that is supposed to represent the meaning of life to him: a cross entwined with red roses. He sees the sign of the cross, professed by so many people, entwined with roses. Note the wording in this sentence, it is a password of the Rosicrucian:

Who has joined roses to the cross?

[This may suggest that Goethe was a Rosicrucian initiate. The cross represents the three lower bodies of man, the physical, the etheric and the astral body. In his life, man should overcome those qualities of these three bodies that have come to him from outside. They should be transformed within him through his ego.] By the fact that his own ego can say to itself “I am”, he transforms these three bodies. [For he who does not have this dying and becoming remains only a dull guest on the dark earth. The lower bodies are represented in the black cross.] Man transforms these lower powers and qualities, not as a form of self-mortification, but as instruments of his own ego, purified, cleansed, transformed into powers of his own ego. He kills what was originally in him and lets it rise again as a young, fresh power – his higher ego, which is the ruler over the lower powers. The mortified bodies – the black cross – in the mortified original Tree of Life as three representatives and a fourth: sprouting life. [The four beams of the cross are made of the wood of the cypress, the cedar, the palm and the olive tree, and they touch at one point.] Cypress is the physical body, palm is the etheric body and cedar is the astral body, which has been overcome; olive tree, which permeates the three lower bodies as with ointment, as with oil, as that which rejuvenates and gives birth again.

[Esoteric Christianity sees in the rosary on the cross the Christ Jesus, through whom the lower nature in man is purified and raised to a higher level.

When man looks at the sprouting life, not yet penetrated by passions. still asleep, only a dim consciousness, is plant green. Where it rises up to the I in the astral body, where the I expresses itself, there the green plant sap becomes red blood. [Red blood, the color of roses, is the symbol of the I. As long as the green plant sap still wells up through the leaves, it announces to us the pure, chaste plant substance. The penetration of the body with passions, desires, instincts causes the emergence of red blood. In man, the pure plant substance has been permeated with desires and passions. Thus man has bought his higher consciousness, through which he perceives as he perceives today: by permeating the plant substance with desires and passions. He will purify his ego again, he will regain the chastity of the plant. [In the course of time, the ego must gradually restore the pure plant substance. Thus, man with his red blood must, as it were, become pure plant substance again. As long as this remains green, it sleeps.] In the future, the red blood will no longer be the expression of his lower instincts and desires, but of his higher self. The red roses on the cross signify both the color of our blood and our pure plant nature. It creates myth-forming power similar to wisdom. In the power that emanates from Christ, the ego is led upwards to become pure, chaste plant substance again. In the red flower we see the purified, refined ego. There is a beautiful old myth: the bee, as it goes to the red rose to suck, so it went to Christ Jesus to suck from the wound. [The devil hates red roses the most!] He wants the blood in the fist. He hates the purified blood that has returned to the red rose.

In the poem, we have twelve representatives of different religions united in the leading, great brotherhood of humanity. [A thirteenth leads them because he overlooks and encompasses all the individual religions] in order to flow out from here into the whole world. Just as the three kings come to the harmony in Bethlehem, so the twelve send their spiritual rays out into the world. And one leads. We see here the threefold higher nature of man, the rays emanating from one point.

Markus is admitted to the monastery and he is united with the eleven to become twelve.

[Brother Markus receives the deepest instruction in the monastery. The poem characterizes the thirteenth, the leader of the assembly.] The thirteenth is presented in his essence as one who is exalted in his soul, in his heart the various confessions of the world are balanced. [At his birth a star shone, signifying the spiritual sun that he had seen at his initiation. It is the same star that shone for the Magi from the East at the birth of Jesus Christ.] A vulture comes down and dwells peacefully among the doves. Peace is the atmosphere that spread at the birth of this person. A strange saga is told about him in his youth: as a boy, he overcame the vipers, that is the lower nature of his being. In previous lives, he had acquired the strength to overcome himself. The viper was wrapped around his sister's arm. This sister signifies his etheric body, which in the case of males is female] — You know that the etheric body in the male sex is female, that is, always in the opposite sex. The astral body wraps itself around this — the adder, the snake, and he overcomes this, which wraps itself around his sister — around his etheric body. The boy practices obedience in the outer world. At first he submits to what the parental home demands with a certain humility and devotion. He is now allowed to go out into the world, and finally, by the right of his birth, he may take the lead in the order. [By the right of his birth he is placed at the head of his order, which is something deeply significant.] The twelve represent the different religions of humanity. Each of them [experiences a moment in its development when it feels it has come closest to the truth]. Each has something special to tell, as a special relation to the thirteenth. [On this point, the twelve are particularly close to the thirteenth.]

At an important moment, Markus enters the monastery: the thirteenth is preparing to leave the monastery to enter a higher level. [The thirteenth of the old men wants to ascend to the highest region of the mystical. He no longer needs to undergo physical embodiment. To do this, the twelve others should mature so that they can then manage without the thirteenth.

There are thirteen chairs in the hall, symbolizing the spiritual work of the thirteen, and Brother Markus is shown around. The task of each is symbolically depicted in a sign above the chair. Above the chair of the thirteenth is the cross of roses. The thirteenth, Humanus, is a mediator for harmony and peace, which are differentiated in the world. The various religious denominations, which are in conflict, find each other here at a higher level, so that the power is not lost, but flows out into the world. To the right and left of the chair is the fire-colored dragon. [The fire dragon is the lower astral nature that must be overcome; and the hand in the bear's jaws means the ego of the human being, which is embraced by the lower, destructive nature, but through which stage one must pass as a mystic. We also find the meaning of this symbol with the war god of Central Europe, with the hand in the jaws of the wolf. This symbolizes the time when the word was sunk into man's inner being. The power of the word through which man develops. Here [the deep meaning is expressed that work must be done]. Because many a person looks at what is being done that is more important than the physical work for the overall development of humanity. What is done from the spiritual centers is invisible. The twelve have experienced the joys and sorrows of life, and now they are gathered for a different kind of work – another door is closed by a curtain. [The twelve men no longer work here in a physical way, but in a higher spiritual way. Through their own perfection, they are working at the same time on the further development of humanity.]

