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Supersensible Knowledge
GA 55

28 March 1907, Berlin

XII. Richard Wagner and Mysticism

To link Richard Wagner1Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a major German opera composer. with mysticism, as we shall do in today's consideration, will easily give rise to objections based on the misconception that to speak about an artist from a particular spiritual-scientific viewpoint is impermissible. Other objections will be directed against mysticism as such.

Today we shall look at Richard Wagner's relation to art on the one hand and mysticism on the other. The objection can be made that Wagner never spoke, or even hinted at, some of the things that will be mentioned. Such an objection is so obvious that anyone would have thought of it before speaking. It must be borne in mind that when a cultural phenomenon such as Richard Wagner is to be considered, one cannot be limited to say only what Wagner spoke about. That would make a discussion on any issue from a higher point of view impossible.

No one would suggest that a botanist or a poet should refrain from expressing what he discovered, or what he felt about plants and other phenomena. When discussing issues, whether cultural or natural, one cannot be limited to say only what the phenomenon conveys. In that case the plant should be able to convey to the botanist the laws of its growth; and the feelings and sentiments it aroused in the poet would be unjustified. The reality is that in the human soul, precisely what the external world is unable to say about itself is revealed.

It is in this sense that what I have to say about the phenomenon that is Richard Wagner must be taken. Certainly a plant knows nothing of the laws, however, it nevertheless grows and develops. Similarly, an artist need not be aware of the laws inherent in his nature of which the observer with spiritual insight is able to speak. The artist lives and creates according to these laws as the plant creates according to laws that are subsequently discovered. Therefore, the objection should not be made that Wagner did not speak about things that will be indicated today.

As regards other objections concerned with mysticism, the fact is that people, educated and uneducated alike, speak of mysticism as of something obscure. In comparison with what is known as the scientific world view, they find it nebulous. This has not always been so. The great mystics of the early Christian centuries, the Gnostics, have thought otherwise, as does anyone with understanding of mysticism. The Gnostics have called it “mathesis,” mathematics, not because mysticism is mathematics, but because genuine mystics have striven for a similar clarity in the ideas they derive from spiritual worlds. Properly understood, mysticism, far from being obscure or sentimental, is in its approach to the world crystal clear. Having now shown that the two kinds of objections are invalid, let us proceed with today's considerations.

Richard Wagner can indeed be discussed from the highest spiritual scientific viewpoint. No seeker after Truth of the nineteenth century strove, his whole life long, more honestly and sincerely to discover answers to the world-riddles than Richard Wagner. His house in Bayreuth he named, “Inner Peace” (Wahnfried), saying that there he found peace from his “doubts and delusions” (sein Wähnen Ruhe fand). These words already reveal a great deal about Richard Wagner.

What is meant by error and delusion is all too well-known to someone who honestly and sincerely pursues the path to higher knowledge. This happens irrespective of whether the spiritual realm a person believes he will discover finds expression through art, or takes some other form. He is strongly aware of the many deluding images that come to block his path and slow his progress. That person knows that the path to higher knowledge is neither easy nor straightforward—that truth is reached only through inner upheavals and tribulations. Moreover, he is aware that dangers have to be met, but also that experiences of inner bliss will be his. A person who travels the path of knowledge will eventually reach that inner peace that is the result of intimate knowledge of the secrets of the world. Wagner's awareness and experience of these things comes to expression when he says: “I name this house ‘Inner Peace’ because here I found peace from error and delusions.” (“Weil hier mein Wahnen Ruhe fand, Wahnfried sei dieses Haus genannt.”)

Unlike many artists who attempt to create out of fantasy that lacks substance, Wagner saw from the start an artistic calling as a mission of world historical relevance; he felt that the Beauty created by art should also express truth and knowledge. Art was to him something holy; he saw the source of artistic creativity in religious feelings and perceptions. The artist, he felt, has a kind of priestly calling, and that what he, Richard Wagner, offered to mankind should have religious dedication. It should fulfill a religious task and mission in mankind's evolution. He felt that he was one of those who must contribute to their era something based on the fullness of truth and reality.

When spiritual science is properly understood, it will be seen that, far from being a gray theory remote from the real issues, it can help us to understand and to appreciate on his own terms a cultural phenomenon such as Richard Wagner.

