The Rudolf Steiner Archive

17. Goethe's Secret Revelation II

The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

[ 1 ] Eight days ago, I pointed out that Goethe’s fairy tale about the green snake and the beautiful lily is intended to resolve the fundamental question of how human beings develop from their lower self to their higher self, and that the fairy tale is based on a grand vision of the future.

[ 2 ] How can human beings reach the gate that leads to the spiritual realm? This was a fundamental question for Goethe. He addresses this issue with great intensity and attempts, in a variety of ways, to describe the path of development of the human soul’s powers.

[ 3 ] Starting from this broad perspective, he endeavors to show in detail, as one who knows and understands, the inner paths that human beings must traverse.

[ 4 ] We have paused at the moment when the old man with the lamp and the serpent meet before the images of the kings, the representatives of the highest spiritual powers. We can recognize in the temple a symbol of the great secret schools that have always existed and still exist today. People are led into this temple, and through the teachings and instructions they receive there, if they truly apply them to themselves, they will gradually progress to the point where they can finally be granted initiation.

[ 5 ] We have seen that, before the kings appear, the serpent whispers a word into the old man’s ear. We know that this is the solution to the riddle, the most important word, about which Goethe and Schiller said: “The solution lies in the fairy tale itself.”

[ 6 ] The old man’s reaction makes it clear that the solution lies in this word. For as soon as the serpent utters the word, the old man responds with the meaningful phrase: “The time has come!”

[ 7 ] The serpent knows the fourth secret; that is why the Old Man says, “The time has come!” And when these words are later conveyed to the beautiful Lily, she sees them as a ray of hope, as a sign of her salvation.

[ 8 ] The old man returns home, where he finds his wife in a state of distress. She tells him that two will-o’-the-wisps had been there, behaving in an inappropriate manner, licking the gold off the walls, and then scattering it about. The pug had eaten some of the gold and died as a result. Then the old woman had to promise to pay off the will-o’-the-wisps’ debt to the river. The old man agrees to this, since the will-o’-the-wisps occasionally show their gratitude. First, he must restore order to the house; he does this by letting his lamp shine, thereby covering the walls anew with gold.

[ 9 ] There seems to be a contradiction here. First, in the conversation between the Old Man and the Golden King, it is said: “Why do you come, since we have light?” — The Old Man replies: “You know that I must not illuminate the darkness.” — Man must first acquire an inner light of his own, which he brings to the ancient wisdom; only then can it shine upon him. — But then, when the Old Man has sunk toward the west and wanders through the passages of the earth with his lamp, it is said: All the passages behind him immediately filled with gold; for his lamp had the wondrous property of transforming all stones into gold, all wood into silver, dead animals into gemstones, and destroying all metals. To manifest this effect, however, it had to shine all by itself. If another light was beside it, it cast only a beautiful, bright glow, and all living things were always refreshed by it. — Thus one can understand this contradiction: that it first shines only when its light is met with another; but then, when no other light is present, it shines particularly brightly and transforms everything around it: stones become gold, the dead pug becomes an onyx. This yields a meaningful interpretation.

[ 10 ] Now the old man says to his wife: Go to the ferryman, bring him the three fruits, and carry the dead pug to the beautiful lily; just as she kills the living, so will she bring the dead back to life through her touch. - The woman sets off. The basket with the dead pug is very light; it becomes heavy when she adds the fruits. This is a significant detail.

[ 11 ] The giant blocks her path; his shadow snatches one of the fruits at a time, and he devours them. The ferryman cannot be satisfied with the remaining fruits; within twenty-four hours, he must pay tribute to the river. The old woman pledges herself to the river and reaches her hand into it. Her hand now grows smaller and smaller and turns black, and finally becomes invisible, though she can still feel it is there; when the woman brings the tribute, she will get her hand back.

[ 12 ] Just as the old woman arrived, the ferryman ferried across a young man who seemed paralyzed. They finally both crossed the bridge formed by the snake at noon into the realm of the lily. They found her, surrounded by three maidservants, playing the harp. She is of wondrous beauty, but sad, for the bird whose song she enjoyed had fled to her from a hawk and was killed by her touch. She is grieved by this new horror. The old woman also laments her sorrow, but at the same time delivers her husband’s message: it is time.

[ 13 ] Meanwhile, the snake and the will-o'-the-wisps had also arrived. The snake comforts the beautiful lily. The old woman grieves bitterly over the missing fruit; but in the lily's realm, nothing that bears blossoms or fruit grows, so she cannot have any.

