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The Destiny of Individuals and of Nations
GA 157

10 June 1915, Berlin

12. The Group Sculptured for the Building in Dornach

Dear friends, once again let us first of all remember those who are out there at the front, in the great arena of present-day events:

Spirits of your souls, guardian guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.

And for those who because of those events have already gone through the gate of death:

Spirits of your souls, guardian guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.

May the spirit we are seeking as we work towards spiritual knowledge, the spirit who has gone through the Mystery of Golgotha for the good of the earth, for the freedom and progress of man, be with you and the hard duties you have to perform.

Dear friends, it is to be hoped that the karma of the age, the karma of our movement, will one day permit the completion of the building at Dornach which is to further our movement. A group carved in wood will be given an important place in that building, in the part of it which goes to the east.

The aim is to bring to artistic expression, artistic in terms of spiritual science, and to put there before our physical eyes in that building the substance and content of our spiritual movement, and, above all, to represent what our movement is intended to signify for the present age and for the further cultural and spiritual development of mankind. Every detail is to be arranged in such a way that it may be seen as part not only of a spiritual scientific whole but also of artistic forms and indeed artistic installations and furnishings.

That is for example how we are trying to solved the problem of acoustics in the building. I am sure these problems cannot be solved at a first attempt, but orientation will be given by showing that calculations based on geometry and the usual rules applied in the external art of architecture cannot solve the acoustics problem. The solution will only be found by applying spiritual science.

The roof structure will be a double cupola functioning like the resonance board of a violin. This will partly bring to expression the acoustic concept of the interior space. Many details would have to be taken into account in elucidating the design specifically with regard to the way words and sounds are to be given their proper value, quite distinct from the way they are commonly treated in the present time. One does not normally design circular buildings specifically for their acoustics. Most buildings are designed in such a way that an individual note cannot be given proper value distinct from those that come before and after it, for at certain points one note will always flow over into another. We are going to try and achieve a space where each musical sound can be appreciated in all its fullness from all corners of the interior space and where clearly spoken words, too, can be given full value. But I only want to mention this briefly. My main topic will be the carved group which will be occupying an important position in the building. It is primarily a group of three. More may be added, and this can perhaps be discussed at some later date. These things are not done in accord with a pre-set fixed idea but on the basis of Intuitions of the spiritual world that arise in the course of the work.

Three distinct figures are of primary concern. One stands erect, expressing the true essential being of man—not in symbolic form, the way attempts have been made to interpret it even among us, but in a genuinely artistic way.

Of course, it will be apparent in the figure that earthly humanity found expression in its most concentrated form in the figure in which the Christ dwelt for three years. It will be possible to see the figure as an expression of the Christ. But the issue should not be forced. We must not approach the group with the thought: ‘I am now going to look upon the Christ.’ If someone arrives at the idea out of their own feelings and out of artistic Intuition, that will be good—hut it would be wrong to approach the group with the preconceived idea that that is the Christ. The point is not immediately to introduce symbolism again, saying ‘That is the Christ’.

The figure stands by a small rock slope; behind it the rock rises up high. Its feet stand upon a projection of the rock and within this there is a deep cave. Another figure is sitting in the cave. I would say it is crouching there. This figure is intended to give expression to something that relates to the figure standing above it. This appears to be letting some kind of forces radiate, stream forth, from its hands: We see how those forces radiate into the cave in the rock. The hand is within the cave; forces radiate from it, creating the impression of a hand in the rock. We see the hand, yet it is not a hand; the forces are present, creating the imprint of a hand.

Only the head of this figure really has a form reminiscent of man, resembling man. Apart from this it has huge bat-like wings and the body is that of a dragon or worm. Something may be seen to be winding itself around this figure, with the figure itself writhing beneath it. And you will see that this has to do with the erect figure, that it is connected with the outstretched hand of that figure. Forces radiate in, from this hand, and these cause the winding and binding. If we allow the picture to act on our soul for a while we may come to feet that this is the gold flowing within the clefts of the earth and that the figure in the cave is held fast in the clefts of the earth by the gold.

The other hand points upwards. And up there on the rock is Yet another figure. Again the head appears human; the wings are not those of a bat but hang down to the ground. The form of the body is such that we may get an inkling...—well, what does this body represent? This body gives the impression that the whole person has become a face, as though a face has been stretched, drawn out like elastic, and body contours have arisen from this. This figure is on the highest pinnacle of rock and it is falling down. As it falls the wings are broken. We see the hand reaching up from the main figure leaving its imprint in the wing.

And so we have three figures: Man in his essence; beneath him—no doubt you have an inkling who it is—Ahriman banned to the clefts of the earth by the power emanating from the outstretched hand of the principal figure, held fast by the gold in those clefts because be makes his own fetters of this. The other hand reaches upwards, breaking the wings of Lucifer and causing him to fall to the depths.

The point is that in the present time no one can produce such a work by simply applying the rules of the art of sculpture. (There has actually been some sort of an attempt at this when the idea had been put forward in a lecture.) It is not a question of expressing the idea in symbols; for every single trait in those three entities, down to the smallest detail, has to be created out of insight gained through spiritual science. The countenances of Ahriman and Lucifer, both resembling the human countenance, will have to be given a form that reveals the contrast between them. In the case of Lucifer this will involve the Peculiar way the upper part of the head is shaped so that it is merely reminiscent of the human. All is movement here within the spirit, nothing can force us to keep the various elements that make up the brow in the confines prescribed for the human brow. Every single element of the upper head is as mobile as the hands and fingers on our arms are mobile. It can of course only be represented like this if those movements are the genuine movements found in Lucifer. Something else to be noted is that this figure also contains an element which has remained with Lucifer from the Moon. This projects above a deeply receding countenance.

It will be evident to you from my description that we are dealing with something very different from the ordinary human countenance. It is as though the skull had an existence of its own, with the part which in man is the countenance pushed in beneath it. Another thing is that particularly in Lucifer there is a certain connection between ear and larynx. These two organs have only been cut apart in man since he started to live on earth. On the Moon they were a single organ. The small wing-like structures on the larynx were tremendously expanded at that time and then formed the lower part of the auricle (external ear). Huge auricles developed more or less in that region, with the upper ear, which now extends outwards, developing out o the brow. Today these organs are separate, and when we speak or sing those activities are directed outwards and it is only the ear which listens. On the Moon they went in an inward direction and from there into the music of the spheres. Man was one great ear. The reason for this is that the wings were the ear. And so you have the ear, the larynx and the wing-like structures moving in melody and in harmony with the sound waves of the cosmic ether and these give rise to the peculiar appearance of Lucifer. They introduce something that is macrocosmic, for Lucifer merely shows in localized form something that in reality is entirely cosmic.

You will realize that concessions have to be made so that people do not get a shock on seeing a face that does not have human form. You will also realize that it has to be an elongated face. Lucifer has to look like an elongated face, for he is all ear; the wings are all ear' a long drawn-out auricle.

Ahriman is the exact opposite, and it comes naturally to merely hint at things in Ahriman that in Lucifer are fully modelled out and enormously expanded. In Lucifer the wing-like brow is greatly developed, in Ahriman the lower jaw. The whole of the world's materialistic attitude comes to expression in the development of the masticatory organs and teeth.

Of course, none of this can be done on the basis of such a description—instead, the description had to be made afterwards-Special importance, dear friends, attaches to the following. It proved necessary in modelling the principal figure to deviate from what would seem natural to everybody, which is to make the human countenance symmetrical. A countenance usually appears symmetrical. There are of course minor asymmetries but these are scarcely noticeable. In the case of the principal figure it is a question of the whole of the left side being orientated upwards, towards Lucifer, with the left brow formed differently from the right, the latter tending towards Ahriman, The left side of the face follows the upward moving hand, the right half the downward moving hand. And so it comes to expression that the principal figure had to be given greater inner mobility than one would find in a human being.

Above this sculptured figure the whole theme will be shown in painting so that the two may be seen in juxtaposition to demonstrate how the arts differ. Painting cannot convey the same thing in the same way. Everything has to be presented in a different way.

I want to stress the following. It will be very important for us to sculpt the movement of the hands in the principal figure—the way the left hand moves upwards and movement of the other hand is downwards. We must make sure no one immediately feels that the principle figure is reaching up for Lucifer with the left hand, breaking Lucifer's wings with its emanations, and wrapping veins of gold around Ahriman. This must be avoided for the specific reason that at the present time in particular we are still in the process of really grasping the Christ through spiritual science. The Christ neither hates nor does he love unjustly. He does not stretch out his hand to break Lucifer's wings. The Christ is the one who stretches out his hand because it is his innermost nature to do so. He does not break Lucifer's Wings, but Lucifer up there cannot tolerate the emanations coming from that hand and breaks his wings himself. It has to be brought to expression in the figure of Lucifer that his wings are not broken by the Christ but that he breaks them himself. It is something one sees quite often in life that people living close to good people cannot tolerate this, for the influence of those good people makes them feel ill at ease. Lucifer feels something in his heart of hearts that causes him to break his own wings. Here Lucifer comes to recognize himself, to experience himself. The same holds true for Ahriman. Christ does not do anything to those two, neither his left nor his right hand is stretched out to harm either Lucifer of Ahriman. He does not do anything to them but they bring everything upon themselves.

This is the basis on which spiritual science intervenes in the present age to present Christ in his true light. Understanding this, we have to say: These things are put forward in all humility, for the building at Dornach is only a beginning—as yet feeble and imperfect—intended merely to show where the path leads, a path we can in no way claim to be perfect. I therefore ask you to take what I am going to say as being in no way presumptuous but very matter of fact.

There have been many portrayals of the Christ in the course of history. One of the greatest among them is Michelangelo's Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel. Consider the Christ shown in the Last Judgement. His stature Napoleonic, poised in the ether, he shows tremendous power as he directs the good to one side and the sinner to the other. That is a Christ who cannot be the Christ of the future, for he rewards the good and condemns the evildoers. Future Christians will reward and condemn themselves because of what has come into the world through Christ. Michelangelo lived at a time when the most profound truths relating to the Christ could not yet be given expression. The figure presented by Michelangelo in fact has Luciferic traits on the one hand and Ahrimanic traits on the other. Those are painful words to have to say today. But the civilization of mankind only progresses when we show that past ideals cannot be our ideals for the future. The ideals of the future will be such that the Christ principle is taken to be what it is and not merely what it does or will do when earth evolution has reached its end. It will be a principle which will cause to happen whatever has to happen within souls, just because it is there. The wood sculpture we will be placing in an important position in our building will also give expression to the fact that the view held of Christ until now cannot continue on into the future, because the relationship between Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman has not been rightly understood until now. We cannot understand the Christ unless we also have the right relationship to the powers seen as Lucifer on the one hand and as Ahriman on the other, for these ar genuine cosmic powers.

The issue can be made clear by referring again and again to a pendulum. The pendulum swings to the left and to the right. Moving to one of the extremes it is not in a state of balance, and the same holds true for the other extreme. Yet it would be idle, inert, lazy if it were always to stay in a state of balance, if it were not to swing either way. It is in the right position when at the centre, but it cannot stop at the centre, it has to swing to the left and to the right.