Mark is received in the forecourt and waits to enter the innermost part. Brother Markus has only gained a glimpse into the astral realm, but there is a hint that in due course he will also get to know the spiritual world. At first he saw only images and colors of it. The spiritual worlds, on the other hand, resound in the spiritual tone, in harmonies of the sound of the spheres. After his sleep, he hears three blows and in between a light flute sound. This is to be regarded as a symbol of the harmony of the spheres. Furthermore, he senses the gradual awakening of the threefold higher nature of man. Thus he is initiated to finally become a member of the higher cosmic world himself. Only then does he actually feel accepted into the great cosmic sound. The birth of the higher man through the power of the roses takes place, [symbolically represented by the three youths. They signify the birth of the three higher parts of the human being. The power of Christ brings us up to the true self as the highest level of mystical-spiritual development]. The greatest bliss that a person can achieve is Manas, Budhi, Atma. Through this, he becomes a member of the great cosmic secrets of the development of the earth.

Today, on New Year's Eve, our greetings go from soul to soul, from heart to heart, and when we embrace these impulses, our greetings contain something of the goals of the world principle. One year follows another in the steady progression of time. Reflections such as today's should fill us and remind us that not only years go and come, but that these are stages, to ever higher and higher ascent of the individual and of all humanity. We feel that this is not repetition of the same, but ascent with goals within life with the true, genuine perfection of humanity. Let us let our souls be filled with these reflections and thus feel the impulse of the genuine New Year's greeting, which is struck in our souls by the Christ principle, as a greeting that embraces all humanity.

We want to help each other to ascend, we greet each other at every turn of the year. We want to work together, in theosophical brotherhood, to ascend the path of human perfection. Then the sound of the New Year's Eve bells will contain something of the harmony of the spheres. There are customs and traditions, and when we connect the soul with these customs and with the sound of the New Year's Eve bells, we say: We want to be helpers to each other in the forward climb of humanity to its highest goals.

Cypress, cedar, palm, olive tree: according to an ancient legend, the wood of these trees was used for the cross of Christ.

The rose, the chaste ego, is plant sap, but red. Bees flew to the wounds of the Savior, sucked at them and found the same in them as in the flower: blood that had become plant. To fully empathize.

The “Mysteries”. The twelve in the monastery are representatives of the twelve religions and creeds. There can be twelve. They all stand under one supreme; the spirit is the same, flowing into all.

From Brother Mark's mouth wisdom resounds as from children's lips; in the deepest simplicity, this is the divine teaching.

Those who know this and have expressed great wisdom to the highest degree in previous incarnations can, in their next life on earth, let the highest expressions of wisdom sound from their lips as naturally as a child speaks. At the highest level, there is the greatest simplification of wisdom. This is the case with Mark.

The thirteenth is about to leave this body, while fully conscious. A star at birth means that the birth of someone like this is of profound significance for the whole cosmos. He overcomes the vipers, which means that he is born at a high level. The three limbs are depicted in the form of an amphibian. Snake symbol. Fish is the sign of the Christ.

He has already overcome his lower nature. This is indicated by the killing of the viper.

After the second half of life, physical strength declines. However, spiritual strength increases. Even those at a high level must relive childhood and go through a lot before their higher personality can fully reveal itself. The spirit lies in the powers we have, not in what we learn; these are only forms.

He sees herbs and becomes a healer. The willingness to obey the will of others saves an enormous amount of strength for life.

Humanus [the thirteenth], who has all the powers of man within himself and has risen above him.

The shields [above the brothers' chairs] symbolize what each of them had to give to the world: a fire-colored dragon quenches its thirst in flames, which is the transformed astral nature, passion for religion. The arm in the bear's jaws: man's wild nature is called the bear nature. Lower animals are soundless animals. The more the animal becomes similar to man, the more 'sound' arises in him. When the 'I' has completely moved into the human being, it can fully sound into the world. This is the Rubicon that man must cross, represented in the tongue. That which is in the mouth, the tongue, is at the same time the arm in the throat (Fenriswolf).

One should use what people have already achieved, not wanting to achieve everything on one's own. That is useless effort. It draws strength from the world. There is still a lot going on here. The white lodge is among us, always.

The three youths: the three higher limbs of the human being.

It seems as if they have come from nocturnal dances,
quite refreshed and beautiful after joyful exertion.

During sleep, the astral body is in the higher world and brings back new strength. This should not be taken intellectually, but felt: from humility and simplicity comes the highest wisdom.

I. Excerpt from a Dutch brochure

The above was the title of a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Amsterdam on Thursday evening in the “Van het Nut” building.

The speaker, introduced to his audience as the General Secretary (Chairman) of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, began by describing the concept of Theosophy. Theosophy wants to be a movement to deepen our spiritual life. And it is fair to say that Theosophy in our time represents what we perceive as a great movement in the whole cultural world.

The speaker then points out the growing internationalism and the continued disappearance of the walls between people and people, between nations and nations, over the centuries. In the material field, we see the banker, the industrialist, the merchant playing an important role here. But all of this as material phenomena are consequences of the existence of common ideas, the internationalization of ideas.