[ 14 ] The moment for something important seems to have drawn near; then the young man tries to embrace the lily and sinks down dead. The snake draws a magic circle around the body to protect it from the decay that would otherwise befall it at sunset. Finally, as the sun sets, the “man with the lamp” arrives, led by the hawk, along with the will-o’-the-wisps that the old woman has summoned.

[ 15 ] Everyone prepares to do their part to bring about a harmonious resolution. The will-o'-the-wisps are to open the temple, but cannot find their way there on their own. The dead youth and the bird’s body are carried away; the serpent stretches across the river; once they have all crossed, it agrees to sacrifice itself.

[ 16 ] Through the sacrifice of the serpent, all events are transformed. In times past, ancient wisdom was active in all religions, which were bestowed upon humanity by the Initiates. The religions brought refreshment to the souls that joined them with living devotion. The Ancient One sinks toward the West; he enters the realm of humanity. The Serpent, the intellect that seeks enlightenment, sinks toward the East, for from the East always shines the spiritual light of the Sun, which brings knowledge to the human soul.

[ 17 ] The temple resounded, the metal statues rang out—this is a metaphor for the state of the soul, which, through sacrifice, takes upon itself the laws of the spiritual world. In Devachan, everything resounds; its essence is expressed through sound. In the prologue to *Faust*, set in heaven—which is Devachan—Goethe speaks of a resounding sun. “The sun resounds in the old manner, singing in harmony with the spheres of brotherhood.” Here Goethe refers to the spiritual sun, for the physical sun does not resound.

[ 18 ] As long as the intellect seeks only enlightenment, as long as it acquires more and more inner light through its striving—which can also be seen in the mind becoming ever brighter—the Old Man, with his lamp, must possess a light of the soul into which he can send his light if it is to illuminate the soul. Through the soul’s willingness to sacrifice itself, enlightenment comes to it, and everything is now transformed. Everything is now perceived in its spiritual state, no longer in its physical one. Here, states are described that the human soul undergoes during initiation.

[ 19 ] The young man is brought back to life by the snake’s sacrifice, but he is still unconscious. The snake’s body disintegrates into beautiful gemstones, which the old man throws into the river. From them arises a beautiful, permanent bridge to the other bank. Thus, a free passage from the realm of the sensual to that of the spiritual has now been created.

[ 20 ] But first we must hear what is happening inside the temple. The gate opens, and the old man says again: “The time has come!”—The temple rises above the river; the ferryman’s hut forms a beautiful little temple within the larger one, a sort of altar. The old man becomes a young man again; the ferryman and the old man’s wife are also rejuvenated. The latter joins the three companions of the beautiful Lily, thus becoming the fifth in the group. As the fairy tale unfolds, the young man undergoes the initiation. The three kings give him what they have to give. The bronze king bestows upon him the sword, saying: “The sword in the left hand, the right hand free!” — The silver king hands him the scepter, saying: “Tend the sheep!” — while the golden king places the oak wreath upon his head and admonishes him: “Recognize the Highest!” — He is endowed with strength, beauty, and knowledge.

[ 21 ] Now the young man is not only alive, but also spiritually gifted. Before, he had followed the old man with the lamp almost mechanically out of the world and into the temple, which is still underground. Then the temple rises upward. The man with the lamp illuminates the way for the young man; he remains constantly at his side and finally leads him before the three kings, who present him with their gifts. It is then said: “His eye shone with an indescribable spirit”—the initiation is complete! And now the young man may unite with the beautiful lily; he may embrace the lily in love, and their marriage is consummated.

[ 22 ] The fourth king collapses in on himself after the will-o'-the-wisps have licked all the gold out of him. The giant approaches; at first the young man is dismayed, but the shadow no longer causes any harm. The giant becomes a sort of obelisk; it serves as a sundial, with artificial human figures indicating the time instead of numbers.

[ 23 ] The bridge and temple stand magnificent; people flock here; the bridge is teeming with travelers, and the temple is the most visited on earth.

[ 24 ] That is the end of the fairy tale.

[ 25 ] This point in time is neither in the present nor in the past; but one in the distant future of human development, when the consciousness of present-day humanity—which is entirely one-sidedly directed toward the sensory world—will have undergone the soul’s journey described in fairy tales; when humanity will have attained the wisdom and initiation that not only comprehends but also masters things; the time when all of humanity will be able to receive this initiation.