Human life is like that. We are not in a position to say: ‘I'll get away from Lucifer or get away from Ahriman’. If we were to say that we would not be living. It would be like a pendulum that does not swing. Human life does indeed go through pendulum swings, swinging towards Lucifer on the one hand and Ahriman on the other. We must not be afraid of this; that is important. If we were to run away from Lucifer there would be no art; if we were to run away from Ahriman there would be no science. All art not fully penetrated by spiritual science is Luciferic and all science that is not spiritual science is Ahrimanic. That is how man swings to and fro between extremes. The important point is to realize that he wants to be in balance, not at rest. There was a time when people said it was necessary to avoid the Luciferic element, to free oneself from it by being an ascetic. But it is important not to run away from the Luciferic element but truly to face up to Lucifer; we must really swing towards Lucifer on the one hand and Ahriman on the other. The point is that they are opposing forces, like other forces in nature such as positive and negative electricity, magnetism and so on. What matters, then, will be to recognize the triad of the Luciferic element, the Ahrimanic element and that which is the Christ principle. There has to be inner recognition of the inherent greatness of the Christ, a greatness not yet to be found in Michelangelo's Christ. That, dear friends, is what has to be achieved by working with spiritual science. At present we only have the beginnings of an insight that will have to become commonplace.

You see, I have also said here during these last weeks that from certain points of view Goethe's Faust has to be considered the greatest poetic work there is.6315 April 1915: ‘Der Schauplatz der Gcdanken als Ergcbnis des deutschen Idealismus’ (incomplete set of notes. unpublished). It is one of the greatest works ever produced by man because Goethe was able to give such tremendous depth to the human element.

Goethe attempted to make Faust a genuine representative of mankind. As I have said on a number of occasions, Mephistopheles is basically a mixture of Lucifer and Ahriman.64Rudolf Steiner: Goethes Geistesart in ihrer Offenbanmg durch seinen Faust und durch das Marchen von der Schlange und der Lilie (GA 22): in English as Goethe's Standard of the Soul (tr. D.S. Osmond) Anthroposophical Publishing Co., London 1925. See also note 22. What was the situation where Goethe was concerned? The situation was that he was not aware of there being two principles, Lucifer and Ahriman, and his Mephistopheles is hodgepodge of Ahriman and Lucifer. They are both contained in his Mephistopheles and that is the reason why the whole great work of Goethe's Faust65Rudolf Steiner in his lecture ‘Das Weltbild des deutschen Idealismus’, Berlin. 22 April 1915. in Arts schicksaitragender Zeit (GA 64) p. 431 ff. did not turn out to be what it might have been if Goethe had been in a position to show Lucifer to on side of Faust and Ahriman to the other. Then the threefold nature always present in mankind would have been apparent. That indeed was the problem Goethe had with his Faust4The Mission of the Individual Folk-Souls in Relation to Teutonic Mythology Christiania 1910 (GA 121) You see, when he started to write the work he could only take it as far as he himself had got by the 1770s. He was aware that the four disciplines representing science—philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine and, as he put it, ‘theology, too, alas’—were inadequate. These Ahrimanic disciplines could not satisfy Faust. They merely gave him an Ahrimanic, intellectual relationship to the workings of the universe. He wanted access to the reality of the universe, to go to the sources of life and experience; something living, not thought up. Something living—the earth's spirit—appears on the scene. Yet Faust cannot endure his presence. And then—this is in Goethe's very first draft—the door opens and in comes Wagner. So many people keep talking about Faust today and one has the feeling that one hears Wagner talking about Wagner. People generally talk ‘Wagner-style’ about Faust as he appears on the stage. What exactly does Wagner represent? And what is coming in with the earth's spirit?

We know that all knowledge gained of the universe is knowledge gained of oneself. It is a part of Faust himself that enters with the earth's spirit, though it is part of the expanded soul that identifies with the cosmos. Faust, however, is as yet unable to understand it. He cannot yet reach out to that element which is also part of himself. It is shown in the play how far he has developed. If we were to stage Faust properly today—more properly perhaps than even Goethe did—we would have to let Wagner appear as a slightly caricatured second Faust wearing the same costume and makeup; for it is another aspect, another part of Faust, that enters with Wagner. Faust himself says later: he was ‘…a worm, cringing with fear’.66Faust 1, verse 498. Then he understands himself. The earth's spirit has called out to him: ‘You are like the spirit you understand and not like me!’67Faust 1 verses 512-13. And now comes the spirit he understands—Wagner. And so, one might say, it goes on. The earth's spirit has not been grasped and the figure which appears next is really only the earth's spirit in another form: Mephistopheles. He appears as Lucifer guiding Faust through everything the human being is capable of experiencing by following only his passions—lower passions in Auerbach's Cellar, and also more noble passions, though these are taken as far as witchcraft and black magic. In Part 2 Ahriman should really be taking Lucifer's place. All this is apparent if one reads Faust with real understanding, and there is also plenty of external evidence. I have already said on an earlier occasion that among the material later cut out by Goethe was a passage where Mephistopheles was referred to as Lucifer.68This probably refers to verse 527 in Goethe's Urfaust:

‘He acts as though he were a prince's son.
If Lucifer had a dozen of such princes,
they'd be sure to bring something in for him.’

Goethe always felt uncomfortable in presenting this figure which really is two figures. The Luciferic element emerges particularly when Faust's religious feelings come to the fore, made to sound peculiarly high-flown in his conversations with Wagner. Catechized by Margaret in their conversation about God, Faust says:

‘Feeling is all that matters,
The name is but an empty sound,
Smoke to obscure the warming glow of heaven!’69Faust 1, verses 3456-8.

And this is considered the highest form of presenting the divine, as the highest form of presenting the religious element. No need to think—‘Feeling is all that matters’; this suggests that all we are able to have by way of a religious element is whatever the Margarets of this world are able to grasp, forgetting that Faust is giving instruction to a girl of 16, giving her only as much as she is able to understand. What he says about ‘smoke to obscure the warming glow of heaven’ is not intended for philosophers, and it shows lack of understanding when knowledge at the ‘Margaret level’ is over and over again seen in professorial array.

It is evident from all this that Goethe initially gave expression to the Luciferic principle in its double aspect. In Part 2 it is more the Ahrimanic principle, with Mephistopheles causing the Homunculus to be created, Helena to be conjured up and all the things that give Faust a knowledge of the world that is entirely different from everything he had ‘studied assiduously, in zealous toil.’70Faust 1, verse 357

It has to be said that even today there is much misunderstanding where many of the details are concerned. There is the passage where it is expressly said that Homunculus intends that something within man shall be developed to fully human status: ‘...and you'll have time until humanity is attained’,71Faust 2, verse 8326 for the path first leads through lower regions. The words are: ‘But do not strive for higher accolades’ (in German, nach Orden).72Faust 2, verse 8330 Very curious explanations have been given for this. In reality the words should of course be—Goethe was once again using the Frankfurt dialect—‘But do not strive for higher places’ (in German, nach Orten). It does not mean to say that Homunculus and others like him are awarded decorations the way people are.

Then there is the scene where Homunculus is created and Wagner describes something stirring in the retort:

‘There, it emerges! The mass is stirring, getting clearer, Super-creation getting ever nearer.’73Faust 2, verse 6855-6

The word super-creation is a compound of creation just as superman is a compound of man. People have only been talking of the existence of superman since Nietzsche wrote of ‘superman’.74Nietzsche: Also spach Zarathustra (In English Thus Spake Zarathustra), Vorrede, 3 and 4: also Part 3 'Der Genesende'. Yet Goethe spoke of superman long before that. As it is, people read the word to be UeberZEUGUNG (conviction) when in fact it is a compound of Zeugung (procreation, creation) and therefore UEBERzeugung (super-creation), just as we speak of man and superman.

These things have to be understood in detail before we can perceive what Goethe intended to say. But we also need to achieve a grand and independent vision. We really have to realize the mission of our age where spiritual science is concerned, and that a mind like that of Goethe was seeking to prepare his age for this mission.

In 1797 when Schiller pointed out that he ought to complete his Faust, Goethe said he had dug the old tragelaph up again—a tragelaph being a creature half-animal and half-human.75See Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe. 6 December 1797. Goethe had already communicated to Schiller on 22 June of that year that he intended to complete his Faust and Schiller furthered the project by showing continued interest. Goethe called it an old tragelaph, and at the end of the 18th century he called it a barbaric composition. This is something we must take very seriously for Goethe knew well how good and how bad his Faust was. All these are things spiritual science should bring out so that we achieve independent vision where these things are concerned. Goethe wanted to show the spiritual self, the immortal part of man, working to attain to higher things. This is evident from an outline he wrote around the turn of the 18th century as to what he intended his Faust to be. First he wrote: ‘Pleasures of life for the individual, seen from outside’ then: ‘Pleasure of creation, seen from within’. Finally, when he had followed Faust's path all the way, he wrote: ‘Epilogue in the chaos on the road to hell’.76Reproduced in the commemorative edition. Die Faustdichtungen, Paralipomena Vol. 5, p. 541 (Artemis, Zurich 1949).

Oh! the discussions I have had to listen to on the subject! They are enough to cause the deepest surprise, for people were reflecting: Did Goethe really still believe at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century that his Faust would have to go to hell? The answer is simply that it is not Faust who is speaking the epilogue but Mephistopheles, taking his departure when Faust has taken the path to his immortal self.

We therefore see something in Faust that is on the way, though only on the way, to what the dominant sculptured group in our building is intended to convey—the figure of man in truly concrete terms. On the one side appears the one tendency followed by the pendulum of the soul, on the other the opposite principle. It is not possible to truly understand the nature of man as long as one is merely holding everything together or looking for a duality. That is the essential point. We must hold on to the fact that it is indeed German culture out of which this idea will take form. Two civilizations on this earth represents opposite poles and in making reference to them one is showing their justification rather than otherwise. On the one hand there is purely Oriental culture. What does it consist in? The Oriental nature of this culture consists in purely inward deepening being sought, casting off all that is merely external process in this life. We observe how in the culture which represents the highest flowering of Oriental culture, in the Indian culture, all instruction, all knowledge, is designed to influence the soul to the effect that it becomes free of the physical body. It is a purely Luciferic culture, an entirely Luciferic culture. The further east we go the more we find the Luciferic element.

And when we consider the West, what do we find there? Let us go straight away to the extreme West. It is natural for us, particularly if we have learned something of spiritual science, and I want to illustrate this with an example—when we see someone who comes to accept a more spiritual philosophy where previously he followed a more materialistic one—it is natural for us to ask ourselves: ‘What goes on in the soul of such a person?’ It is particularly when we see such a major change in the soul of a person that we have to enter into the heart and mind of this person to share in the experience his soul has gone through. Nothing appears more significant to us than to share such an experience with another human being.