What we saw in earlier centuries (and even now) in the religious sphere, dividing one person from another and one people from another, is magnificently bridged by Theosophy, and this is only possible because the theosophical spiritual current extends to the deepest foundations of spiritual life.

It is not the theosophical attitude that says, “How is it possible that we have come so wonderfully far,” and looks back with a certain pity at the old “childlike” beliefs.

We in Theosophy have completely turned away from the delusion that we can look down on what humanity has achieved in earlier times.

In order to show the relationship between Goethe, the poet, and Hegel, the philosopher, and the theosophical view of life, the speaker will present the latter in a few basic principles:

The first principle is that this visible world is based on an invisible world; secondly, that man can get to know a supersensible world behind the sensual world. But: the supersensible world cannot be reached with ordinary sensual perception. Theosophy is not concerned with magic, with superstition, with falling back into old fantasies. The one who perceives not only the facts of the material world, but also the spiritual causes of it, becomes aware of a higher faculty within himself.

Dr. Steiner then gives a favorite example of a person who was born blind and underwent an operation. A world of perception opens up for him. An infinity of light and color flows into his eye that now sees, of which the person previously had no concept and could not form an idea. As a citizen of the lower nature kingdoms through his lower nature, the human being belongs on the other hand through his higher nature to the realm of the higher worlds, from which his being is built. And so the human being stands with his inner being between two realms.

Now we see the life of the individual human being playing out externally between birth and death, and we see how he becomes richer and richer in experience through the perception of the external world. And we ask ourselves: What is it and where is it that the human being has taken in during all this time? What we have absorbed is transformed by death into a seed for a different development. The sum of our life experiences has reached our soul, and at the moment of death the fruit of life presents itself as a seed. In a new life, in a new embodiment, the seed unfolds. We can perceive this in the development of a person from the moment of birth.

What we perceive cannot be explained by this one life alone. Just as the plant germ leads us to an earlier plant, so this spiritual soul germ leads us to an earlier spiritual life. This is what is usually called reincarnation.

Each life enriches the soul with the fruits of life, and each life the person enters richer: Everything we have within us, we have acquired in previous lives. And we also know that the thoughts living in this world are the fruit of earlier human development. But we see that both the old fairy tales and myths and what we currently call our science are only forms of human development – and that we will later achieve other and higher forms of this development.

When we survey all this, we are able to build a bridge to the poet Goethe and to the philosopher Hegel. From the very beginning, we find a basis for theosophical feelings in the whole being of Goethe. Even as a boy, Goethe was trying to find his own divine spiritual nature through his spiritual experiences.

The seven-year-old boy cannot recognize the external religious forms of his time as his own, so he builds himself an altar on a lectern and places stones and plants from his father's geological collection on it: natural products that he perceives as expressions of divine life. And then he wants to light a sacrificial fire, and he lets the first rays of the rising sun fall through a burning glass and ignite the sacrificial candle on the altar he has erected himself.

As an artist, too, he seeks nothing but the great life of the supersensible world, for example on his Italian travels. He also says that art is the most worthy interpreter of the spiritual world. One should also look at his letters to Winckelmann, where he describes his view that everything that exists in nature in terms of order, harmony and measure is reflected in man, where it exults to the highest peak of perfection.

Schiller writes to Goethe: “Dearest friend, I have been watching the course of your spirit for a long time, albeit from afar.” — “You are taking a difficult path, but you will surely find it... etc. From the very beginning, Goethe feels that he was born out of the spiritual-cosmic nature.

That Goethe recognized the spiritual in man is shown not only by a poem from the 1790s, “The Mysteries,” in which he speaks of the Rosicrucian symbol: the black cross with the red roses; he gives his creed even more beautifully in the fairy tale of the beautiful lily and the green snake and in his Faust poem. The speaker refers to Goethe's letters to Eckermann, where he says that his Faust can be viewed from two perspectives: firstly, it is something for people in the theater, but then there is also something in it for the initiate who sees the spiritual life behind the sensual life of man. Those who do not have that, the dying and becoming, remain only a dull guest on this dark earth.

Then the speaker points out other things that are so well known to most people, but understood by so few, and certainly not by most commentators on Goethe: in the prologue, where Goethe speaks of the “harmony of the spheres” and the heavenly choirs; in the reappearance of the figure of Helen in the second part, Helen who had already died; and finally on the homunculus, with which he wants to imply nothing other than that which is human, from embodiment to embodiment: the soul: He was all too happy to be embodied.

The speaker is briefer with regard to Hegel, namely because of the already advanced time of the assembly. Hegel is a contemporary and in many respects the student of Goethe. He understood everything about Goethe, except for the theosophical basis. Hegel shows how far one can come who does not know the above-mentioned foundations of Theosophy.

Take a glass of water: you can only draw water from it if it is in it. And man can only draw wisdom from a world that is itself built of wisdom. Hegel strove to prove this.

Hegel recognizes the world of ideas as a coherent spiritual world, independent of nature, and he calls this world pure logic. For Hegel, “logos” has the meaning of: the great original plan of the world, the sum of the ideas that underlie this world.

The speaker then points out the well-known systematics of Hegel and follows how he speaks of the three sides of the ideas: - the idea in itself - the idea in nature, spread out in space and time, where it will become self-aware, descending into different forms, to humans and further - then the idea, returning to its own pure essence, having become self-aware.

But, says the speaker, Hegel carries within himself all the limitations of his time. We must not see the philosophical lines alone, nor consider the “world of ideas” as something absolute. (The speaker seemed to mean: not as a concrete thing).