[ 26 ] What does all this mean? The old man with the lamp is, as already explained, ancient wisdom—that wisdom which works through intuition, which has the power to develop divine, not human, strength, to master things, and to transform all things. It imprints the spiritual upon the forces of nature. It knows how to transform stones into gold and to dissolve metals. These are all qualities attributed to the elixir of life of the true alchemist. A profound knowledge is thus implied. Through the entire progression of events depicted in the fairy tale, Goethe envisions a future state of humanity and points the way to attaining this state. If we observe—so Goethe would say—what is happening around us, we see the development of humanity in a state of constant transformation; nature, too, is constantly transforming. It is humanity’s task to permeate the entire physical world with its thoughts.

[ 27 ] Through technological progress, humans are able to transform nature’s raw materials into something that serves civilization. In their art, they breathe their spirit into lifeless marble. Humanity transforms nature into a work of art; it transforms everything that nature offers it into something that bears its own imprint. Thus, today nature is spiritualized by humanity in accordance with reason. Humanity becomes the creator of a higher nature.

[ 28 ] This is the course of human history, this alchemy: little by little, the human spirit is imprinted upon all that is inanimate. Goethe envisions, from a broad perspective, a world where everything in nature will be so permeated and transformed by the human spirit that nothing from the realm of nature will remain, but rather everything will be transformed by the human spirit to such an extent that all inanimate matter is permeated by it.

[ 29 ] This external transformation of the inanimate is depicted in the fairy tale by the light that streams from the old man’s lamp and transforms the stones and metals. But when this light sinks into the human soul, it has attained a power of a completely different kind; it will extend its realm not only over the dead, but also over the living. By absorbing the ancient wisdom and gaining inner insight, the human being will become capable of attaining powers of a completely different kind. In times to come, he will not only rule over the dead; he will also attain dominion over the living. He will also transform the living through his spiritual alchemy. He will absorb within himself the very wisdom that once created the world—the ancient wisdom of the world—and will thereby be able to transform what is dead into the living.

[ 30 ] Thus, the plant world—which has become woody and withered—is also transformed by wisdom. The dying plant world becomes silver, taking on a radiant appearance. The living, sentient, animal realm, however, takes a different path; its lower nature is sacrificed, must die, in order to ascend to the heights. What is described by Jakob Böhme, who was well acquainted with these secrets of the alchemists, comes to pass when he says: “Death is the root of all life” and:

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

[ 31 ] And as Goethe himself puts it:

And as long as you don’t have that
This: Die and Be Reborn!
You are but a gloomy guest
On this dark earth.

[ 32 ] It is precisely through this process that a person can develop the ability to cultivate their higher self within themselves by slaying the lower self. A person is only capable of drawing closer to the Divine once they have overcome their lower nature.

[ 33 ] Only the prepared individual, who has undergone inner purification—catharsis—through severe trials, can comprehend the Divine. Therefore, the youth who approaches the lily before he is prepared and purified is killed.

[ 34 ] Whoever lifts the veil of Isis, whoever approaches the image of the gods through guilt, must perish. Only after he has slowly prepared himself, only after he has become acquainted with all the trials, is he able to receive the consecration, the initiation. The young man, as he first appears to us in the fairy tale, has not yet purified his inner self. When he attempts to enter the realm of the spirit with such a state of mind, he is paralyzed; and later, when he tries to force his way in, he is killed by the lily. In *Faust*, we see how Faust can indeed penetrate, through magic, into the spiritual realm where those who are no longer in physical earthly existence reside: Paris and Helen. But he is led there by Mephistopheles, not through his own inner spiritual work, and he is therefore paralyzed. Only the human being who, purified by suffering and pain, and sustained by earnest will and striving, advances, can gain entry after being well prepared by the “Lamp.” Only then can he hope to attain initiation.

[ 35 ] The old man with the lamp returns to the hut; the will-o’-the-wisps have been there in the meantime. He finds his wife in great distress, for the will-o’-the-wisps have behaved improperly toward her and have then licked off all the gold that had covered the walls since time immemorial. In their malice, they called her their queen, then shook off the gold they had licked from the walls. The pug ate some of it, and now lies there dead. The will-o’-the-wisps are the representatives of the base, covetous personality; they take up all the gold of knowledge wherever they find it, but with a vain, self-satisfied, self-serving attitude of mind. Consequently, they cannot recognize the deep value of the gold; they do not value it and cast it aside again. They scatter their shaken-off gold before the ferryman. The ferryman is startled by this gold, in which the covetous personality has a share. He says: the stream—pure cosmic astrality—has no use for this; it foams wildly away. The serpent, however, transforms the gold; it serves her in her questing striving. She feels that she must bow her head to the earth in order to move forward. The will-o’-the-wisps may have ideas and concepts through the gold, but these are abstractions, they are rigid; the will-o’-the-wisps themselves are unproductive. The serpent makes the gold valuable; it makes her glow from within. She makes the gold fruitful; through the gold, her thinking becomes such that she can penetrate into the essence of things. For the will-o’-the-wisps, it leads merely to the vertical line, to a state of soul that, flickering and devoid of inner life, loses its connection with what lies below.