You see, in America people have also been seen to go through what is known as ‘conversion’, that is a change from a materialistic to a spiritual point of view. And what does one do? One sits down—I am presenting rather a radical picture, but it does happen like this—one sits down and writes to these people, asking them to give the reasons why they underwent such a change of heart. And then—well, one then makes a table, establishing categories, like this for instance:

Category 1 Fear of death and of hell (making a pile of those letters)—14%

Category 2 Altruistic reasons, selflessness

Category 3 Egocentric motives—6% (categories 2 and 3)

Category 4 Striving for a moral idea—7%

Category 5 Bad conscience and awareness of sinfulness—8%

Category 6 Obedience to teaching (1, 2, 3 letters)

Category 7 People have reached a certain age (1, 2, 3 letters), And then

Category 8 Imitation (1, 2, 3 letters).—13% (Categories 6-8)

Again a category of people who have seen others believing in God and have imitated them. Then

Category 9 Getting a hiding—19%

And so you have ‘conversion’.

This, then, is the opposite. In Indian culture there is no regard for what goes on externally. It would seem quite wrong to an Indian, he would call it ‘mad’, to work out the percentages of the converted in such a way, classifying the motives that led to their conversion. In the West no heed is paid to the inner life, all trace of the inner aspect is wiped out. The most external aspect of all that is external is here compiled in tables, purely Ahrimanic. If we go to the East: innermost inwardness, purely Luciferic. Thus the globe may be said to show us the contrast between Ahrimanic and Luciferic trends. And between those two we are not at rest but in balance. It is not a question of simply rejecting the one or the other of them. We have to be aware that a culture that really extends into the future consists in finding the right measure for both, knowing how to give each it proper due.

The whole of earth destiny is brought to expression, I feel, in the sculptured group. It is the mission of Europe to establish the balance between East and West. In the East the pendulum swings to one side, in the West to the other. It is not for us Europeans merely to ape the East or to ape the West. It is our mission to stand our own ground quite independently and give full recognition to the rightful existence of the one as well as the other. That comes to expression in the sculptured group. The work put in a particular position within our building therefore also relates geographically to our mission. It is placed to the east, but with its back to the east, facing west. It is in a state of balance, holding within it the fruits of a long sojourn in the East; and it will not be satisfied with the purely Ahrimanic culture which is what the West has to offer mankind.

Dear friends, if our age can come to understand these things, doing so in a thinking way, with feeling, and bringing perceptiveness into it—there is no reason here for pride—it will become clear to our age that even the very painful and profoundly saddening events happening now only serve to make mankind aware of the mission it will have to fulfil in the immediate future. It is only to be hoped that the tremendous and painful experiences mankind now has to go through will truly serve to deepen human hearts and minds. Unfortunately it is true that nothing of the great seriousness the present age demands of us is to be found in what is currently brought to expression in the spoken word and also in literature. Much will still have to come upon human hearts and minds before they are really filled with the great seriousness of purpose—and it is a comforting seriousness—that man will be supported in the tasks set before him. Seriousness is demanded of us, but on the other hand it is a comforting seriousness, a bringer of hope and confidence. We merely have to realize that we are living in an age when great things are asked of us, but that we are also capable of doing these great things. Nor can we come to a pessimistic view of things in the present time.

On Tuesday 22 June I shall go into these things in more detail, throwing additional light on certain points. I also intend to speak of man's immediate task for the future and the way spiritual science will help to achieve this.77The lecture notes do not include the mantram which Rudolf Steiner usually spoke in those days.

Zwölfter Vortrag

Wir gedenken wiederum zuerst derjenigen, die draußen auf den großen Feldern der Ereignisse der Gegenwart stehen:

Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.

Und für diejenigen, die infolge dieser Ereignisse schon durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind:

Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Sphärenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.

Der Geist, den wir durch unsere erstrebte Geist-Erkenntnis suchen, der Geist, der zu der Erde Heil, zu der Menschheit Freiheit und Fortschritt durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist, der sei mit euch und euren schweren Pflichten!

Meine leben Freunde, wenn das Karma der Zeit, das Karma unserer Bewegung einmal es gestatten werden, daß der Bau, der zur Pflege unserer Bewegung in Dornach aufgerichtet werden soll, fertiggestellt werden kann, dann wird an einem bedeutungsvollen Orte, an dem Orte, der nach dem Osten zu gerichtet ist, eine plastische Gruppe stehen.

Es ist ja das Bestreben, durch künstlerischen, und zwar im geisteswissenschaftlichen Sinne künstlerischen Ausdruck, innerhalb unseres Baues uns auch wirklich vor die Augen, vor die physischen Augen hinzustellen, was Inhalt und Substanz unserer geistigen Bewegung sein soll, und vor allen Dingen dasjenige, was sie bedeuten soll der Zeit und der Fortentwickelung der Menschheit auf geistigem und kulturellem Gebiet überhaupt. Ich möchte sagen: alles einzelne soll so eingerichtet werden, daß es erscheint als Teil nicht nur einer geisteswissenschaftlichen Gesamtheit, sondern erscheint als Teil von künstlerischen Formen, aber auch sogar von künstlerischen Einrichtungen. So versuchen wir ja das Problem der Akustik in diesem Bau zu lösen. Gewiß werden solche Probleme nicht gleich auf den ersten Anhieb gelöst werden, aber Richtung wird wenigstens gegeben werden, indem gezeigt werden wird, wie man durch geometrische Berechnung oder durch die gewöhnlichen architektonischen äußeren künstlerischen Regeln das Problem der Akustik nicht lösen kann, sondern nur auf dem Wege des geisteswissenschaftlichen Denkens.

Der kuppelförmige Überbau wird ein doppelter sein, und er wird nach dem Prinzip des Violinresonanzbodens wirken und damit einen Teil des akustischen Gedankens des Raumes zum Ausdruck bringen. Vieles einzelne würde in Betracht kommen, wenn man die Einrichtungen klarlegen wollte gerade mit Bezug darauf, daß das Wort oder auch der Ton in einer anderen Weise zur Geltung kommen, als sie so häufig zur Geltung kommen können in unserer Zeit, wo ja zuallermeist nicht Rundbauten, die für das Akustische gedacht sind, geschaffen werden, sondern Bauten, wo vor allen Dingen die Geltung des einzelnen Tones neben seinem Vor- und Nachton gar nicht zur Geltung kommen kann, weil dabei an gewissen Punkten der Räume immer der eine in den anderen hineinschwimmen kann. Es wird versucht werden, daß ein Ton klar auseinandergelegt zur Geltung kommen kann von allen Punkten des Raumes, und auch zur Geltung kommen kann das klar gesprochene Wort. Aber das will ich nur andeuten. Hauptsächlich möchte ich sprechen über die Gruppe, welche gegen Osten zu an einer wichtigen Stelle des Baues stehen wird. Sie soll darstellen zunächst eine Gruppe von drei Wesenheiten. Was noch dazukommt, das wird vielleicht bei einer späteren Gelegenheit einmal erwähnt werden können, weil diese Dinge ja nicht nach einem von vornherein gefaßten abstrakten Gedanken gearbeitet werden, sondern nach den Intuitionen der geistigen Welt, wie sie sich im Laufe der Arbeit ergeben.

Zunächst kommen drei Wesenheiten in Betracht. Eine steht aufrecht da. Sie drückt aus, wenn ich so sagen darf - aber nun nicht auf sinnbildliche, symbolische Weise, wie man das so oft auch in unseren Kreisen auszulegen versucht hat, sondern sie drückt aus in einer wirklichen künstlerischen Weise dasjenige, was der Mensch als solcher ist.

Gewiß wird man in dieser Gestalt sehen können, daß das Irdisch-Menschliche am konzentriertesten in derjenigen Gestalt zum Ausdruck gekommen ist, in welcher gewohnt hat während dreier Jahre der Christus — gewißß wird man in dieser Gestalt auch sehen können, der Ausdruck sei der des Christus. Aber man wird die ganze Sache nicht pressen dürfen, nicht mit der Idee vor die Gruppe treten können: ich werde jetzt mir den Christus ansehen. Wenn jemand auf die Idee kommt, aus seinem eigenen Empfinden heraus und aus künstlerischer Intuition heraus, so wird es gut sein; aber richtig ist es nicht, gleich mit der Idee, das sei der Christus, an die Gruppe heranzutreten. Nicht darauf kommt es an, gleich wiederum mit der Symbolik an die Sache heranzutreten, das sei der Christus.

Da steht diese Figur an einem kleinen Hang eines Felsens; hinter ihr erhebt sich der Fels in die Höhe. Sie steht mit den Füßen an einer Ausladung des Felsens. Diese Ausladung hat eine tief hineingehende Höhle. In dieser Höhle sitzt eine andere Wesenheit; ich möchte sagen, sie ist dort hingekauert; eine Wesenheit, die zum Ausdruck bringen soll etwas, was zusammenhängt mit der Wesenheit, die darüber steht. Diese Wesenheit, die sieht man so, daß sie etwas wie Kräfte von ihren Händen ausstrahlen, ausströmen läßt. Man sieht dann noch in der Felsenhöhle, wie diese Kräfte hineinstrahlen. Es ist die Hand in der Felsenhöhle drinnen; Kräfte strahlen aus und drücken sich in der Form einer Hand in dem Felsen ab. Es ist die Hand noch zu sehen, aber es ist nicht die Hand, es sind die Kräfte da und drücken sich in Form einer Hand ab.

Es ist eine Wesenheit, die eigentlich nur dem Kopf nach eine an den Menschen erinnernde, eine dem Menschen ähnliche Gestalt hat. Sonst hat sie große, mächtige fledermausartige Flügel und einen drachen- oder wurmförmigen Leib. Man sieht etwas, was sich um die Gestalt herumwindet und unter dem sich die Gestalt selbst windet. Und man sieht, daß das, was sich um die Gestalt herumwindet, zusammenhängt mit der aufrechtstehenden Gestalt, daß es mit der ausgestreckten Hand der Gestalt in Verbindung steht. Von der strahlen Kräfte hinein, und die bringen etwas zum Umwinden. Man wird, wenn man ein wenig den Eindruck auf die eigene Seele spielen läßt, zu der Empfindung kommen, daß das das Gold ist, das da innen in den Klüften der Erde fließt, und daß die Gestalt da innen durch das Gold in den Klüften der Erde gefesselt ist.

Die andere Hand ist nach aufwärts gerichtet. Und dort oben auf dem Felsen ist nun wieder eine, dem Kopf nach menschliche Gestalt, nicht mit Fledermausflügeln, sondern mit zu Boden hängenden Flügeln; und der Körper ist in einer Weise gestaltet, daß man eine Ahnung haben kann: ja, was ist dieser Körper? Der Körper ist so etwas, als wenn der ganze Mensch Gesicht geworden wäre; als wenn ein Gesicht in die Länge gezogen wäre, elastisch ausgezogen und dadurch Körperformen entstanden wären. Diese Gestalt ist oben auf dem höchsten Gipfel des Felsens, und sie stürzt hinunter. Im Hinuntersturz werden die Flügel gebrochen. Und man sieht, daß die von der Hauptgestalt hinauflangende Hand sich abdrückt im Flügel.