Wagner had a basic feeling, an inner awareness, that guided him to the same Truth about mankind's origin and evolution as that indicated by spiritual science. This inner awareness linked him to spiritual science and to all genuine mysticism. He wanted a unification of the arts; he wanted the various branches of art to work together, complementing one another. He felt that the lack, the shortcomings, in contemporary art forms was caused by what he called “their selfishness and egoism. Instead of the various art forms going their separate ways, he saw their working together as an ideal, creating a harmonious whole to which each contributed with selfless devotion. He insisted that art had once existed in such an ideal form. He thought to recognize it in ancient Greece prior to Sophocles,2Sophocles (c. 495 B.C.–406 B.C.) was a great Athenian dramatist and one of the founders of Greek tragedy Euripides3Euripides (c. 480 B.C.–406 B.C.), a Greek dramatist. and others. Before the arts separated, drama and dance, for example, had worked together and had selflessly created combined artistic works. Wagner had a kind of clairvoyant vision of such combined endeavor. Although history does not speak of it, his vision was true and points back to a primordial time when not only the arts but also all spiritual and cultural streams within various people worked together as a harmonious whole.

Spiritual science recognizes that what is known today as art and science are different branches originating from a common root. Whether we go back to the ancient cultures of Greece, Egypt, India or Persia, or to our own Germanic origin, everywhere we find primordial cultures where art and science are not separated. However, this is a past that is beyond the reach of external research, and is accessible only to clairvoyant vision.

In the ancient civilizations, art and science formed a unity that was looked upon as a mystery. Mystery centers existed for the cultivation of wisdom, beauty and religious piety before these became separated and cultivated in different establishments.

We can visualize what took place within the mysteries, with in these temples, which were places of learning and also of artistic performances. We can conjure up before our mind's eye the great dramas, seen by those who had been admitted to the mysteries. As I said, ordinary history can tell us nothing of these things. The performances were dramatic musical interpretations of the wisdom attained within the mysteries, and they were permeated with deep religious devotion. A few words will convey what took place in those times of which nothing is known save what spiritual science has to say. Those admitted to the Mysteries came together to watch a drama depicting the world's creation. Such dramas existed everywhere. They depicted how primordial divine beings descended from spiritual heights and let their essence stream out to become world-substance that they then shaped and formed into the various creature's of the kingdoms of nature: the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, and that of humans. In other words, divine essence streamed into and formed everything that surrounded us, and it finally celebrated a kind of resurrection within the human soul.

Thoughtful people have always felt that the world is of divine origin, that the divine element attains consciousness in the human soul, and, as it were, looks out through human eyes observing itself in its own creation. This descent and resurrection of the divine element was enacted in Egypt, in the drama of Osiris, and dramatized also at various places of initiation in Greece. Those who were permitted to watch saw how art and knowledge combined to depict in dramatic form the creation of the world. Deep feelings of religious piety were called up in the onlooker by this drama, which might be said to be the archetypal drama. With reverence and awe the onlooker watched the gods descend into matter, to slumber in all beings, and resurrect within human beings. Filled with awe, the onlooker experienced a mood described once by Goethe in the following significant words: “When man's whole being functions as a healthy entity, and he feels the world to be a great, beautiful, worthy and estimable unity; when pleasure in the harmony gives him pure delight, then, had it self-awareness, the whole universe, feeling it had reached its goal, would shout for joy, and admire the pinnacle of its being and achievement.” A wondrous, deeply religious mood filled the hearts of those who watched this drama of the creation of the world.

And not only was a religious mood created, but the drama also conveyed the kind of knowledge that was later imparted in scientific concepts to explain the creation of the world and its beings. However, at that time one received, in the form of pictures, a knowledge that was both scientific and religious. Science and religion were one.

Richard Wagner had a dim feeling that such harmony had once existed. He looked back to a very old culture in ancient Greece that still had a religious character. He saw that in gray antiquity music, drama, dance and architecture did not operate as separate undertakings; they all functioned in conjunction with one another: Knowledge, art and religion were a unity. He concluded that as they separated the arts became self-seeking, egoistical. Wagner looked back as it were to a far distant past when human beings were not so individual, when a person felt as a member of his dass, of his whole tribe, when the folk spirit was still regarded as a concrete reality. In that ancient time a natural selflessness had existed. And the thought came to him that man, in order to become an individual, a personality, had to leave the old clan-community to enable the personal element to assert itself. Only in this way could man become a free being, but the price was a certain degree of egoism.