[ 36 ] The animal, the pug, cannot absorb wisdom; it is killed by it. The lamp’s effect is now being tested on it. As long as it lived, the lamp did not have the ability to lead it up to God; this is possible only by eliminating its base qualities. The old man with the lamp can indeed transform the lifeless pug into a beautiful onyx. The alternation of brown and black in the precious stone makes it a rare work of art—but he cannot bring it to life. Wisdom alone cannot give life; other forces must be added to it. The pug can only receive life if it has passed through death. Death means the mortification of all that is of a non-divine nature, of all lower desires. Thus Goethe points out that even the animal is engaged in an upward development, even if not the individual animal; the animal species is destined for perfection.

[ 37 ] He was a Theosophist; thus he is familiar with this ancient wisdom of ascension and the purification of all beings, which lies at the heart of all religions. In all religious systems, the ancient wisdom of the world shines through; its truth gleams in all the creeds of the various peoples of the earth. Goethe portrays this wisdom in The Old Man. But that alone is not enough, for it merely restrains the lower desires and passions. An even higher wisdom must come; the ancient wisdom will be superseded by an even higher wisdom. This is hinted at in what takes place in the Old Man’s dwelling: “The fire in the hearth had burned down; the Old Man covered the coals with plenty of ash, set the glowing gold pieces aside, and now his little lamp shone again alone in the most beautiful radiance.”

[ 38 ] The Esoteric Teaching, in which ancient wisdom is hidden, has been a treasure of humanity for many thousands of years. It was shrouded in the strictest secrecy; only those who were prepared were allowed to see the light of wisdom. The serpent that sacrifices itself represents the higher self of man, which comes to knowledge. The lamp must not illuminate the darkness; the wisdom of the teacher must not reach out to the one who merely wishes to receive it, but to the one who offers his inner life in return. But this applies only to the highest enlightenment. The great teachers of humanity, the great Initiates, are always at work. The workings of ancient wisdom are always taking place, even when no other light shines, provided they are not disturbed. Thus we find deep meaning in this apparent contradiction. Everything that has occurred in the course of human development has come about through the working of ancient wisdom. Behind everything that has been accomplished by human beings from culture to culture stand the custodians of this ancient wisdom, the Initiates; they guide the destinies and events that unfold on the outer plane of world history.

[ 39 ] We now turn our attention to the Old Man’s wife; a female figure appears before us. In mysticism, the various states of the human soul are represented by different female figures. The Old Woman represents the state of the soul of present-day humanity, which remains entrenched in sensual life. This does not imply anything base; it is the general condition of humanity. She is wedded to the old man with the lamp. Humanity is wedded to ancient wisdom. Ancient wisdom is also at work in humanity today; without it, humanity could not survive. This ancient wisdom has always been united with humanity, endowed as it is with sensuality.

[ 40 ] The woman goes to the ferryman, who represents the forces of nature. She must atone for the guilt of the will-o'-the-wisps. Present-day humanity is in debt to nature. The lower self—the human being who feels endowed only with a body—must pay its tribute to the rest of nature, which also belongs to it, even if it does not perceive it as such. The flickering soul life of the will-o’-the-wisps does not recognize this; they cannot grasp such concepts. But the law takes effect nonetheless; “they feel, in an incomprehensible way, bound to the ground; it was the most unpleasant sensation they had ever experienced.” As already mentioned, the will-o’-the-wisps represent lower consciousness. The human being endowed with sensuality has become so only by passing through the whole of nature. This is depicted in the image of the river.

[ 41 ] The river, the flowing stream of passions, must be paid for with “earthly fruits.” The three shell-like fruits are the individual sheaths that enclose the true human being, the actual Self. The Self originates from the realm that lies beyond the river. To reach the astral realm, the river must be crossed; the shelled fruits must be paid to it. The Old Woman—the healthy, discerning human soul force—can indeed bring the ferryman, the representative of the soul forces acting unconsciously within the human being, the wages that remain owed, but not the full amount; today’s general consciousness is not sufficient for that. Therefore, just as the Old Woman remains in debt for the fare, the sensibly perceptible disappears. It can only reappear to new life through penetration into the spiritual.