So haben wir drei Gestalten: der Mensch steht da in seiner Wesenheit; unter ihm, Sie ahnen es wohl, Ahriman, der in den Klüften der Erde gefesselt wird durch jene Wirkung, die ausgeübt wird von der ausgestreckten Hand der Hauptgestalt auf das in den Klüften der Erde befindliche Gold, durch das er sich selbst fesselt. Die andere Hand greift nach oben, und sie bringt die Flügel Luzifers zum Bruch, der dadurch in die Tiefe stürzt.

Nun kommt es darauf an, daß niemand — wie das auch ein bißchen gleich versucht worden ist, als in einem Vortrag diese Idee ausgesprochen war - in der Gegenwart schon aus den Gesetzen der Bildhauerkunst heraus diese Sache macht. Auf bloße Versinnbildlichung kommt es nicht an, sondern darauf, daß jeder einzelne Zug in den drei Wesenheiten in den aller-, allerminutiösesten Einzelheiten aus der geisteswissenschaftlichen Anschauung heraus geschaffen ist. Da wird man zu sehen haben an der Bildung der zwei ans Menschliche erinnernden Antlitze von Ahriman und Luzifer, wie man diesen Gegensatz zu denken hat. Bei Luzifer wird man es zu tun haben mit einer eigentümlichen Art der oberen Kopfbildung, an die die menschliche nur erinnert. Da ist alles Bewegung des Geistigen, da ist nichts, was uns zwingt, die einzelnen Glieder der Stirn in festen Grenzen zu halten, wie das beim Menschen der Fall ist, sondern da ist jedes einzelne am oberen Kopf so beweglich, wie die Finger und die Hände an dem Arm beweglich sind. Selbstverständlich kann man das nur hinstellen, wenn die Bewegungen die wirklichen Bewegungen sind, wie sie sich bei Luzifer finden. Und dann ist vor allem zu bemerken, daß an dieser Gestalt dasjenige da ist, was in dem Luziferwesen von dem Mondendasein zurückgeblieben ist. Das stülpt sich über das eigentliche Antlitz, das sehr tief hinein zurücktritt.

Sie können sich aus dieser Beschreibung schon denken, daß wir es mit ganz anderem zu tun haben als mit dem gewöhnlichen menschlichen Antlitz. Es ist, wie wenn der Schädelkopf für sich wäre und unten hineingesteckt dasjenige, was beim Menschen das Antlitz ist. Und dann kommt noch etwas hinzu: daß eine gewisse Verbindung gerade bei Luzifer hinzutritt zwischen dem Ohr und dem Kehlkopf. Ohr und Kehlkopf sind ja beim Menschen erst seit seinem Erdendasein auseinandergeschnitten; sie waren im Mondendasein ein einziges Organ. Was die kleinen Flügel am Kehlkopf sind, das waren mächtige Verbreiterungen, die dann die untere Ohrmuschel bildeten. Mächtige Ohrmuscheln bildeten sich etwa da, während das obere Ohr, was jetzt nach außen geht, von der Stirn aus gebildet ist. Und was heute getrennt ist, so daß, wenn wir sprechen und singen, dieses nach außen geht und wir nur mit dem Ohr zuhören, das ging während der Mondenzeit nach innen und von da in die Sphärenmusik. Der ganze Mensch war Ohr. Das kommt daher, daß das Ohr die Flügel waren; so daß Sie haben Ohr, Kehlkopf und Flügelbildungen, die nach den Schwingungen des Weltenäthers sich harmonisch-melodisch bewegen, die dann hervorbringen die eigentümliche Erscheinung des Luzifer; die heranbringen, was makrokosmisch ist, denn Luzifer hat nur lokalisiert, was eigentlich nur kosmisch ist.

Sie werden da sehen, daß man Konzessionen machen muß, damit die Menschen nicht erschrecken, wenn sie ein Gesicht sehen, das uns nicht Menschengestalt zeigt. Dann werden Sie sehen, daß sein Gesicht langgestreckt sein muß. Luzifer muß aussehen wie ein in die Länge gezogenes Antlitz, denn er ist ja ganz Ohr, die Flügel sind ja ganz Ohr, eine in die Länge gezogene Ohrmuschel. Der Ahriman dagegen ist genau das Gegenteil, und natürlich ist, daß in der Modellierung überall da, wo bei Luzifer etwas mächtig ausgedehnt ist, wo wir bei Luzifer völlig ausgestalten, bei Ahriman nur Andeutungen sind. Während bei Luzifer der Stirnflügel mächtig ausgebildet ist, ist es bei Ahriman der Unterkiefer. Der ganze Materialismus der Welt drückt sich in der Bildung des Kau- und Zahnsystems aus.

Natürlich kann man das alles nicht nach der Beschreibung machen, sondern man muß die Beschreibung hinterher geben. Dasjenige aber, was besonders wichtig ist, meine lieben Freunde, das ist: es hat sich die Notwendigkeit ergeben, bei der Hauptgestalt einmal abzugehen von dem, was jedem so natürlich erscheint, daß man ein menschliches Antlitz symmetrisch macht. In der Regel erscheint ein Antlitz symmetrisch. Im kleinen sind ja Asymmetrien bei jedem vorhanden, es ist nur nicht so stark sichtbar, daß man es bemerkt. Aber bei dieser Hauptgestalt kommt das in Betracht, daß die ganze linke Seite hinauftendiert zu Luzifer, und daß die linke Stirnbildung eine andere ist als die rechte Stirnbildung, die nach Ahriman hintendiert. Es folgt die linke Hälfte des Gesichtes der nach oben bewegten Hand und die rechte Hälfte der nach unten bewegten Hand. Und das kommt nun zum Ausdruck, daß in die Hauptgestalt eine größere innere Beweglichkeit gelegt werden mußte, als für den Menschen da sein kann.

Über dieser plastischen Gestalt wird das ganze Motiv malerisch dargestellt sein, so daß man beides nebeneinander sehen kann und einsehen, wie nach der Verschiedenheit der Künste die Malerei nicht in derselben Weise das geben kann, sondern alles, alles anders sein muß in der Ausgestaltung.

Was ich hervorheben will, ist das Folgende: Etwas ganz Wesentliches wird sein, daß wir bildhauerisch herausbekommen die Handbewegung der Hauptgestalt, diese Hinaufbewegung der linken Hand nach oben und die andere Handbewegung nach unten. Denn das, was jeder beim ersten Blick als selbstverständlich empfinden könnte, daß die Hauptfigur mit der Linken nach Luzifer hinauflangt und durch seine Ausstrahlung dem Luzifer die Flügel bricht und mit der Rechten dem Ahriman die Goldadern umwindet, das muß vermieden werden, und zwar gerade aus dem Grunde, weil wir, besonders in unserer Zeit, durch die Geisteswissenschaft erst daran sind, den Christus wirklich zu begreifen. Der Christus ist weder ein Hassender noch ein ungerecht Liebender. Er streckt nicht die Hand aus, um dem Luzifer die Flügel zu brechen, sondern der Christus ist derjenige, der die Hand ausstreckt, weil er es muß aus seiner inneren Wesenheit heraus. Er zerbricht nicht dem Luzifer die Flügel, aber Luzifer oben verträgt nicht das, was von dieser Hand ausstrahlt und bricht sich selbst die Flügel. Es muß daher in der Gestalt des Luzifer ausgedrückt werden, daß ihm nicht von dem Christus die Flügel gebrochen werden, sondern daß er sich selbst die Flügel bricht. Es ist im Leben eine häufige Erscheinung, daß Menschen, die in der Umgebung von guten Menschen leben, es nicht aushalten können, weil sie sich durch das, was von guten Menschen ausgeht, unbehaglich berührt fühlen. Luzifer fühlt in seinem Innern etwas, was macht, daß er sich selber die Flügel bricht. Selbsterkenntnis in Luzifer, Selbsterlebnis ist dies. Ebenso in Ahriman. Christus tut den beiden nichts, so daß weder die linke noch die rechte Hand so ausgestreckt ist, als wenn er dem Luzifer oder Ahriman etwas täte. Er tut ihnen nichts, sondern sie tun sich selbst, was mit ihnen geschieht.

Und damit stehen wir auf dem Boden, auf dem Geisteswissenschaft eingreift in unserer Zeit, um eine erst richtig geartete Christus-Auffassung zu geben. Und wenn man so etwas versteht, so muß man folgendes sagen. Es werden diese Dinge in aller Bescheidenheit gesagt, denn dieser Bau ist nur ein Anfang, ein allererster Anfang, ein schwacher, fehlerhafter Anfang, der nur zeigen soll, wohin der Weg, der in keiner Hinsicht vollkommen sein will, geht. Daher soll, was gesagt wird, nicht als etwas Hochmütiges, sondern nur als ein rein Sachliches aufgefaßt werden.

Die Weltgeschichte hat viele Christus-Darstellungen gesehen; unter anderen ist eine der größten diejenige, die in der Sixtinischen Kapelle sich befindet: Michelangelos «Jüngstes Gericht». Wenn Sie den Christus studieren in diesem «Jüngsten Gericht», wie er da oben in seiner napoleonischen Größe, aber zugleich mit einer ungeheuren Kraft in den Lüften schwebt und nach einer Seite weist die Guten und nach der anderen Seite die Bösen, da haben Sie einen Christus, der in der Zukunft kein Christus sein kann, weil er auf der einen Seite die Guten belohnt und auf der anderen Seite die Bösen verdammt; während es für den Christen der Zukunft so sein muß, daß jeder sich durch das, was durch den Christus da ist, selber lohnt und selber verdammt. Michelangelo lebte eben in einer Zeit, wo man etwas Tiefstes in bezug auf den Christus noch gar nicht ausdrücken konnte. Die Gestalt, die Michelangelo zeichnet, hat vielmehr auf der einen Seite Luziferisches, auf der anderen Seite etwas Ahrimanisches. Das ist heute ausgesprochen etwas wie ein schmerzhaftes Wort. Aber nur dadurch schreitet die Menschenentwickelung in ihrer Kultur weiter, indem man zeigt, wie die Ideale vergangener Zeiten nicht mehr die Ideale der Zukunft sein können. Es wird über die Ideale der Zukunft kommen, daß man die Christus-Wesenheit auffaßt nach dem, was sie ist, nicht nur nach dem, was sie tut oder tun wird, wenn das Ende der Erdenentwickelung dasein wird: Eine Wesenheit, die durch ihr Sein bewirkt, was in den Seelen selbst geschehen muß. Insofern ist die Gruppe, die wir hinstellen an den bedeutsamen Ort unseres Baues, ein Ausdruck dafür, daß die bisherige Christus- Auffassung keine in die Zukunft hineingehende sein kann, weil man das richtige Verhältnis zwischen Christus, Luzifer und Ahriman gar nicht eingesehen hat. Man kann den Christus nicht verstehen, wenn man nicht das richtige Verhältnis zu den Mächten hat, die man auf der einen Seite als luziferische, auf der anderen Seite als ahrimanische ins Auge faßt, und die wirkliche Weltenmächte sind.