Wagner looked back to what in a primordial past had held people together in communities, a selflessness that had to be left behind so that human beings could become more and more conscious. He had an intuitive presentiment about the future; he felt that once individual freedom and independence had been attained, humans would have to find the way back to fellowship and caring relationships. Selflessness would have to be consciously regained, and loving kindness once more would have to become a prominent factor of life.

For Wagner the present linked itself with the future, for he visualized as a distant ideal the existence of selflessness within the arts. Furthermore, he saw art as playing a significant role in evolution. Human development and that of art appeared to him to go hand in hand; both became egoistical when they ceased to function as a totality. As we see them today, drama, architecture and dance have gone their independent ways. As humanity grew more and more selfish, so did art. Wagner visualized a future when the arts would once more function in united partnership. Because he saw a commune of artists as a future ideal, he was referred to as “the communist.”

He aimed to contribute all he could to bring forth harmony among the arts; he saw this as a powerful means of pouring into human hearts the selflessness that must form the Basis for a future fraternity. He was a missionary of social selflessness in the sphere of art; he wanted to pour into every soul the impulse of selflessness that brings about harmony among people. Richard Wagner was truly possessed of a deep impulse of a kind that could only arise and be sustained in someone with a deep conviction of the reality of spiritual life. Richard Wagner had that conviction.

Already his work The Flying Dutchman bears witness to his belief in the existence of a spiritual world behind the physical. You must bear in mind that I do not for a moment suggest that Wagner himself was conscious of the things I am indicating. His artistic impulse developed according to spiritual laws, as a plant develops according to laws of which it is not conscious, but which are discovered by the botanist.

When a materialist observes his fellowmen, he sees them as physical entities isolated from one another, their separate souls enclosed within their bodies. He consequently believes that all communication between them can only be of an external physical nature. He regards as real only what one person may say or do to another. However, once there is awareness of a spiritual world behind the physical, one is aware also of hidden influences that act from person to person without a physical agent. Hidden influences stream from soul to soul, even when nothing is outwardly expressed. What a person thinks and feels is not without significance or value for the person towards whom the thoughts and feelings are directed. He who thinks materialistically only knows that one can physically reach and assist another person. He has no notion that his inner feelings have significance for others, or that bonds, invisible to physical sight, link soul to soul. A mystic is well aware of these bonds. Richard Wagner was profoundly aware of their existence.

To clarify what is meant by this, let us look at a significant legend from the Middle Ages that to modern humans is just a legend. However, its author, and anyone who recognizes its mystical meaning, is aware that this legend expresses a spiritual reality. The legend, which is part of an epic, teils us about Poor Henry who suffered from a dreadful illness. We are told that only if a pure maiden would sacrifice herself for him could he be cured of his terrible infliction. This indicates that the love, offered by a soul that is pure, can directly influence and do something concretely for another human life.

Such legends depict something of which the materialist has no notion, namely, that purely spiritually one soul can influence another. Is the maiden's sacrifice for Poor Henry ultimately anything else than a physical demonstration of what a large part of mankind believes to be the mystical effect of sacrifice? Is it not an instance of what the Redeemer on the Cross had bestowed on mankind; is it not an instance of that mystical effect that acts from soul to soul? It demonstrates the existence of a spiritual reality behind the physical that can be sensed by man, and led Wagner to the legend of The Flying Dutchman—the legend of a man so entangled in material existence that he can find no deliverance from it. The Flying Dutchman is with good reason referred to as the “Ahasverus of the sea,” that is, The Wandering Jew of the sea.

Ashasverus' destiny is caused by the fact that he cannot believe in a Redeemer; he cannot believe that someone can guide mankind onwards to ever greater heights and more perfect stages of evolution. An Ashasverus is someone that has become stuck where he is; human beings must ascend stage by stage if they are to progress. Without striving, he unites himself with matter, with external aspects of life, and becomes stuck in an existence that goes on and on, at the same level. He pours scorn on Him that leads mankind upwards, and remains entangled in matter. What does that mean? Existence keeps repeating itself for someone who is completely immersed in external life. Materialistic and spiritual comprehension differ, because matter repeats itself, whereas spirit ascends. The moment spirit succumbs to matter, it succumbs to repetition.