For Hegel, the scientific view of the world had become an absolute, and one always has the feeling that Hegel means that when man has grasped the world of ideas, humanity has come to its end. Hegel knew nothing of the infinity of forms through which the world of ideas gradually becomes conscious in successive lives, and that man must learn the logos of feeling as well as the logos of idea to live and experience. From Hegel's philosophy, a kind of materialism emerged.

[After speaking] tirelessly for almost two full hours with great mental strength, this extraordinary speaker concluded his lecture with the apt words of Goethe:

If the eye were not solar,
how could the sun delight us?
If the soul were not divine,
how could the divine delight us!

II. Report in the “Algemeen Handelsblad” of March 7, 1908

Theosophy, Goethe and Hegel.

The above topic was discussed yesterday evening at the 'Nutsgebouw' in a large public meeting convened by the Dutch Section of the Theosophical Society, with Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Secretary General of the German Section, as the speaker.

The speaker – an interesting figure: a sharply defined, ascetic thinker with deep, sparkling black eyes and long, matt black hair swept back; on top of that, a talented speaker – began his talk with a summary of the essence of Theosophy and its teachings.

He spoke of the possibility, so familiar and encouraging to those who have immersed themselves in theosophical ideas, but still so shocking, imposing, not to say fearsome, for novices, that man outgrows the physical, sensually perceptible world that surrounds him directly and moves and develops on a supersensible level of existence, thus elevating itself above itself; the possibility that man, not through magic or with the help of all kinds of superstition, but by cultivating the faculties of the soul that lie dormant within him, seeks and finds the spiritual foundations on which his sensual existence is based.

Dr. Steiner went on to speak of the doctrine of reincarnation, according to which the human soul, gathering life experience in a series of lives, grows in abilities, faculties and aspects, unfolding again and again in a new life as an effect, a consequence, a result of previous lives, and then, enriched by new experience, moving back to a state of condensation and concentration to finally fight his way up from the world of unconscious feeling, from which it was born, through the world of ideas or conscious feeling, to that world plan where the unity of knowledge and will will be born from the consciousness of ideas and the human soul will return to the eternal-spiritual core of existence from which the universe emerged.

The boy Goethe was already aware of this eternal spiritual core of existence. He built himself an altar of plants and minerals to glorify all creation, and he lit the incense candle on it in the sun, the eternal greatest manifestation of the eternal God.

Having also reached male puberty, he did not stop searching for the transcendental foundations of all that exists. Traveling in Italy and admiring ancient art treasures, he wrote to his friends in Weimar about his discovery of the “necessity of creativity-God”.

And also: “I suspect that the ancient Greeks created a work of art according to the same laws by which nature also performs its creative work, laws [that] I am on the trail of.”

And later, still in his work on Winckelmann, he wrote: “Everything that nature possesses in terms of order, harmony and measure is summarized in man.

Other great fundamental ideas on which Theosophy is based also dominated Goethe and are expressed in his works.

Thus, his unfinished work “The Mysteries,” dating from 1780, is an apt summary of theosophical ideas, where the doctrine of reincarnation is recognized in this beautiful image: “From the mouth of this pilgrim flows wisdom, as from a child's lips.

And again, in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily, but especially in the second part of “Faust,” we find recognition of this teaching and other apt interpretations of Goethe's theosophical ideas.

Without going into detail, we could not follow the speaker in his quotations. We will just mention his surprising explanation of the enigmatic “homunculus figure” from the second part of Faust as a human soul on the path to reincarnation.

Dr. Steiner also sensed the great fundamental thoughts of the world that Goethe had “secreted into the poem” in Hegel's philosophy. He too recognized God, the Logos — this word traced back to its original meaning — in the “original idea of the world”. He saw the sum of ideas underlying the sensually perceptible existence, which thus becomes an image of the “spirit in itself”. And in the isolated subjective spirit of the human being, Hegel saw and honored the macrocosm reflected as microcosm.

But Hegel's absolutism, born of the worldview limitations of his time, prevented him from going further. The continuous development of the human soul as a microcosm until unity with the cosmic core is achieved is not recognized by him. But this does not detract from the greatness – now mostly misunderstood greatness of his basic idea, which was purely theosophical, like Goethe's when he wrote:

If eyes did not see the sun,
How could light delight us then.
If in us were no God's power,
How could divinity delight us then.

With this quotation Dr. Steiner ended his lecture, which was listened to with great interest by the numerous audience of ladies and gentlemen.

Many readers of Goethe's Faust will feel something very significant for every human soul and heart when they hear the poet's words resound, which depict how Faust, this representative of humanity's highest aspirations, how this Faust, after having gone through everything that can be our science of the most diverse branches can achieve, stands at a loss, struggling for a knowledge that means more than the satisfaction of the theoretical needs of the mind, that encompasses everything that is most needed by man in his darkest hours, for consolation and for uplifting of life, for strength of existence and for creativity in reality. And when we are pointed by the poet's words to a possibility of soaring beyond mere intellectual theory into the realm of the spiritual world, when we are pointed to the fact that there is something higher to be gained than theory and wisdom of the mind, it may well may well urge us, if we are interested in what is to be incorporated under the name of theosophy into modern spiritual paths, to look at what has flowed into German cultural life through Goethe from this particular angle. We may be urged to look into what actually lies behind that expression of Goethe's when, as Faust, he beholds the sign of the macrocosm before his eyes, he says that he now knows what the wise man means by the words:

The spiritual world is not closed,
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Rise up, bathe, disciple, undaunted
The earthly breast in the morning dawn!