Man kann diese Sache durch einen Vergleich klarmachen, indem man immer wieder auf das Pendel hinweist. Das Pendel schwingt nach links und rechts. Indem es nach einer Seite ausschlägt, ist es nicht in der Gleichgewichtslage, und indem es nach der anderen Seite ausschlägt, ist es nicht in der Gleichgewichtslage. Aber es wäre nur in Nichtstun, in Trägheit, im Faulenzen, wollte es immer in der Gleichgewichtslage sein, wollte es nicht ausschlagen. Die richtige Lage hat es, wenn es in der Mitte steht; aber es kann nicht bloß in der Mitte stehen, es muß nach rechts und links ausschlagen.

So ist das Menschenleben. Es ist nicht so, daß man sagen kann: Ich fliehe Luzifer, ich fliehe Ahriman. — Wollte man sagen, ich fliehe Luzifer, ich fliehe Ahriman, das wäre nicht Leben. Das wäre wie ein Pendel, das nicht ausschlägt. Das Menschenleben schlägt wirklich aus; auf der einen Seite nach Luzifer, auf der anderen Seite nach Ahriman. Und daß man nicht Furcht hat davor, das ist das Wichtige. Würde man Luzifer fliehen, so gäbe es keine Kunst; würde man Ahriman fliehen, gäbe es keine äußere Wissenschaft. Denn alle Kunst, die nicht von Geisteswissenschaft durchdrungen ist, ist luziferisch, und alle äußere Wissenschaft, insofern sie nicht Geisteswissenschaft ist, ist ahrimanisch. So pendelt der Mensch hin und her. Und daf3 er einsieht, daß er im Gleichgewicht und nicht in der Ruhe sein will, das ist das Wichtige. Es hat eine Zeit gegeben, wo man gesagt hat: man muß das Luziferische fliehen und asketisch sich frei davon machen. Das Luziferische nicht fliehen, sondern wirklich dem luziferischen Antlitz gegenüberstehen, das ist es, worauf es ankommt, wirklich nach der einen Seite hin zu Luzifer, nach der anderen Seite hin zu Ahriman ausschlagen. Das ist es, daß es wirklich einander entgegengesetzte Kräfte sind, wie andere Naturkräfte, zum Beispiel die beiden Elektrizitäten oder die beiden Pole des Magnetismus und so weiter. Also darauf wird es ankommen, daß man diese Dreiheit, das Luziferische, das Ahrimanische und das, was die Christus-Wesenheit ist, erkennt, und daß man innerlich die wirkliche in sich gebaute Größe des Christus erkennt, die der Michelangelosche Christus noch nicht hat. Das, meine lieben Freunde, ist die Aufgabe der geisteswissenschaftlichen Arbeit. Aber wir stehen damit erst am Anfang einer Erkenntnis, die wirklich erst die gewöhnliche werden muß.

Sehen Sie, es ist ja von mir auch in den letzten Wochen an diesem Orte erwähnt worden, daß man von gewissen Gesichtspunkten aus von keiner größeren Dichtung sprechen kann als von Goethes Faust-Dichtung. Goethes «Faust» drückt ja wirklich, weil er das Menschliche aus einer solchen Tiefe herausholt, ein Größtes aus, was die Menschheit je hervorgebracht hat. Nun hat ja Goethe versucht, in dem Faust einen wirklichen Repräsentanten der Menschheit darzustellen.

Ich habe ja schon öfters ausgeführt, daß Mephisto im Grunde nichts anderes ist als Luzifer und Ahriman durcheinandergemischt. Aber wie lag die Sache bei Goethe? Bei Goethe lag die Sache so, daß er noch nichts gewußt hat von dieser Zweiheit des Luzifer und Ahriman und daß er in dem Mephistopheles Ahriman und Luzifer zusammengebraut hat. Beides ist in seinem Mephisto darin, und dadurch ist dieser ganze Goethesche «Faust» trotzdem nicht dasjenige geworden, was er hätte werden können, wenn Goethe in der Lage gewesen wäre, neben Faust auf der einen Seite den Luzifer, auf der anderen Seite den Ahriman hinzustellen, so daß man die durch die ganze Menschheit gehende Dreiheit hätte sehen können. Darin lag ja die ganze Schwierigkeit, die Goethe in bezug auf seinen «Faust» hatte. Sehen Sie, als Goethe seinen «Faust» begann, da hat er diesen «Faust» nur so weit bringen können, als er in den siebziger Jahren des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts selber war. Er fühlte: mit dieser äußeren Wissenschaft, die sich ausdrückt in der Vierheit Philosophie, Juristerei, Medizin und, wie er sagt, leider auch Theologie, geht es nicht. Dieses ahrimanische Wissen, das befriedigt Faust nicht; er kommt dadurch nur in eine ahrimanisch-verstandesmäßige Verbindung mit dem Weltenzusammenhang, er will diesen Weltenzusammenhang wirklich haben, durch die Quellen des Lebens erleben das Lebendige, was nicht ein Erdachtes ist. Das Lebendige: der Erdgeist kommt. Allein, Faust kann ihn nicht ertragen. Und nachher kommt durch die Tür herein - im allerersten Entwurf ist es so -, durch die Tür herein kommt Wagner. Ja, wenn heute viele Leute oftmals über den Faust reden, auch über Wagner reden, dann hat man so das Gefühl, der Wagner redet über den Wagner, denn über den Bühnen-Faust wird in unserer Gegenwart zumeist «wagnerisch» geredet. Was ist denn eigentlich dieser Wagner? Ja, was kommt denn in dem Erdgeist herein?

Wir wissen ja, daß alle Welterkenntnis Selbsterkenntnis ist. Es ist ein Stück von Faust selber, was in dem Erdgeist hereinkommt, allerdings von der erweiterten Seele, die sich mit dem Kosmos identifiziert. Aber Faust kann sie noch nicht begreifen. Er langt noch nicht hinauf zu dem, was auch Teil seines Selbstes ist. Nun wird gezeigt, bis wohin er gekommen ist. Und wenn man den Faust einmal richtig darstellen würde, richtiger als das vielleicht Goethe selbst getan hat, so würde man heute Wagner als ein etwas karikiertes Konterfei mit der Maske und dem Kostüm des Faust hereinkommen lassen müssen, denn ein anderes Glied, ein anderer Teil des Faust kommt in dem Wagner herein. Faust spricht selber nachdem: er war «ein furchtsam weggekrümmter Wurm». Jetzt begreift er sich selbst. «Du gleichst dem Geist, den du begreitst, nicht mir!» hat ihm der Erdgeist zugerufen. Jetzt kommt der Geist, den er begreift, der Wagner kommt. Und so geht es, ich möchte sagen, fort. Und nachdem der Erdgeist nicht begriffen worden ist, kommt eigentlich nur eine andere Gestalt des Erdgeistes: der Mephisto, der jetzt auftritt sowohl als Luzifer -— wenn er Faust führt durch alles, was der Mensch durchleben kann, indem er bloß seiner Leidenschaft folgt, niederen Leidenschaften in Auerbachs Keller, edleren Leidenschaften, die aber bis ins Hexenwesen und in schwarze Magie hineingeführt werden - bis im zweiten Teil an Stelle von Luzifer Ahriman treten müßte. Alles dies kann man ja sehen, wenn man den «Faust» wirklich verständig liest. Aber es gibt auch äußere Beweise genug dafür. Ich habe das schon gesagt, daß es unter den Dingen, die Goethe später ausgeschaltet hat, eine Stelle gab, wo Mephisto einmal Luzifer genannt wird.

Goethe hatte immer ein Unbehagliches in seinem Gefühl, wenn er diese Gestalt hinstellt, die eigentlich aus zweien besteht. Insbesondere sieht man das Luziferische da, wo auch die religiösen Empfindungen des Faust auftreten, die in den Wagner-Gesprächen als etwas besonders Kurioses in die Höhe geschraubt werden. Wenn Faust, von Gretchen katechisiert, in den Gesprächen über Gott sagt:

Gefühl ist alles,
Name ist Schall und Rauch,
Umnebelnd Himmelsglut!

so wird das als die höchste Darstellung des Göttlichen angesehen, als die höchste Darstellung des Religiösen gefeiert. Man braucht nicht nachzudenken: «Gefühl ist alles»; damit sagt man, das einzige, was man als Religiöses haben will, ist das, was ein Gretchen fassen kann, und vergißt nur immer, daß Faust diesen Unterricht dem sechzehnjährigen Gretchen gibt und daß er darin nur gibt, was Gretchen fassen kann. Nicht für Philosophen ist das da, was Faust sagt über «Umnebelnd Himmelsglut», und das wird nur schlecht verstanden, wenn man die Gretchen-Wissenschaft im professoralen Gewande immer wiederum sieht.

Das alles zeigt, daß Goethe zunächst die luziferische Wesenheit in seiner Doppelmaske zum Ausdruck gebracht hat. Im zweiten Teil ist es mehr die ahrimanische, wo Mephisto zur Zeugung des Homunculus führt, zur Heraufbeschwörung der Helena und zu alledem, was Faust nun wirklich zur Kenntnis der Welt bringt, die ganz anders ist als alles das, was Faust «durchaus studiert mit heißem Bemühn».

Nun muß man sagen: mancherlei ist ja schon in den Einzelheiten immer wiederum und wiederum schlecht verstanden auch in unserer Zeit. So, wenn ausdrücklich hingedeutet wird, daß Homunculus etwas im Inneren des Menschen will, das entwickelt werden muß zur vollen Menschlichkeit: «und bis zum Menschen hast du Zeit», da es ja durch Niederes erst geht; es wird ja gesagt: «Nur strebe nicht nach höheren Orden.» Was da schon erklärt worden ist, ist ganz kurios. In Wirklichkeit heißt es ja selbstverständlich — denn Goethe hat da mal wieder Frankfurterisch gesprochen — «Nur strebe nicht nach höheren Orten» und ist nicht ein Hinweis, daß solche Wesen wie Homunculus mit menschlichen Ehrenzeichen geschmückt werden.

Ein anderes ist, wo Homunculus erzeugt wird, wo Wagner beschreibt, wie sich etwas regt in der Retorte:

Es wird! Die Masse regt sich klarer,
Die Überzeugung wahrer, wahrer!

Überzeugung ist von Zeugung gebildet, wie Übermensch von Mensch. Erst seit Nietzsche vom Übermenschen gesprochen hat, reden die Menschen davon, daß es einen Übermenschen gibt, Goethe hat schon lange vorher vom Übermenschen gesprochen. Und so lesen sie, die Menschen, hier Überzeugung, aber im Gegenteil von Zeugung ist es eine Überzeugung, wie man sagt: Mensch und Übermensch.

Das sind Dinge, die erst im einzelnen begriffen werden müssen, damit man einsieht, was Goethe hat sagen wollen. Aber man muß den großen, freien Standpunkt gewinnen, man muß wirklich die Sendung unserer Zeit in bezug auf Geisteswissenschaft einsehen und einsehen, daß ein Geist wie Goethe gesucht hat, seine Zeit vorzubereiten auf diese Sendung.