That happens in the case of The Flying Dutchman. Various peoples related this idea to the discoveries of foreign lands; the crossing of oceans and reaching foreign shores was seen as a means of attaining perfection. He who lacked the urge, who did not sense the spirit's call, became stuck in sameness, in what belongs solely to matter. The Flying Dutchman, whose whole disposition is materialistic, is abandoned by the power to evolve, by the power of love, which is the means to ascend to ever greater perfection. He becomes entangled in matter and consequently in the eternal repetition of the same. Those who suffer inability to ascend, who lack the urge to evolve, must come under the influence of a soul that is chaste and pure. Only an innocent maiden's love can redeem the Flying Dutchman.

A certain relationship exists between a soul that is as yet untouched by material life and one that has become entangled in it. Wagner has an instinctive feeling for this fact, and portrays it with great power in his dramas. Only someone with his mystical sense, and perception of the spirit behind the physical, would have the courage to take on a cultural mission of the magnitude Richard Wagner has assigned to himself. It has enabled him to visualize music and drama in ways no one has thought of before. He has looked back to ancient Greece, to a time when various art forms still played an integral part in performances, when music expressed what the art of drama could not express, and eternal universal laws were expressed through the rhythm of dance.

In older works of art, where dance, rhythm and harmony still collaborated, he recognized something of the musical-dramatic element of the artistic works of antiquity. He acquired a unique sense for harmony, for tonality in music, but insisted that contributions from related arts were essential. Something from them must flow into the music. One such related art was dance, not as it has become, but the dance that once expressed movements in nature and movements of the stars. In ancient times, dance originated from a feeling for laws in nature. Man in his own movements copied those in nature. Rhythm of dance was reflected in the harmony of the music. Other arts, such as poetry, whose vehicle is words, also contributed, and what could not be expressed through words was contributed by related arts. Harmonious collaboration existed among dance, music and poetry. The musical element arose from the cooperation of harmony, rhythm and melody.

This was what mystics and also Richard Wagner felt as the spirit of art in ancient times, when the various arts worked together in brotherly fashion, when melody, rhythm and harmony had not yet attained their later perfection. When they separated, dance became an art form in its own right, and poetry likewise. Consequently, rhythm became a separate experience, and poetry no longer added its contribution to the musical element. No longer was there collaboration between the arts. In tracing the arts up to modern times, Wagner noticed that the egoism in art increased as human beings egoism increased.

Let us now look at attempts made by Wagner to create something harmonious within the artistic one-sidedness he faced. This is the sphere that reveals his greatness as he searched for the true nature of art.

To Richard Wagner, Beethoven4Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was a German composer born in Bonn. and Shakespeare5William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor-manager of the Globe Theatre. represented artists who one-sidedly cultivated the two arts he particularly wanted to bring together, music and drama. He only had to look at his own inner being to recognize the impossibility of conveying, merely through words, the whole gamut of human feelings, particularly feelings that do not manifest externally through gestures or words. Shakespeare was in his view a one-sided dramatist because dramatic words on their own are incapable of expressing things of deeper import. Only when inner impulses have become external action, have become part of space and time, can they be conveyed through dramatic art. When watching a drama, one must assume the impulses portrayed to be already experiences that are past. What one witnesses is no longer drama taking place within the. person concerned; it has already passed over into what can be physically seen and heard. Whatever deeper feelings and sensations are the basis for what is portrayed on the stage cannot be conveyed by the dramatist.

In music, on the other hand, Wagner regarded the symphonist, the pure instrumentalist, to be the most one-sided, for he conveyed in wonderful tone and scales the inner drama, the whole range of human feelings, but had no means of expressing impulses once they became gestures, or became part of space and time. Thus, Wagner saw music as able to express the inner life, but unable to convey what came to expression outwardly. Dramatic art, on the other hand, when refusing to collaborate with music, only conveyed impulses when they became externalized.