This is, in a sense, an invitation from Goethe's work itself to be viewed from the standpoint of spiritual science. Such a consideration of the work of great personalities who have had a profound effect on cultural life is very much in the realm of spiritual science, for this science can never fall into the error of other currents in claiming that everything that is truly valuable in terms of human knowledge has been created only through them. Mankind could then have little trust in a realization that would arise with the saying: “Like a shot from a pistol, it has only just been created.” Since human thinking and striving has existed, people have searched for truth. Should all those who preceded the truth researchers in question have searched in vain, only to be caught up in error?

How can we behave in a manner befitting a worthy attitude if we keep saying how we have come so gloriously far precisely with our wisdom? Theosophy does not make such demands. It seeks only to have the ancient wisdom that has always flowed into the hearts of those who have striven for truth and wisdom put into a special form and shape; this shall be given a new form that corresponds to the present life. Therefore, it is part of the task of Theosophy to inquire of the great minds of the past how their striving relates to what we are exploring today through our spiritual science.

We choose one who has achieved something so significant, Goethe, and if we place next to him someone who is unknown today and has been so for a long time, not unknown by name but by what he has wanted and commanded, Hegel, , then today's reflections may show us how, precisely, theosophical life makes it possible for us to appreciate some of the unrecognized, because theosophy is an instrument for finding and recognizing depths that would not be revealed in any other way. If we first immerse ourselves in Goethe, it is truly not difficult for us to find in his nature that basic trait of spiritual-scientific will and knowledge, which is characterized by seeing the invisible of the spiritual world in everything visible.

In everything visible we see the outer physiognomy of a spiritual, the outer expression of something supersensible, just as we see in the human countenance the expression of what lives in the spirit, in the soul. But we must not look at Goethe as some sycophants do, saying that Goethe had in his mind's eye what all mankind longs for, but was unwilling to express in clear words, unable to express it in quite definite forms of words, and that he sought to express it here in more obscure, nebulous feelings. The Swabian Vischer, the author of “Auch Einer”, has already raged about the fact that one wants to find Goethe's creed in the fact that Faust speaks to Gretchen:

Feeling is everything;
name is sound and smoke,
fogging up heavenly glow.

As true as that was in conversation with Gretchen, it is just as untrue in all other respects, for not everyone who has a sincere aspiration wants a Gretchen wisdom, although in many cases it is only striven for as a Gretchen wisdom. But in Goethe, something quite different had been alive from his youth, from his boyhood on. If we follow him back to his childhood, we do not find any kind of spiritual-scientific knowledge, but we do find the same emotional formation of the soul, the whole attitude of a theosophically thinking person. We see the seven-year-old boy unsatisfied by all kinds of emotional experiences from all the external religious forms that flow to him from his surroundings; but he can vaguely sense and feel a higher spiritual reality. He searches his father's botanical collection for all kinds of plants, selects all kinds of mineral objects and places them on a music stand, which is his altar. And already in his boyhood, in his yearning child's soul, he wants to make a sacrifice to the great God of nature, as he later calls him in clear words, who is conjured up by what happens in the world, he wants to bring him so mysteriously before his soul. He takes a small incense stick, places it on top and, by focusing the first rays of the morning sun, ignites the candle. In this way, he performs his sacrifice with a candle lit by the forces of nature itself. Even as a boy, he thinks of what is hidden and enchanted behind the physiognomy of nature. And that remained in his soul throughout his life. It sounds wonderful to us when we hear his prose hymn, which he speaks to a writer as an expression of what nature means to him, soon after his arrival in Weimar. It is the hymn “Nature”:

Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by it – unable to step out of it, and unable to get deeper into it. Uninvited and unwarned, she takes us into the cycle of her dance and carries on with us until we are tired and fall out of her arms.

Or when we think of the great words: everything is nature. She invented death in order to have much life. And so it goes on. Goethe himself later confessed that the poem was based on the idea that a spirit dwells in all natural processes, just as a spirit also underlies everything that is personal. He seeks the physiognomy of spiritual life; through this we see him driven to observe nature in its interrelationships. We cannot go into detail about him as a naturalist here, but we may point out that he goes beyond what was to become his specialized field of study in every respect. We see in him everywhere the endeavor, which can already be seen during his student years, that the individual natural object should provide him with information about the interrelationships in life. To this end, he later studied in Weimar; he attended Loder's lectures on bone structure, comparative anatomy and so on. He did not want to consider only the fragmented parts of nature; we see from this that on his Italian journey he wrote: “After all that I have seen here of plants and animals, I would like to make a journey to India, not to explore new things, but to look at the old in my own way.” His way of looking at things, however, is to see writing in everything, which mysteriously expresses the spiritual life behind it. That Goethe has this in mind becomes particularly clear to us when we see how he brings all life under one point of view, under one perspective. In Italy, he gains an initial idea of what Greek art can mean to his great mind. Before that, he had discussed many things with Herder. He educated himself through Spinoza's thinking to the idea of a divine-creative essence behind the phenomena; but he was not satisfied with this. He wanted to recognize a divine-spiritual essence in man himself. He writes to his friends from Italy, as he stands before the work of art that has given him the secret of Greek art: There is necessity, there is God. I have the feeling that the Greeks proceeded according to the same laws by which nature works, and I am on their trail.