Als Schiller ihn im Jahre 1797 aufmerksam gemacht hat, daß er den «Faust» vollenden soll, da sagt Goethe, er habe den alten Tragelaphen - das ist ein Wesen, halb Tier, halb Mensch — wieder hervorgeholt. Goethe nennt ihn einen Tragelaphen, und er nennt ihn am Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts eine barbarische Komposition. Das muß man sehr ernst nehmen, denn Goethe hat schon verstanden, wie gut und wie schlecht sein «Faust» war. Das alles gehört zu dem, was Geisteswissenschaft heranziehen soll, daß wir uns zu einem freien Standpunkt gegenüber diesen Dingen erheben. Daß Goethe darstellen wollte das Arbeiten des spirituellen Selbstes, des Unsterblichen im Menschen hinauf zum Höheren, das zeigt er dadurch, daß er eine Skizze gemacht hat um die Wende des achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhunderts zu dem, was der Faust werden sollte, wo er zuerst gesagt hat: «Lebensgenuß der Person, von außen gesehen»; dann schreibt er auf: «Schöpfungsgenuß von innen», und zum Schluß, nachdem er den ganzen Weg des Faust genommen hat, hat er aufgeschrieben: «Epilog im Chaos auf dem Weg zur Hölle.»

Was alles ich da an Diskussionen habe anhören müssen, das ist wirklich etwas, was einem innerste Überraschung bereiten kann; denn die Leute haben darüber nachgedacht: Ja, hat denn Goethe noch geglaubt um die Wende des achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, daß sein Faust zur Hölle fahren muß? Die Lösung ist einfach die, daß es nicht Faust ist, der spricht, sondern daß der abziehende Mephisto den Epilog hält, nachdem Faust den Weg zu seinem unsterblichen Selbst gegangen ist.

So sehen wir auch in Goethes «Faust» etwas, was auf dem Wege liegt, aber erst auf dem Wege zu dem, was durch die Hauptgruppe unseres Baues zum Ausdruck gebracht werden soll: eine wirklich konkrete Auffassung der menschlichen Gestalt, indem auf der einen Seite erscheint, wonach die Seele immer ausschlagen muß, und auch auf der anderen Seite, wonach die Seele ausschlagen muß. Solange man alles zusammenhält oder nur eine Zweiheit sucht, kann man zu einer wirklichen Erkenntnis des Menschen nicht kommen. Das ist das Wesentliche, was festzuhalten ist. Festzuhalten ist, daß es wirklich aus der deutschen Kultur heraus sich ergibt, gerade diese Idee zu verkörpern. Es gibt auf der Erde zwei Gegenpole der Kultur, die ihre Berechtigung haben, die nicht in ihrer Unberechtigung dargestellt werden, sondern in ihrer Berechtigung, wenn man hinweist auf sie. Da haben wir auf der einen Seite die rein orientalische Kultur. Worin besteht diese orientalische Kultur? Das Orientalische in der Kultur besteht darin, daß gesucht wird eine bloß innerliche Vertiefung, mit Abstreifung alles dessen, was äußerer Prozeß des Daseins ist. Und so sehen wir, wie in der höchsten Blüte dieser orientalischen Kultur, in der indischen Kultur, alle Anweisungen, alles Wissen dahin geht, die Seele so zu bilden, daß sie frei wird von dem, was physischer Leib ist. Es ist eine rein luziferische Kultur, eine bloß luziferische Kultur. Je weiter wir nach dem Osten kommen, kommen wir zu dem Luziferischen.

Und kommen wir nach dem Westen, wohin kommen wir da? Nehmen wir gleich den äußersten Westen. Uns ist es natürlich, namentlich, wenn wir etwas von Geisteswissenschaft aufgenommen haben - und ich möchte es Ihnen an einem Beispiel zeigen -, uns ist es klar, daß, wenn wir sehen, daf3 ein Mensch aus einer mehr materialistischen Weltanschauung in eine mehr spirituelle Weltanschauung kommt, wir uns fragen: was geht in der Seele eines solchen Menschen vor? Wir müssen gerade dann, wenn wir bei einem solchen Menschen einen solchen Umschwung in seiner Seele wahrnehmen, uns in das Innere dieses Menschen begeben, um das, was er in seiner Seele durchgemacht hat, mit ihm mitzuerleben. Und nichts erscheint uns bedeutsamer, als solches mitzuerleben mit einem Menschen.

Sehen Sie, in Amerika hat man auch gesehen, daß? Menschen etwas durchmachen, was man dort Bekehrung nennt, daß heißt einen Umschwung von einer materialistischen Anschauung zu einer spirituellen. Was tut man da? Man setzt sich hin — wenn ich auch die Sache etwas radikal erzähle, es ist schon so —, man setzt sich hin und schreibt an die Menschen, die so etwas durchgemacht haben, einen Brief und läßt sich die Frage beantworten, aus welchen Gründen sie diesen Umschwung durchgemacht haben. Und dann, na dann macht man ein Schema, dann stellt man Kategorien auf, zum Beispiel:

1. Kategorie: Furcht vor dem Tode und der Hölle (und legt solche Briefe auf einen Haufen zusammen).
2. Kategorie: Altruistische Beweggründe, Selbstlosigkeit.
3. Kategorie: Egozentrische Motive.
4. Kategorie: Streben nach dem sittlichen Ideal.
5. Kategorie: Gewissensbisse und Sündenbewußtsein. 1, 2, 3 Briefe.
6. Kategorie: Befolgung von Lehren. 1, 2, 3 Briefe.
7. Kategorie: daß Leute gekommen sind in dieses oder jenes Alter. 1, 2, 3 Briefe. Dann
8. Nachahmung. 1, 2, 3 Briefe. Wieder eine Kategorie Leute, die gesehen haben, daß Menschen an einen Gott geglaubt haben, und dies nachgeahmt haben. Dann
9. Hiebe.

14% Furcht vor der Hölle.
6% andere Motive.
7% Streben nach dem Ideal.
8% Sündenbewußtsein.
13% Nachahmung und Beispiel.
19% Hiebe.

Jetzt hat man eine Bekehrung.

So haben wir das Gegenteil. Im Indischen keine Rücksicht auf das, was außen vorgeht. Einem Inder würde das verkehrt vorkommen; er würde das Wort «verrückt» gebrauchen, wenn man äußerlich Prozente derer angeben wollte, die sich bekehrt haben; daß sie aus diesen oder jenen Motiven sich bekehrt haben. Im Westen kümmert man sich nicht um das Innere, da im Westen ist alles ausgewischt von diesem Inneren. Äußerlichstes Äußerliches zusammengestellt, rein ahrimanisch. Gehen wir nach dem Osten: Innerlichstes Inneres, rein luziferisch. So stellt uns, ich möchte sagen, die Erdkugel selber dar den Gegensatz des Ahrimanischen und Luziferischen. Und zwischen diesem Ahrimanischen und Luziferischen ist man nicht in einer Ruhe, sondern im Gleichgewichte. Es handelt sich nicht darum, daß man das eine oder das andere bloß abweist, sondern daß man sich bewußt wird, daß eine wirklich in die Zukunft hineinreichende Kultur darin besteht, daß man beides in das richtige Maß zu bringen weiß, was eines haben muß gegen das andere.

Und da sehen Sie ausgedrückt, ich möchte sagen, das ganze Erdenschicksal in unserer Gruppe. Es ist einmal Aufgabe Europas, den Ausgleich zu bringen zwischen dem Osten und dem Westen. Im Osten schlägt das Pendel nach der einen Seite aus, im Westen nach der anderen Seite. Uns in Europa kommt es nicht bloß zu, etwa die Affen des Ostens oder die Affen des Westens zu sein, sondern uns kommt es zu, ganz selbständig auf dem eigenen Boden zu stehen und die Berechtigung des einen wie die Berechugung des anderen voll anzuerkennen. Das ist ausgedrückt in unserer Gruppe. Und so hängt das, was an besonderem Orte unseres Baues aufgestellt ist, auch in geographischer Weise mit unserer Aufgabe zusammen. Es ist aufgestellt nach dem Osten, aber mit dem Rücken nach dem Osten, es blickt nach dem Westen, aber es steht im Gleichgewicht da, trägt in sich das, was es auf langer Wanderung im Osten erfahren hat, und läßt sich nicht genügen an dem, was der Westen an rein ahrimanischer Kultur über die Menschheit bringen kann.

Wenn unsere Zeit, meine lieben Freunde, diese Dinge einmal einsehen wird, aber denkend, fühlend, mit Empfinden durchdringen wird — es braucht ja kein Hochmut dabei zu sein -, dann wird es dieser Zeit klar sein, wie auch die schmerzlichsten, niederdrückendsten Ereignisse der Gegenwart eben nur da sind, um an die Menschheit heranzubringen das Gefühl von der Aufgabe, die diese Menschheit für die nächste Zukunft zu erfüllen haben wird. Man möchte nur hoffen, daß Großes, Schmerzliches, das die Menschheit erlebt, auch eine wirkliche und auch wahre Vertiefung der Gemüter hervorbringen kann. Wahr ist es schon, dafß man leider in dem, was zum Ausdruck gebracht wird, namentlich in dem gesprochenen und literarisch Geschriebenen, den großen Ernst, den unsere Zeit von uns fordert, keineswegs erkennt, daß da noch vieles, vieles in die Menschengemüter hinein muß, damit dieser große Ernst, ich möchte sagen, dieser trostvolle Ernst die Gemüter wirklich so erfülle, daß der Mensch getragen werden kann durch die Aufgaben, die ihm gestellt werden. Ernst ist es auf der einen Seite, was uns zur Aufgabe gestellt wird, aber es ist ein trostvoller, hoffnungsvoller, Zuversicht einflößender Ernst von der anderen Seite. Man braucht nur einzusehen, daß wir in einer Zeit leben, in der Großes von uns gefordert wird, daß aber auch dieses Große von uns erfüllt werden kann. Und man wird auch in dieser Zeit zu einer pessimistischen Weltanschauung nicht kommen können.

Um alle diese Dinge in intimerer, in eindringlicherer Weise auseinanderzusetzen, und was die nächste Zukunftsaufgabe der Menschheit ist, und wie Geisteswissenschaft diese Aufgabe zu lösen helfen wird, werde ich am Dienstag, den 22. Juni, das heute Besprochene fortsetzen.

Twelfth Lecture

We again remember first those who stand outside in the great fields of present events:

Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
Protect the people of Earth who trust you,
So that, united with your power,
Our plea may shine helpfully
Upon the souls that seek it lovingly.

And for those who have already passed through the gates of death as a result of these events:

Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the people of the spheres you protect,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine helpfully
Upon the souls whom it lovingly seeks.

The spirit we seek through our striving for spiritual knowledge, the spirit that has come to the earth to bring healing, freedom, and progress to humanity through the mystery of Golgotha, may it be with you and your difficult duties!

My dear friends, when the karma of the times, the karma of our movement, will one day allow the building that is to be erected in Dornach for the cultivation of our movement to be completed, then a sculptural group will stand in a meaningful place, in a place that faces east.