According to Wagner, Shakespeare conveyed one aspect of dramatic art, and Mozart,6Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Austrian composer. Haydn7Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), Austrian composer who established the accepted classical forms of the Symphony, string quartet, and piano sonata. and Beethoven another. In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Wagner sensed something that strove to break away from the one-sidedness of this art form, strove to burst the Shell and become articulate, strove to permeate the whole world and envelop mankind with love. Wagner saw it as his mission not to let this element remain as it was in the Ninth Symphony, but to bring it out still further into space and time. He wanted it not only to be an external expression of a soul's inner drama, but also to flow into words and action. He wanted to present on the stage both aspects of dramatic art: in music, the whole range of inner sensations, and in drama, the aspect of those inner sensations that come to external expression. What he sought was a higher unity of Shakespeare and Beethoven. He wanted the whole of humanity represented on the stage.

When we watch some action taking place on the stage, we should become aware of more than can be perceived by eyes and ears. We should be able to be aware also of deeper impulses residing in the human soul. This aspect caused dissatisfaction in Wagner with the old type of opera. Here the dramatist, the poet and the musician worked separately on a production. The poet wrote his part, the musician then came along and interpreted what was written through music. But the task of music is rather to express what poetry by itself cannot express. Human nature consists of an inner as well as an outer aspect. The inner cannot be portrayed through external means; the outer aspect can indeed be dramatized, but words are incapable of conveying impulses that live within human beings. Music should not be there to illustrate the poetry, but to complete it. What poetry cannot express should be conveyed by music.

That was Wagner's great ideal and the sense in which he wanted to create. He assigned to himself the mission to create a work of art in which music and poetry worked together selflessly. Wagner's basic idea was of mystical origin; he wanted to understand the whole human being, the inner person as well as what he revealed outwardly. Wagner knew that within human beings a higher being resides, a higher self that was only partially revealed in space and time. He sought to understand that higher entity that rises above the everyday. He felt that it must approached from as many sides as possible. His search for the superhuman aspect of man's being, for that which rises above the merely personal, led him to myths. Mythical figures were not merely human, they were superhuman: They revealed the superhuman aspect of a person's being. Characters like Siegfried and Lohengrin do not display qualities belonging to a single human being, but to many. Wagner turned to the superhuman figures portrayed in myths because he sought understanding of the deeper aspects of the human being.

A clear look at his work reveals how deep an insight he had attained into mankind's evolution. In The Ring of the Nibelung and Parsifal we witness, powerfully presented, great riddles of humanity's existence. They reveal his intuitive perception, his deep feelings for all mankind.

We can do no more than turn a few spotlights on Wagner's inner experiences as an artist. In so doing we soon discover his strong affinity with what could be called "man's mythical past." His particular interest in the figure of Siegfried can easily be understood when seen in connection with his concept of mankind's evolution. Looking back to ancient times, Wagner saw that formerly the bond between human beings was based on selfless love within the confines of a tribe. Human consciousness at that time was duller; he did not yet experience personal independence. Each one felt himself, not so much an individual, but rather as a member of his tribe. He experienced the tribal soul as a reality.

Wagner felt that especially traits in European culture can be traced back to the time when natural instinctive love united human beings in interrelated groups, a time of which spiritual science also speaks when showing that everything in the world evolves, and that today's clear consciousness gradually evolved from a different type, of which there are still residues. In pictures of dream-consciousness Wagner recognized echoes of a former picture-consciousness that had once been the normal consciousness of all mankind. The waking consciousness of today replaced a much duller type; while it lasted, human beings were much closer to one another. As Wagner recognized, those related were bound together by natural love connected with the blood. Not until later did individuality, and with it egoism, assert itself. However, this constitutes a necessary stage in man's evolution.