[ 42 ] The giant made it impossible for the old woman to pay off her debt to the ferryman; he stole and ate some of the fruit she was carrying to the river. Earlier, the snake had said to the will-o’-the-wisps, when they asked how they might reach the realm of the beautiful lily: “The giant can do nothing with his body; his hands cannot lift a blade of straw, his shoulders could not carry a bundle of rice; but his shadow can do much, indeed everything. That is why he is most powerful at sunrise and sunset, and so in the evening one need only sit on the nape of his shadow; the giant then walks gently toward the shore, and the shadow carries the traveler across the water.”

[ 43 ] The will-o'-the-wisps reject the path across the serpent, which seeks to form a bridge over the river in broad daylight. — What is the giant? Through the serpent, the soul enters the spiritual world, which it is able to cross the threshold of devotedly through the development of its own soul forces, in broad, clear daylight consciousness. But there is another path, where this bright, clear daytime consciousness has dimmed, in somnambulistic states. There the human being is powerless, without their own consciousness. There, lower forces are at work within the human being; the soul itself is without its own powers, is powerless. But despite this, the human being can still experience certain things from the spiritual world, even if they are erroneous.

[ 44 ] Mourning reigns in the realm of the beautiful lily. The lily is deeply unhappy; at her feet lies her last joy, the canary, dead, which used to accompany the lily’s songs. The lily mourns; for what the bird was to her—the memory of the sensual—is dead. Yet the spiritual and sensual realms belong together; harmony exists only where the two interpenetrate. A new harmonization between the two realms is to come about; therefore, that which is the memory of the sensual must pass through death in order to “become” anew.

[ 45 ] In the companions of the lily, we once again encounter three beings. We will hear more about them next time. They complement the Lily. The Old Woman represents the present state of consciousness, the intellectual soul of the human being; the Lily represents the higher consciousness that the human being attains when he sacrifices himself like the serpent. The Old Woman is the clear waking consciousness; the Lily is the clairvoyant consciousness that humanity is to attain. Before humanity reached its present state of consciousness, three earlier states of consciousness preceded it, which are represented by the three companions. These are states such as those that still occur today in trance or in certain atavisms—dreamlike, dull, yet far-reaching states of consciousness. Before humans attained their present waking daytime consciousness, they passed through other spiritual stages of consciousness in which, by virtue of their natural being, they were gifted with harmony between sensory existence and spiritual existence. — The three companions sleep while the transformation takes place; they pass over into the new state without noticing the transformation. What the other soul forces must first acquire has already been bestowed upon them by nature.

[ 46 ] As the temple rises, the lily will also bring the Elder with it. Man will then unite within himself all five states of consciousness—those that have gone before and those yet to be attained. The highest consciousness that can initially be bestowed upon man is attained by the young man in the final scene.

[ 47 ] The hawk has killed the canary. The harmony between the sensual and the spiritual is no longer to be sought by looking back, in the memory of humanity’s past treasures, but by looking toward the future. The hawk is the herald of the future, the prophetic. It catches the last rays of the setting sun with its crimson breast. The sign leads the Elder with the lamp, who brings about the transformation and through whom all are led to the temple of initiation. The hawk hovers above this temple and casts the light of the newly rising sun into the temple, so that it is illuminated by a heavenly radiance. Thus the hawk connects a setting world-day with a newly rising world-day. The hawk is that part of the human soul which intuitively senses what is to become reality in the future.

[ 48 ] The initiation takes place in the temple. There, the young man is shown being endowed with the three powers: Manas, Buddhi, and Atma. Next time, we will see why Goethe chose to represent these three powers specifically through the three kings.

[ 49 ] The temple once stood in the depths of the earth. In the past, one had to join a secret school, which operated deep in hiding from the outside world, in order to attain the higher mysteries. But the time is coming when the temple of secret training will no longer rest in hidden depths, but will rise up, lying open and free before the whole world, accessible to all people. When will this time come?

[ 50 ] Let us recall the riddle the serpent whispers into the old man’s ear in the underground temple; the solution to this riddle is reserved for our time. What did she say to him when he asked what she had decided? “I will sacrifice myself before I am sacrificed.”