Thus, art is the continuation of nature's creative process. The artist should immerse himself in the laws of the world and then continue nature's work; what nature allows to pass from the supersensible to the sensual at a lower level, the artist should do at a higher level. In his book on Winckelmann, he says:

When the healthy nature of man works as a whole, when he feels in the world as in a great, beautiful, dignified and valuable whole, when harmonious comfort gives him pure, free delight - then the universe, if it could feel itself, would exult as if it had reached its goal and would admire the summit of its own becoming and being.

Thus, for Goethe, the human spirit is that which already lives in the strict nature, in rocks and plants, what develops there through the animal, becomes conscious for Goethe in the innermost human being, and when man pours his spirit into forms, then he himself creates as higher nature beyond himself. But this was something he was born with, to see the spirit in everything he saw, it was natural for him, so natural that the momentous conversation between Goethe and Schiller after a lecture by Batsch in Jena could take place. Schiller remarked afterwards that there was always something bleak about looking at nature only in detail and never as a whole. Goethe replied that one could also proceed differently, one could also go from the whole to the parts and base one's actual observation on the spiritual. He then drew the symbolic picture of a plant and said of it that it was the original plant and contained all others within itself; with it, one could form and invent new plants in any way, from the lowest to the highest plants. Schiller, who at that time could not rise to such heights, soon worked his way to this view himself. But now he replied to Goethe that what he had sketched was not an experience, but an idea. Goethe did not understand this at all, but rather thought that if it was an idea, then he saw his idea with his eyes. Here two worldviews stand starkly opposed to each other. Schiller believed that he could only grasp the spiritual through abstraction; Goethe through the beholding of the idea with spiritual eyes. Goethe was clear about the fact that the spirit lives in everything, that creative spirits prevail under the sensual, and Goethe not only developed this world view in a theoretical way, but he also embedded this world view in his works, in everything he did in a poetic way. This is particularly evident when we try to grasp the depth of the second part of Faust.

At that time, this world view was by no means limited to Goethe or found only in a few people; rather, it was an intellectual atmosphere in which Germany's best minds lived at the time, and Hegel also grew out of this intellectual philosophy. Of course, for many who have only heard a little about Hegel, he is a dismissed philosopher, one of the great bearers of error of the past. When people approach great minds, they behave very strangely. There is a beautiful writing by a Russian scholar, Chwolson: Hegel, Haeckel and the Twelfth Commandment. In it, a good characterization is given in a certain way. The author is an excellent physicist; he is good at drawing the conclusions that can rightly be drawn from our present-day world view. His twelfth commandment is actually very self-evident; but it is not understood by many. It reads: “You shall never write anything about which you know nothing!” Those who are well-versed in intellectual life know that Chwolson does not understand Hegel; so he is a perfect example of his commandment. It is easy to ridicule when something is taken out of context. One must know the whole context. Hegel is a mind that was ripe, very ripe, but was only coming into its own for the first time with its own ideas. Born in Stuttgart as early as 1770, he published his first work, which for those who are superficial in spiritual matters is perhaps in many ways quite incomprehensible today, only in his old age. But this work should be deeply significant for anyone who wants to scale heights in spiritual life. It is the “Phenomenology of Spirit”. It must appear to us as if it springs from spiritual life through its outward genesis.

He shows that he was able to disregard the things of the external world in the utmost concentration. It took tremendous intensity of spiritual power to write these subtle things; the last pages were written while the cannons thundered in the Battle of Jena. There this work was completed, which was to introduce us to the spiritual world. And he always took his time; almost a decade later his “Logic” was published, and we also have an encyclopedia and a work on jurisprudence by him. The majority of his works emerged from his lectures through his students. It is difficult to give just one picture of the meaning and spirit of Hegel's teaching in a few words, but it is perhaps possible to give a broad outline. There has been much ridicule because Hegel wanted to construct the whole world, all objective being out of the spirit, out of the idea, because he first builds up nothing but concepts, nothing but a world of ideas that can only be followed through the human intellect; therefore, it is said that he did not research experience, but wanted to get everything out of the spirit, which one can only experience in this way by examining nature. This is where the greatest error in judging Hegel lies; it is quite wrong to say that Hegel wanted to spin the whole world a priori out of his head. He was quite clear that reality was spread out in space, but he also knew that behind this objective reality there are spiritual connections that man grasps in the images of ideas. What could he do about seeing the idea in things? He explored the world empirically, but he just saw more than the others. Nature also gave him the ideas beyond the gross material, just as it was with Goethe. Could Goethe and Hegel help it that the others could not find these ideas? Those who can't find them then believe that Hegel spun them out of his head. Lichtenberg, the great German humorist, once spoke of a book and a human being and said: When a book and a human head collide and it sounds hollow, it is not always the fault of the book. And when the human head and nature collide and the head remains empty because it cannot find any ideas, it is truly not nature's fault. Hegel made it his task to erect that which expands in space into the mighty structure of ideas that he calls his logic. That fabric of ideas, of which he figuratively says that it is the god that he was before the creation of nature. That was more than a figure to him. From abstract being to absolute being, one has something before oneself like a creation. He says: The diamond web of concepts and ideas is something in which the things of nature are woven. This web became a mirror image for him, from which nature apparently comes to meet him again. He follows nature through all its stages to show how it is the idea, the creative thought, that lives in everything. He considers the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, then the human being; he shows how the human spirit gradually becomes more and more perfect until it stands out through understanding and reason to the contemplation of the spirit in the external world. It is a gigantic edifice that rises before us, even if it is flawed in detail. It is a building that anyone can construct, and at the same time it is a good training, since one concept necessarily arises from the other, and every conceptual mass must fit into what is created in ideas. At most, we only find a similar necessity where the human mind delves into the connections provided by mathematics. There will come a time when we will again ascend to this significant schooling of the spirit.