The subject I shall now bring up will be familiar to those acquainted with spiritual science, but others may find it somewhat strange. The lucid day-consciousness now existing in Europe evolved from the very different consciousness of a primordial human race that preceded our own—a humanity that existed on Atlantis, a continent situated where the Atlantic Ocean is now. Those who take note of what goes on in the world will be aware that even natural science speaks of an Atlantean continent. A scientific journal, Kosmos, recently carried an article about it. Physical conditions on Atlantis were very different; the atmosphere in which the ancestors of today's European lived was a mixture of air and water. Large areas of the continent were covered with huge masses of dense mist. The sun was not seen as we see it, but surrounded by enormous bands of color due to the masses of mist. In Germanic legends a memory is preserved of that ancient country, and given descriptive names such as Niflheim or Nibelungenheim. As the Hood gradually submerged the Atlantean continent, it also gave shape to the German plains. The Rhine was regarded as a remnant of the Atlantean "Being of Mist” that once covered most of the countries. The water of the Rhine was thought to have originated in Nibelungenheim or Nebelheim (Nebel means “mist”), to have come from the dense mist of ancient Atlantis. Through a dreamlike consciousness, full of premonition, all this is told in sagas and myths wherein is described how conditions caused the people to abandon the area and how, as they wandered eastwards, their dull consciousness grew ever more lucid while egoism increased.

A consequence of the former dull consciousness was a certain selflessness, but with the clearer air, consciousness grew brighter and egoism stronger. The vaporous mist had enveloped the people of Atlantis with an atmosphere saturated with wisdom, selflessness and love. This selfless, love-filled wisdom flowed with the water into the Rhine and reposed beneath it as wisdom, as gold. But this wisdom, if taken hold of by egoism, provides it with power. As they went eastward, the former inhabitants of Atlantis saw the Rhine embracing the hoard of the gold of wisdom that had once been a source of selflessness. All this is intimated in the world of sagas that took hold of Wagner. He had such inner kinship with that lofty spiritual being who preserves memory of the past, whose spirit lives in sagas and myths, that he extracted from myths the whole essence of his view of the world. We therefore witness, dramatized on the stage and echoing through his music, the consequences of human egoism.

We see the Ring closing, as Alberich takes the gold of the Rhine from the Rhine Maidens. Alberich is representative of the Nibelungs, who have become egoistic, of the human being that forswears the love through which he is a member of a unity—a dan or tribe. Wagner links to the plan that weaves through the legend the power of possession—that the ancient world arises before his mind's eye, the world that has produced Walhalla, the world of Wotan, and of the ancient gods. They represent a kind of group-soul possessing traits that a people have in common. But when the Ring cioses around man's “I,” the individual too is taken hold of by greed for gold.

Wagner sensitively portrays what lives in Wotan as group-soul qualities, and in human beings become egoistic craving for the Rhine-gold. We hear it in his music; how could one fail to hear it? It should not be said that something arbitrary is at this point inserted in the music. No human ear could fail to hear in that long E-flat major in the Rhine-gold the impact of the emerging human “I.” Wagner's deep mystical sense can be traced in his music.

We are shown that Wotan has to come to terms, not with the consciousness that had become individualized, but with that which had not yet become so, and still strongly acts as group-consciousness. When he tries by stealth to take away the Ring from the giant, he meets this consciousness in the figure of Erda. She is clearly representing the old all-encompassing consciousness through which knowledge is attained clairvoyantly of the whole environment. The words spoken at this point are most significant:

To thee is known
What lies hidden in the deep,
What weaves in air and water
Through mountain and valley.
Thou breathest through The wele of existence;
When heads ponder Thy sense emerges.
It is said that to thee All things are known.

The old consciousness that held sway in Nebelheim cannot be better described than in the words:

My sleep is a dreaming
My dream is a musing
My musing is ruled by wisdom.

The old consciousness was a dreaming consciousness, but in this dream human beings knew of the whole surrounding world. The dream encompassed the depth of nature and spun its wisdom from person to person, whose musing and actions all stemmed from this dreaming consciousness. Wotan meets it in the figure of Erda with the result that a new consciousness arises.

What is of a higher order is always depicted in myths and sagas as a female figure. In Goethe's Faust it is indicated in the words of the Chorus Mysticus: “The eternal feminine draws us upwards and on.” Various peoples have depicted a person's inner striving towards a higher consciousness as a union with a higher aspect of the being that is seen as feminine. What is depicted as a marriage is a person's union with the cosmic laws that permeate and illumine his soul. For example, in ancient Egypt we see Isis, and as always the female figure that is looked up to as the higher consciousness has characteristics that correspond to those of the particular people. What a people feels to be its real essence, its true nature, is depicted as a female figure corresponding to this ideal—a feminine aspect with which the individual human being becomes united after death, or also while still living.