It is indeed our aspiration, through artistic expression, and indeed artistic expression in the spiritual-scientific sense, to place before our eyes, before our physical eyes, within our building, what is to be the content and substance of our spiritual movement, and above all what it is to mean for the time and for the further development of humanity in the spiritual and cultural realm in general. I would like to say that every single element should be arranged in such a way that it appears not only as part of a spiritual-scientific whole, but also as part of artistic forms and even artistic arrangements. This is how we are trying to solve the problem of acoustics in this building. Certainly, such problems will not be solved at first attempt, but at least a direction will be given by showing how the problem of acoustics cannot be solved by geometric calculation or by the usual architectural rules of external art, but only by means of spiritual-scientific thinking.

The dome-shaped superstructure will be double and will function according to the principle of a violin soundboard, thus expressing part of the acoustic concept of the space. Many individual details would have to be considered if one wanted to clarify the design, particularly in view of the fact that words and sounds are perceived differently than they can so often be heard in our time, when most buildings are not designed for acoustics, but are structures where the individual tone cannot be heard clearly alongside its overtones and undertones, because at certain points in the room one tone always bleeds into another. An attempt will be made to ensure that a sound can be clearly distinguished from all points in the room, and that clearly spoken words can also be heard. But I will only mention this in passing. I would mainly like to talk about the group that will stand towards the east at an important point in the building. It is intended to represent a group of three beings. What else will be added may perhaps be mentioned at a later opportunity, because these things are not worked out according to an abstract idea conceived in advance, but according to the intuitions of the spiritual world as they arise in the course of the work.

First, three beings come into consideration. One stands upright. It expresses, if I may say so—but not in a symbolic way, as has so often been interpreted in our circles, but in a truly artistic way—what the human being is as such.

Certainly, one will be able to see in this figure that the earthly-human has found its most concentrated expression in the form in which Christ lived for three years — certainly, one will also be able to see in this figure that the expression is that of Christ. But one must not force the whole thing, one must not approach the group with the idea: I am now going to look at Christ. If someone comes up with this idea out of their own feelings and artistic intuition, that is fine; but it is not right to approach the group with the idea that this is Christ. It is not important to approach the matter with symbolism, saying that this is Christ.

There stands this figure on a small slope of a rock; behind her, the rock rises up. She stands with her feet on a ledge of the rock. This ledge has a deep cave. In this cave sits another being; I would say it is crouching there; a being that is supposed to express something connected with the being standing above it. This being can be seen to radiate something like forces from its hands. One can then see these forces shining into the rock cave. It is the hand inside the rock cave; forces radiate out and are imprinted in the rock in the shape of a hand. The hand can still be seen, but it is not the hand; it is the forces that are there and are imprinted in the shape of a hand.

It is a being that only has a human-like head and a human-like form. Otherwise, it has large, powerful bat-like wings and a dragon- or worm-shaped body. One sees something winding around the figure and beneath which the figure itself is writhing. And one sees that what is winding around the figure is connected with the upright figure, that it is connected with the figure's outstretched hand. Rays of energy emanate from it and cause something to wind around it. If you allow the impression to sink into your soul, you will come to the realization that this is the gold that flows inside the crevices of the earth, and that the figure inside is bound by the gold in the crevices of the earth.

The other hand is pointing upward. And up there on the rock is another figure, human in shape, not with bat wings, but with wings hanging down to the ground; and the body is shaped in such a way that one can have a vague idea: yes, what is this body? The body is something like the whole human being has become a face; as if a face had been stretched out lengthwise, elastically drawn out, and body forms had emerged as a result. This figure is at the top of the highest peak of the rock, and it is falling down. In its fall, the wings are broken. And one sees that the hand reaching up from the main figure is pressing itself off the wing.

So we have three figures: the human being stands there in his essence; beneath him, as you may well guess, is Ahriman, who is bound in the crevices of the earth by the effect exerted by the outstretched hand of the main figure on the gold in the crevices of the earth, through which he binds himself. The other hand reaches upward and breaks the wings of Lucifer, who thereby plunges into the depths.

Now it is important that no one — as was attempted to some extent when this idea was expressed in a lecture — should already make this thing in the present out of the laws of sculpture. It is not a matter of mere symbolism, but of each individual feature in the three beings being created in the most minute detail from a spiritual scientific perspective. The formation of the two human-like faces of Ahriman and Lucifer will show us how this contrast is to be understood. In Lucifer, we are dealing with a peculiar type of upper head formation that is only reminiscent of the human head. Everything there is movement of the spirit; there is nothing that compels us to keep the individual parts of the forehead within fixed boundaries, as is the case with humans. Instead, each individual part of the upper head is as mobile as the fingers and hands are on the arm. Of course, this can only be imagined if the movements are real movements, as they are found in Lucifer. And then it is particularly noticeable that this figure contains what has remained in the Lucifer being from its existence on the moon. This is superimposed on the actual face, which recedes very deeply.

From this description, you can already imagine that we are dealing with something completely different from the ordinary human face. It is as if the skull were separate and what constitutes the face in humans were inserted into it. And then there is something else: in Lucifer, there is a certain connection between the ear and the larynx. In humans, the ear and larynx have only been separated since their earthly existence; in the lunar existence, they were a single organ. The small wings on the larynx were powerful extensions that then formed the lower ear. Powerful auricles formed there, while the upper ear, which now protrudes outward, was formed from the forehead. And what is now separated, so that when we speak and sing, this protrudes outward and we listen only with the ear, went inward during the lunar period and from there into the music of the spheres. The whole human being was an ear. This is because the ear was the wings; so you have the ear, the larynx, and wing formations that move harmoniously and melodiously according to the vibrations of the world ether, which then bring forth the peculiar appearance of Lucifer; which bring forth what is macrocosmic, for Lucifer has only localized what is actually only cosmic.

You will see that concessions must be made so that people are not frightened when they see a face that does not show us a human form. Then you will see that his face must be elongated. Lucifer must look like an elongated face, for he is all ear, his wings are all ear, an elongated ear. Ahriman, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite, and it is natural that in the modeling, wherever something is powerfully extended in Lucifer, where we fully develop in Lucifer, there are only hints in Ahriman. While Lucifer's forehead wings are powerfully developed, Ahriman's lower jaw is. All the materialism of the world is expressed in the formation of the chewing and tooth system.

Of course, one cannot do all this according to the description, but one must give the description afterwards. But what is particularly important, my dear friends, is this: it has become necessary to depart from what seems so natural to everyone, namely, that a human face is symmetrical. As a rule, a face appears symmetrical. In small details, asymmetries are present in everyone, but they are not so strongly visible that one notices them. But in this main form, it comes into consideration that the entire left side tends upward toward Lucifer, and that the left forehead formation is different from the right forehead formation, which tends backward toward Ahriman. This is followed by the left half of the face of the upward-moving hand and the right half of the downward-moving hand. And this now expresses that a greater inner mobility had to be placed in the main figure than can exist in human beings.

The entire motif will be depicted pictorially above this sculptural form, so that one can see both side by side and understand how, according to the diversity of the arts, painting cannot render this in the same way, but that everything, everything must be different in the execution.

What I want to emphasize is the following: It will be essential that we sculpturally bring out the hand movements of the main figure, the upward movement of the left hand and the downward movement of the other hand. For what everyone might take for granted at first glance, that the main figure reaches up toward Lucifer with his left hand and breaks Lucifer's wings through his radiance, and with his right hand wraps the gold veins around Ahriman, must be avoided, precisely because we, especially in our time, are only beginning to truly understand Christ through spiritual science. Christ is neither a hater nor an unjust lover. He does not stretch out his hand to break Lucifer's wings, but Christ is the one who stretches out his hand because he must do so out of his inner being. He does not break Lucifer's wings, but Lucifer above cannot bear what radiates from this hand and breaks his own wings. It must therefore be expressed in the form of Lucifer that his wings are not broken by Christ, but that he breaks his own wings. It is a common occurrence in life that people who live in the company of good people cannot stand it because they feel uncomfortable with what emanates from good people. Lucifer feels something within himself that causes him to break his own wings. This is self-knowledge in Lucifer, self-experience. The same is true of Ahriman. Christ does nothing to either of them, so that neither his left nor his right hand is extended as if he were doing something to Lucifer or Ahriman. He does nothing to them, but they do to themselves what happens to them.

And with that, we stand on the ground where spiritual science intervenes in our time to give a truly correct understanding of Christ. And when one understands something like this, one must say the following. These things are said in all modesty, for this structure is only a beginning, a very first beginning, a weak, flawed beginning, which is only meant to show the direction of a path that in no way claims to be perfect. Therefore, what is said should not be taken as something arrogant, but only as a purely factual statement.

World history has seen many depictions of Christ; among others, one of the greatest is that found in the Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo's “Last Judgment.” If you study Christ in this “Last Judgment,” as he hovers there above in his Napoleonic grandeur, but at the same time with tremendous power in the air, pointing to the good on one side and to the evil on the other, you have a Christ who cannot be Christ in the future, because he rewards the good on one side and condemns the evil on the other; whereas for the Christian of the future, it must be that each person rewards and condemns himself through what is present in Christ. Michelangelo lived at a time when it was not yet possible to express something so profound about Christ. The figure Michelangelo draws has, on the one hand, something Luciferic and, on the other, something Ahrimanic. Today, this is definitely a painful word. But it is only by showing how the ideals of past times can no longer be the ideals of the future that human development in its culture can progress. The ideals of the future will be that we understand the Christ being for what it is, not only for what it does or will do when the end of earthly evolution comes: a being that through its very being brings about what must happen in the souls themselves. In this sense, the group we place at the significant location of our building is an expression of the fact that the previous understanding of Christ cannot be one that extends into the future, because the correct relationship between Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman has not been understood at all. One cannot understand Christ unless one has the right relationship to the powers that are perceived on the one hand as Luciferic and on the other as Ahrimanic, and which are the real world powers.

This can be clarified by a comparison, referring again and again to the pendulum. The pendulum swings to the left and to the right. When it swings to one side, it is not in a position of equilibrium, and when it swings to the other side, it is not in a position of equilibrium. But it would only be in a state of inaction, inertia, laziness, if it always wanted to be in equilibrium, if it did not want to swing. It is in the right position when it is in the middle, but it cannot just stand in the middle; it must swing to the right and to the left.

Such is human life. It is not so that one can say: I flee from Lucifer, I flee from Ahriman. — If one were to say, I flee from Lucifer, I flee from Ahriman, that would not be life. That would be like a pendulum that does not swing. Human life really does swing; on the one side toward Lucifer, on the other toward Ahriman. And the important thing is not to be afraid of this. If we fled from Lucifer, there would be no art; if we fled from Ahriman, there would be no external science. For all art that is not permeated by spiritual science is Luciferic, and all external science, insofar as it is not spiritual science, is Ahrimanic. Thus, human beings swing back and forth. And it is important that they realize that they want to be in balance and not at rest. There was a time when it was said that one must flee from the Luciferic and free oneself from it through asceticism. Not fleeing from the Luciferic, but truly facing the Luciferic face, that is what matters, truly swinging to one side toward Lucifer and to the other side toward Ahriman. That is what it means that they are truly opposing forces, like other forces of nature, for example the two types of electricity or the two poles of magnetism, and so on. So it will be important to recognize this trinity, the Luciferic, the Ahrimanic, and that which is the Christ being, and to recognize inwardly the real greatness built into Christ, which Michelangelo's Christ does not yet have. That, my dear friends, is the task of spiritual scientific work. But we are only at the beginning of a realization that must first become common knowledge.