[ 51 ] The time is coming for humanity when people will truly be ready to sacrifice themselves, to merge with all of nature, to feel active within the elements of all nature, rather than within their narrow individual selves; when they will be ready to give up their self as an egoistic individual self and merge into the Universal Self, knowing themselves to be part of the Universal Self. — Then humanity’s goal will be achieved, the gate to higher knowledge will open to them, just as they surrender everything that separates them from the rest of the world. Then true initiation can take place for humanity.

[ 52 ] This is the time when “there are three who rule the earth: Wisdom, Appearance, and Power.” — So says the Old Man with the Lamp, who brings about this state of affairs. Now the initiation is described: “At the first word, the golden king rose; at the second, the silver one; and at the third, the bronze one had slowly risen when the composite king suddenly sat down awkwardly.” The first three kings—the golden, the silver, and the bronze—are the three highest powers of the human being in their purity. — In these three forms, the human being experiences the divine within himself. Only when a person can survey the forces within themselves and in their worlds of origin with complete purity and sincerity are they ready for initiation. These are the pure, divine forces that are experienced within the human being as human thinking, human feeling, and human willing. The process of purifying these forces from the personal and the lower is depicted in the course of the fairy tale.

[ 53 ] Today, all of this still exists in a chaotic state within human beings. As long as human beings remain undeveloped, chaos reigns in the interplay of these forces. The fourth king is thus a representative of present-day humanity; but he collapses into himself, that is to say, this state of humanity will be replaced by the new state represented by the young man’s initiation. Everything will be transformed. Then what the hawk prophetically foretells will come to pass, as he catches the rays of the sun that will shine upon the new world day: “The king, the queen, and their attendants appeared in the twilight vault of the temple, illuminated by a heavenly radiance”; peace and harmony will reign, bringing rest to the universal consciousness of humanity.

[ 54 ] The representative of humanity, the young man, is endowed with this new consciousness of humanity in the temple. He is endowed with a new life; before, he was as if mechanically guided by other forces, not by his own. Now that he has attained these new powers, he can wed the beautiful lily, the clairvoyant consciousness, and the here and hereafter can be united through the self-sacrificing serpent, which forms the foundation for the bridge upon which all people can wander back and forth.

[ 55 ] The young man receives the power to do so from the three kings. The old man first leads him to the third, the bronze king. From him, he receives the sword in a bronze sheath, which is the symbol of man’s highest power: Atma. “The sword in the left hand, the right hand free!” cries the king. In the left hand shall be that which constitutes man’s strength, where it serves not for strife, but only for defense. The right hand is to be free for work, for all service to humanity. — From the Silver King, the youth is gifted with what the Buddhi can give to man: wisdom in harmony with feeling is true love of humanity. With this love, the youth is to live among people and tend the flock. - The Golden King places the oak wreath upon the youth’s head and says: “Know the Highest!” The youth receives knowledge in its most perfect form, Manas, through the Golden King. Now the marriage to the beautiful Lily may be concluded, and the union stands under the sign of love: “Love does not rule, but it shapes, and that is more.”

[ 56 ] The soul forces acting subconsciously—the giant—have lost their destructive power; the giant causes harm for the last time as he staggers across the bridge to the temple. He is held fast to the ground and is now merely a marker of a past cycle of humanity, a colossal statue that, like a sundial, indicates the passage of hours, days, and cycles of humanity.

[ 57 ] If we wish to summarize what Goethe sought to express through this fairy tale, we can say: Goethe wanted to depict, through rich poetic imagery, the development and ultimate redemption of the individual human being and of the entire human race. The fairy tale contains the mystery of the passing away of the lower human being and the becoming of the higher human being, and of the state of final union with the Divine, which is sought as the highest goal in all mysticism—as bliss, as resting in bliss, as union with God. When this moment of self-sacrifice has come, when “die and become” has become a reality, then not only will the spiritual be able to become the sensory, but the sensory will also be able to become the spiritual. When this time has come, it will not only be possible for individual secret disciples, individual enlightened mystics, to reach the temple, but all people will walk toward it, back and forth, into the realm of the Spirit.

[ 58 ] Goethe alluded to this great moment in the development of humanity in his fairy tale. There is much more that could be said about what is contained in this fairy tale. But much of it can only be hinted at. And while one might otherwise say of the poet:

Whoever wishes to understand the poet
Must journey to the poet's land

[ 59 ] So when we speak of Goethe, we must realize that we are applying this saying to him in the sense that, for Goethe, his lands are the lands of spiritual reality. Only those who know the mysteries and the knowledge of the mysteries can fully penetrate the rich content of this fairy tale. What has been mentioned here only in passing can, however, serve as a guide to an ever more intimate understanding of the content of this fairy tale.