As we have seen, man can rise above the sensual, either by leaving it behind, and in death uniting with the spirit, or he may attain the union while still living by attaining spiritual sight. In either case, this higher self is depicted in Germanic myths as a female figure. The warrior who fought courageously and died on the battlefield is regarded by ancestors of today's Middle European as someone who, on entering the spiritual world, would be united with this higher aspect of his being. Hence, the Walkyries are shown to approach the dying warriors and carry them up into spiritual realms. Union with the Walkyrie represents union with the higher consciousness. The Walkyrie Brunnhilde is created through the union of Wotan and Erda. Siegfried is to be united with her and guided into spiritual life. Thus, the daughter of Erda represents the higher consciousness of initiation. Siegfried represents the new, the different human being that has come into existence. Because of the configuration and higher perfection of his inner being, he is united with the Walkyrie already in life.

The hidden wisdom in Germanic legends comes to expression in Wagner's artistic creation. He shows that through the Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), the old group-soul consciousness must die out as the new individual consciousness develops in Siegfried. Wagner had a deep awareness of the great mysteries connected with mankind's evolution. A human being's inner experiences he expressed through music, his action through dramatic art.

His sense for the mystical aspect of evolution enabled him to portray a person's higher development. It made him place at the centre of one of his dramas the figure of Lohengrin. Who is Lohengrin? He can be understood only when seen an the background of the momentous upheavals taking place all over Europe at the time when the legend was living reality. Only then can we understand what Wagner had in mind when he depicts Lohengrin's relationship with the Lady he names as Elsa von Brabant. Throughout Europe a new epoch was dawning; An individual's striving personality was coming to the fore. Though described in prosaic terms, these phenomena hide events of greatest significance. In France, Scotland, England and as far away as Russia, a new social structure was developing, in the form of the “Free City.” In rural districts, people still lived in groups, in clans; those who wanted to escape flocked to the cities. The urban environment promoted individual consciousness and feelings of independence. People in the city were those who wanted to strip off the bonds of clan or tribe; they wanted to live their own lives in their own way.

In reality a mighty revolution was taking place. Up till then a person's name decided where he belonged and his status. In the City, a person's name was of no importance, family background of no concern. What counted was personal ability; in the city individuality developed. The evolution from selflessness to individuality became an evolution from individuality to brotherhood. The legend depicted this. In the middle of the Middle Ages the old social structure was being replaced with a new structure, within which each person contributed according to his individual capacity.

Formerly, Leaders and rulers, were always descended from priestly and aristocratic families. The fact that they came from such a background was what mattered; they must have the “right” blood. In the future that would be of no account; someone chosen as leader might be completely unknown as regards descent, and it would be regarded as irreverent to link him with a particular name. The ideal was seen in the great individuality, in the anonymous sage who continued to grow and develop; he was not significant because of his descent, but because of what he was. He was a free individual acknowledged by others just because his achievements were his own.

In this sense, Lohengrin comes before us as representative of man, leading men to freedom and independence. The lady who becomes his wife represents the consciousness described as that of city-dweller of the Middle Ages. He who mediates between the Lofty Being that guides mankind and the people is always associated with great individuality, and is always known by a specific name. Through spiritual knowledge he is known by the technical name “Swan,” which denotes a particular stage of higher spiritual development. The Swan mediates between ordinary people and the Lofty Being that leads humanity. We see a reflection of this in the legend of Lohengrin.

If we are to do justice to the wisdom found in legends, to things revealed through Wagner's artistry, we must bring to it an open mind and mobile ideas. If taken in a narrow, pedantic sense, we are left with empty words instead of being inwardly fired with enthusiasm by the far-reaching vistas opened up through his work. I must be permitted to bring these things before you in concepts that point to a greater perspective. A figure like Lohengrin must be presented in light of its world-historical background and significance. And we must recognize that an understanding of this significance dawned in Wagner, enabling him to give it artistic
form.

The same also applies to Wagner's comprehension of the Holy Grail. We concerned ourselves with the Holy Grail in the previous lecture: “Who are the Rosicrucians?” It is indeed a remarkable fact that at a certain moment there arose in Wagner an inkling of the great teaching that flourished in the Middle Ages. Before that happened, another idea, as it were, prepared the way, but first it led him to create a drama called The Victor; this was in 1856.