When we try to sense how spirit and nature are combined in Goethe and Hegel, do we not feel the spirit of theosophical perception? Yes, we do feel it. Only one thing will be missing for the spiritual scientist in Hegel, which he finds in Goethe in the words of “Faust”, which Goethe calls “Chorus mysticus”:

All that is transient
Is but a parable;
The inadequate
Here it becomes an event;
The indescribable
Here it is done;
The eternal feminine
Draws us on.

Let us take the first three lines. We see nature as it arises and passes away in its individual parts; everything that has to go through birth and death is a parable for the eternal, the transcendental, for everything that stands behind it. Here, Hegel is a kindred spirit to Goethe; he, the philosopher, expresses the same thing intellectually: “All that is transitory in nature is a parable of the eternal world of ideas.” Then follows something that the poet could aspire to, but that was lost to the philosopher:

The inadequate,
here it becomes an event;
the indescribable,
here it is done.

If we feel these words correctly, we notice here where Hegel's purely logical explanation of the world is lacking. We can also apply the tighter discipline in this ascent to this network of concepts and ideas that lies behind the transitory. But there is something in this web of ideas that is inadequate, but which cannot become an event through intellectual contemplation alone. Hegel means: In this logical structure I have before me the God before He has entered into His appearance. But we must feel: Yes, you have something of the God who could have appeared to you as the great plan of the world, into which everything is fitted. But this web of ideas lacks life, and Hegel felt that.

The philosopher, the mere logician, cannot penetrate to the supersensible life. Here his mind, which was set up mainly for logic, could not penetrate. All idea is inadequate when it comes to letting the content flow out. From the realm of shadows, reality radiates when life comes to the structure of ideas. This life can only be found if man does not just stop at what is presented to his intellect, but must take the path to the stages of higher knowledge. Man must begin to let the spirit live in himself. For this, one needs a kind of knowledge that does not live only in sharply contoured concepts, but in what we have often mentioned here: in the realm of images and imagination, which represent a kind of knowledge that strives beyond all conceptualization. Behind all ideas lies a world of creative principles that is richer than all ideas. This is the inadequacy that can never enter into the idea, that must and can be experienced if one goes beyond the idea to the image that the poet has, or to the supersensible reality, to the spiritual. That is why the poet Goethe was able to approach what was missing for Hegel.

In the second part of Faust, Goethe comes as close as possible to what we today call a theosophical world view. He strives for nothing less than to include in the content of the highest spiritual human culture that which connects human beings to the great spiritual realm, which they sensed as children, sought as adults, and expressed in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily. He really wants to place these secrets before his soul, secrets about the spiritual and sensual-physical aspects of the human being. He also seeks to do the same in the second part of Faust, but we must approach it with different eyes than those usually used by scholars. We must take something on board that will strike some of today's interpreters of Faust as something quite crazy; but we will find confirmed what Goethe says to Eckermann: “I have worked in such a way that those who only want something for their own external curiosity will get their money's worth, but for esotericists I have included many a secret.

First, Faust is led through the small world. After he has gone through sensual happiness and sensual misery, we see how he is to be accepted into a circle of ideas where the greatest secrets of the nature of the world are to become clear to him. He is introduced to the great world. Faust wishes to unite with the Greek Helen, who has long since died. She is to unite with Faust as a physical woman. For Faust and Goethe, Helena means something quite different than for most people. For them, she is the representative of the people and creativity that Goethe admired in the Greeks, of whom he said that they had come to the bottom of the secret of all natural creativity and hinted at it in their works of art.

But only if we are well prepared can we experience the mystery that the eternal, the immortal in man can come to us in a new embodiment; nothing less than the riddle of embodiment confronts us here. Faust strives for Helena – he touches her, but at first there is an explosion because he is not yet inwardly purified, and he must first grasp the secrets of the incarnation, which are shown to Faust step by step. For Goethe, the human being also consists of the physical human being, who represents the outer physicality of the human being, that which he has in common with all the surrounding minerals. Then there is also a second link in Goethe's view: the soul, the astral body, the carrier of desires and so on. For Goethe too, the spirit is supreme, for it is the true eternal essence that hurries from embodiment to embodiment, undergoing incarnation after incarnation. And Faust is to experience how spirit, soul and body come together to form this sensual world. He must first recognize where the eternal is when it is not physically embodied on earth. The eternal is in a purely spiritual realm. Therefore Faust must be led down into the spiritual realm, into that kingdom where the “Mothers” are, the primeval mothers of all spiritual beings. Mephistopheles stands by Faust's side with the key to the kingdom of the Mothers, which he hands over to Faust. That is what Mephistopheles can do; he can describe the outer realm, but he cannot enter into it. He is the representative of the purely intellectual human being; he even describes the realm as nothingness. Therefore, he is the representative of realism, of monism. One should reach the threshold of spiritual life; the strictest science has the key, but it only opens the door. Those who have only sensual experience still clearly speak the words of Mephisto that there is nothing in the spiritual realm. But Faust replies what should be replied even today:

In your nothingness I hope to find the All.

And Faust descends into the realm of the mothers and brings up the living eternal spirit of Helen, that which moves from embodiment to embodiment. Whoever follows and understands the description of the “realm of the mothers” will recognize the knower in Goethe in every word.

Sink then! I could also say: Rise!