You see, I have also mentioned here in recent weeks that, from certain points of view, one cannot speak of any greater work of poetry than Goethe's Faust. Goethe's Faust truly expresses the greatest thing humanity has ever produced, because it draws the human out of such depths. Now, Goethe attempted to portray a real representative of humanity in Faust.

I have often said that Mephisto is basically nothing more than Lucifer and Ahriman mixed together. But how did Goethe see it? Goethe did not yet know about this duality of Lucifer and Ahriman, and so he combined Ahriman and Lucifer in the character of Mephistopheles. Both are present in his Mephisto, and as a result, Goethe's entire Faust did not become what it could have been if Goethe had been able to place Lucifer on one side and Ahriman on the other, so that one could have seen the trinity that runs through all of humanity. This was the whole difficulty Goethe had with his Faust. You see, when Goethe began his Faust, he could only take it as far as he himself was in the 1770s. He felt that this external science, expressed in the fourfold division of philosophy, law, medicine, and, as he says, unfortunately also theology, was not sufficient. This Ahrimanic knowledge did not satisfy Faust; it only brought him into an Ahrimanic, intellectual connection with the world context. He really wanted to have this world context, to experience the living through the sources of life, which is not something imagined. The living: the earth spirit comes. But Faust cannot bear it. And then, in the very first draft, Wagner comes in through the door. Yes, when many people talk about Faust today, and also about Wagner, one has the feeling that Wagner is talking about Wagner, because in our time, people mostly talk about the Faust on stage in a “Wagnerian” way. What is this Wagner, anyway? Yes, what comes in with the Earth Spirit?

We know that all knowledge of the world is self-knowledge. It is a part of Faust himself that enters the Earth Spirit, albeit from the expanded soul that identifies with the cosmos. But Faust cannot yet comprehend it. He cannot yet reach up to what is also part of himself. Now we see how far he has come. And if one were to portray Faust correctly, more correctly than Goethe himself perhaps did, one would have to let Wagner enter as a somewhat caricatured likeness wearing Faust's mask and costume, for another member, another part of Faust enters in Wagner. Faust himself says afterwards: he was “a fearful, crooked worm.” Now he understands himself. “You resemble the spirit you understand, not me!” the Earth Spirit called out to him. Now comes the spirit he understands, Wagner comes. And so it goes on, I would say. And after the Earth Spirit has not been understood, only another form of the Earth Spirit actually appears: Mephisto, who now appears both as Lucifer—when he leads Faust through everything that man can experience by merely following his passions, base passions in Auerbach's cellar, nobler passions, which, however, lead to witchcraft and black magic—until, in the second part, Ahriman must take the place of Lucifer. All this can be seen if one reads Faust with real understanding. But there is also sufficient external evidence for this. I have already said that among the things Goethe later eliminated, there was a passage where Mephisto is once called Lucifer.

Goethe always felt uncomfortable when he presented this character, who actually consists of two. In particular, one sees the Luciferic element where Faust's religious feelings appear, which are exaggerated in the Wagner conversations as something particularly curious. When Faust, catechized by Gretchen, says in the conversations about God:

Feeling is everything,
Name is sound and smoke,
Enshrouding the glow of heaven!

this is regarded as the highest representation of the divine, celebrated as the highest representation of religion. There is no need to think about it: “Feeling is everything”; this means that the only thing one wants as religion is what a Gretchen can grasp, and one always forgets that Faust is teaching this to the sixteen-year-old Gretchen and that he is only giving her what she can grasp. What Faust says about “the hazy glow of heaven” is not meant for philosophers, and it is poorly understood when one always sees Gretchen's science in professorial garb.

All this shows that Goethe first expressed the Luciferic essence in his double mask. In the second part, it is more the Ahrimanic, where Mephisto leads to the creation of the homunculus, to the summoning of Helena, and to everything that Faust now really brings to the knowledge of the world, which is completely different from everything that Faust “studied thoroughly with ardent effort.”

Now it must be said that many things are still poorly understood in our time, even in the details. For example, when it is explicitly pointed out that Homunculus wants something inside man that must be developed into full humanity: “and you have time until you become human,” since it must first pass through the lower stages; it is said: “Just do not strive for higher orders.” What has already been explained here is quite curious. In reality, it means, of course—for Goethe was once again speaking in the Frankfurt dialect—“Only do not strive for higher places,” and is not a reference to beings such as homunculus being adorned with human honors.

Another example is where homunculus is created, where Wagner describes how something stirs in the retort:

It is happening! The mass is stirring more clearly,
The conviction truer, truer!

Conviction is formed by procreation, just as the superhuman is formed by the human. Only since Nietzsche spoke of the superhuman have people talked about the existence of a superhuman; Goethe spoke of the superhuman long before that. And so people read conviction here, but on the contrary, it is a conviction that comes from procreation, as one says: human and superhuman.

These are things that must first be understood in detail in order to comprehend what Goethe meant. But one must gain the great, free standpoint, one must truly understand the mission of our time in relation to spiritual science and realize that a spirit like Goethe sought to prepare his time for this mission.

When Schiller pointed out to him in 1797 that he should finish Faust, Goethe said that he had brought back the old Tragelaphen — a creature half animal, half human. Goethe calls him a Tragelaphen, and at the end of the eighteenth century he calls him a barbaric composition. This must be taken very seriously, because Goethe already understood how good and how bad his Faust was. All this belongs to what spiritual science should draw upon, so that we can rise to a free standpoint in relation to these things. Goethe wanted to depict the work of the spiritual self, of the immortal in man, rising to a higher level. He shows this by making a sketch at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of what Faust was to become, where he first said: “The enjoyment of life by the person, seen from the outside”; then he writes: “The enjoyment of creation from within,” and finally, after taking Faust through his entire journey, he wrote: ”Epilogue in chaos on the way to hell.”

All the discussions I have had to listen to are really something that can cause one's innermost surprise; for people have thought about it: Yes, did Goethe still believe at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that his Faust had to go to hell? The solution is simply that it is not Faust who speaks, but Mephisto, who is departing, who delivers the epilogue after Faust has gone the way to his immortal self.

Thus, in Goethe's Faust, we also see something that lies along the way, but only on the way to what is to be expressed by the main group of our structure: a truly concrete conception of the human form, in which, on the one hand, what the soul must always strive for appears, and, on the other hand, what the soul must strive for. As long as one holds everything together or seeks only a duality, one cannot arrive at a real understanding of the human being. That is the essential point to remember. It must be noted that it is precisely this idea that arises from German culture. There are two opposite poles of culture on earth, both of which have their justification, which is not shown in their unjustification, but in their justification when one points to them. On the one hand, we have purely Oriental culture. What does this Oriental culture consist of? The Oriental aspect of culture consists in the search for a purely inner deepening, with the stripping away of everything that is the outer process of existence. And so we see how, in the highest flowering of this Oriental culture, in Indian culture, all instructions, all knowledge, are directed toward forming the soul in such a way that it becomes free from what is the physical body. It is a purely Luciferic culture, a purely Luciferic culture. The further we go eastward, the more we come to the Luciferic.

And when we go westward, where do we come to? Let us take the extreme west. It is natural for us, especially if we have taken up spiritual science—and I would like to show you this with an example—it is clear to us that when we see a person coming from a more materialistic worldview into a more spiritual worldview, we ask ourselves: what is going on in the soul of such a person? Precisely when we perceive such a change in the soul of such a person, we must enter into the inner life of that person in order to experience with them what they have gone through in their soul. And nothing seems more important to us than to experience this with a human being.

You see, in America they have also seen that people go through something called conversion, that is, a shift from a materialistic view to a spiritual one. What do you do in such a situation? You sit down—I'm telling it a bit radically, but that's how it is—you sit down and write a letter to people who have gone through something like this and ask them to tell you why they underwent this change. And then you make a diagram, you create categories, for example:

1st category: Fear of death and hell (and put such letters in a pile).
2nd category: Altruistic motives, selflessness.
3rd category: Egotistical motives.
4th category: Striving for moral ideals.
5. Category: remorse and awareness of sin. 1, 2, 3 letters.
6. Category: obedience to teachings. 1, 2, 3 letters.
7. Category: people have reached a certain age. 1, 2, 3 letters. Then
8. Imitation. 1, 2, 3 letters. Again, a category of people who have seen that people believed in a God and have imitated this. Then
9. Beatings.

14% fear of hell.
6% other motives.
7% striving for the ideal.
8% awareness of sin.
13% imitation and example.
19% beatings.

Now you have a conversion.

So we have the opposite. In India, no consideration is given to what is going on outside. An Indian would find this wrong; he would use the word “crazy” if one wanted to give external percentages of those who have converted, that they have converted for this or that motive. In the West, people do not care about the inner life, because in the West everything is wiped out by the inner life. The most external is put together, purely Ahrimanic. Let us go to the East: the innermost inner life, purely Luciferic. Thus, I would say, the globe itself represents the opposition between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic. And between this Ahrimanic and Luciferic, one is not at rest, but in equilibrium. It is not a matter of simply rejecting one or the other, but of becoming aware that a culture that truly reaches into the future consists in knowing how to bring both into the right balance, what one must have against the other.

And there you see expressed, I would say, the whole destiny of the earth in our group. It is the task of Europe to bring about a balance between East and West. In the East, the pendulum swings to one side, in the West to the other. It is not our task in Europe to be the monkeys of the East or the monkeys of the West, but rather to stand independently on our own ground and fully recognize the legitimacy of both sides. This is expressed in our group. And so what is placed in a special place in our building is also connected geographically with our task. It is positioned towards the east, but with its back to the east; it looks towards the west, but it stands in balance, carrying within itself what it has experienced on its long journey in the east, and is not satisfied with what the west can bring to humanity in terms of purely Ahrimanic culture.

When our time, my dear friends, comes to understand these things, but to understand them through thinking, feeling, and sensing — there is no need for arrogance here — then it will become clear to this time that even the most painful and oppressive events of the present are only there to bring to humanity the feeling of the task that humanity will have to fulfill in the near future. One can only hope that the great and painful experiences of humanity will also bring about a real and true deepening of the mind. It is true that, unfortunately, in what is expressed, especially in spoken and written literature, one does not recognize the great seriousness that our time demands of us, that much, much more must enter into the human mind before this great seriousness, I would say this comforting seriousness, can truly fill the mind to such an extent that human beings can be sustained by the tasks set before them. On the one hand, what is set before us as a task is serious, but on the other hand, it is a comforting, hopeful, confidence-inspiring seriousness. One only needs to realize that we are living in a time when great things are demanded of us, but that these great things can also be accomplished by us. And even in this time, it will not be possible to arrive at a pessimistic worldview.

In order to examine all these things in a more intimate and penetrating way, and to discuss what the next task facing humanity is and how the spiritual sciences will help to solve this task, I will continue what we have discussed today on Tuesday, June 22.