In this realm, this is the same — our concepts of space are no longer sufficient. The Mothers sit on a glowing tripod. This is the symbolic suggestion for what is actually eternal in man, which is divided into: Manas, Budhi, Atma or spirit self, life spirit and spirit man. This symbol of the tripod, surrounded by the eternally creative mothers, expresses enough in such a meaningful place. The spirit that Faust brings must be enveloped in the astral and physical sheaths, and that is what happens. Goethe presents what stands between the spirit and the physical body in the middle of it, the astral world, in Homunculus. That which has nothing to do with anything in the physical world, which is created separately from the spirit of Helena, but which is later to connect with it, that is the astral in man, that which dwells in the physical body in man. Goethe does everything to point out that in Homunculus we have the astral in man. If the astral could be separated from the physical, then it would have to be clairvoyant – it would have to see clairvoyantly into the astral world. It is no longer clairvoyant in the physical body. And Goethe presents the homunculus as clairvoyant. As soon as he appears, he sees what Faust dreams; he sees the whole world of ideas of Faust. And if we go further – are we not clearly told:

He does not lack spiritual qualities,
but he is all too lacking in the tangible and practical.

– after all, he lacks the physical. Homunculus is a soul that wants to embody itself. In every word that is spoken, one can recognize Goethe's opinion in the indicated direction. But Goethe's words must also be understood in the right sense.

It will! The masses are stirring more clearly
The conviction of the true, the true.

We find this even in commentaries on Faust: in Wagner, the conviction of the true is stirring. But what is meant is that the astral nature begets in a way that is above human procreation. It is a conviction—like Übermensch. It is difficult for people to understand Goethe where he is esoteric. Even during his lifetime, he had to hear people always pointing out what he had poured into it from the abundance of his youthful nature and his poetic feeling, for which one does not need much to understand it. He dealt with such people nicely. A note was found in his estate:

They praise Faust
And what else
In my works
In their favor.
The old Mick and Mack
Is very pleased;
The pack of ragamuffins thinks
It's no longer them!

They also believe the spiritual researcher. Goethe points out in everything that he wants to characterize in Homunculus this second link of the human being, that this soul, before it can take up the spirit, must unite with all that is in the lower kingdoms of nature. We see how the astral passes through all the kingdoms of nature up to the human being. With Faust, Mephisto and Homunculus, he therefore leads us to the classical Walpurgis Night. This is an important chapter that tells us what Homunculus actually wants. There are the creative forces in nature, and Homunculus wants to learn the secret of how to structure the physical shell around himself as an astral being, how to start from the mineral kingdom in the lowest realm and put shell after shell around himself — up to the human realm you have time. In the transition from the mineral to the vegetable, Goethe finds the beautiful expression: “It grunelt so” (it grunts). It is then shown how he progresses further up to where he is ready to create a physical shell from the elements. That is when Eros appears, love. When a person wants to step out of the spiritual into the sensual, then, according to the great secrets, spirit, soul and body must combine. When the three unite, then the human being can appear before us in a sensual and spiritual way. Helena is docile, the eternal spirit has come up from the realm of the mothers. Homunculus has surrounded himself with sensual matter, united with the spirit, and Helena stands before us. The poet could not have portrayed the embodiment any differently. In the third act, the secret of becoming is presented.

The inadequate, here it becomes an event,

he says in summary, what he wants to express after this examination. There, where we ascend the higher path of knowledge to higher forms, there the spirit shows itself as creating, alive, there it is placed before our soul in a living form. And we see what the spirit must also have if it is not to be a mere specter of eternal ideas – it must have will. He suggests that it must not only have thoughts and concepts. The indescribable, that must be done, that is the will. He confronts us as a capacity for knowledge, where we feel the innermost source of the highest knowledge flowing in us. When we turn away from all sensual and physical things. Man can reach this level, and Faust has reached it. Goethe shows us this symbolically by making Faust go blind at the highest level, so that he cannot see the physical.

But within, a bright light shines.

We find ourselves in the deeds of the spiritual world:

The indescribable, here it is done,

that which cannot be described with words from the world of the senses. We see how the living, logical, willing spirit can flow into us. And this fertilizes what is considered feminine in the highest sense, the soul. Thus we understand what Goethe means by the last words of “Faust” when we know that the soul is always represented as something feminine that needs to be fertilized and that draws us towards everything that becomes action. This is what Goethe wants to show us.

I have only been able to give a few rough strokes. What has been said about Hegel will show you that Hegel was on the path of theosophy. He went as far as he could. With tremendous energy, he researched nature, sought and found the connections. Goethe, the poet, went even further. In his poetic images, he sought to expand the rigid contours of conceptual images, that which is to become wisdom and science in life, by capturing the living spirit. Thus, through his Faust, Goethe truly affirmed that it was a deep truth to him, which he emphasized at the starting point of his scientific writings, that we see the external things of the physical world because our senses are created for external sensual things. The external image presents itself as our eyes are:

If the eye were not solar,
It could never behold the sun;
If not in us the God-own power,
How could we divine delight!

Just as the physical sun is seen through the physical eye, so is the spirit the creator of the spiritual eye in man, and is seen through the spiritual eye in its effectiveness. These words are the result of his world view. This is how he understands the spirit that permeates the world, and this is how he has struggled in his strength to a realization that only a few find. He says to one of his friends at the very end of his life: “The most important thing I have written is not for the great world, but for a few who can seek the same on spiritual paths.

What he has achieved for a few must become common property for many. It must not remain a theoretical world-view but must take hold of mind and will. And so, precisely those who approach Goethe's and Hegel's world-views from a spiritual-scientific point of view must come to the conviction of how much Theosophy can be found in both of them. This conviction is summarized in the words of the wise man:

The spiritual world is not closed,
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Rise up, bathe, disciple, undaunted
The earthly breast at dawn!