The Victor was never performed, but the idea it embodied was incorporated into his Parsifal. The Victor depicted the following:

Ananda, a youth of the Brahman caste, was loved by a Tschandala maiden; because of the caste system he cannot reciprocate the love. Ananda became a follower of Buddha, and he eventually conquered his human craving: He gained victory over himself. To the maiden was then revealed that in a former life she was a Brahman and had overcome her love for the youth who was then of the Tschandala caste. Thus, she too was a victor. She and Ananda were spiritually united.

Wagner renders a beautiful interpretation of this idea, taking it as far as reincarnation and karma in the Christian-Anthroposophical sense. We are shown that the maiden herself, in a former life, brought about the present events. Wagner has worked on this idea in 1856.

On Good Friday, 1857, he was sitting in the Retreat, “the sanctuary on the green hill.” Looking out over the fields watching the plants come to life, sprouting from the earth, an inkling arose in him of the Power of the germinating force emerging from the earth in response to the rays of the sun: a driving force, a motivating force that permeates the whole world and lives in all beings; a force that must evolve, that cannot remain as it is; a force that, to reach higher stages, must pass through death. Watching the plants, he felt the force of sprouting life, and turning his gaze across the Lake of Zürich to the village; he contemplated the opposite idea, that of death—the two polar concepts to which Goethe gives such eloquent expression in his poem, Blessed Longing.

And until thou truly hast,
This dying and becoming,
Thou are but a troubled guest
O'er the dark earth roaming.

Goethe rewrote the words in his hymn to nature saying: “Nature invented death to have more life; only through death can she create a higher spiritual life.”

On Good Friday, as the symbol of death came before mankind in remembrance, Wagner sensed the connection between life, death and immortality. He felt a connection between the life sprouting from the earth and the Death on the Cross, the Death that is also the source of a Christian belief that life will ultimately be victorious over death, will become eternal life. Wagner sensed an inner connection between the sprouting life of spring and the Good Friday belief in Redemption, the belief that from Death on the Cross springs Eternal Life. This thought is the same as that contained in the Quest for the Holy Grail, where the chaste plant blossom, striving towards the sun, is contrasted with human desire filled nature. On the one hand Wagner recognized that human beings steeped in desires; on the other he looked towards a future ideal—the ideal that human beings shall attain a higher consciousness through overcoming their lower nature, shall attain a higher fructifying power, called forth by the Spirit.

Looking towards the Cross, Wagner saw the blood flowing from the Redeemer, the symbol of Redemption, being caught in the Grail Chalice. This picture, linked itself within him to the life awakening in nature. These thoughts were passing through Wagner's soul on Good Friday, 1857. He jotted down a few words that later became the basis from which he created his magnificent Good Friday drama. He wrote: "The blossoming plant springs from death; eternal life springs from the Death of Christ." At that moment Wagner had an inner awareness of the Spirit behind all things, of the Spirit victorious over death.

For a time other creative ideas pushed those concerned with Parsifal into the Background. They came to the fore once more near the end of his life, when, clearer than before, they conveyed to him a person's path of knowledge. Wagner portrayed the path to the Holy Grail to show the cleansing of a human beings' desire nature. As an ideal this is depicted as a pure holy chalice whose image is the plant calyx's chaste fructification to new creation by the sunbeam, the holy lance of love. The sunbeam enters matter as Amfortas' lance enters sinful blood. But there the result is suffering and death. The path to the Holy Grail is portrayed as a cleansing of the sinful blood of lower desires till, on a higher level, it is as pure and chaste as is the plant calyx in relation to the sunbeam. Only he who is pure in heart, unworldly, untouched by temptation, so that he approaches the Holy Grail as an "innocent fool" filled with questions of its secret, can discover the path.

Wagner's Parsifal is born out of his mystical feeling for the Holy Grail. At one time he meant to incorporate the idea into his work Die Wibelungen, an historical account of the Middle Ages. He wanted to elevate the concept of Emperor by letting Barbarossa journey to the East in search of the original spirit of Christianity, thus combining the Parsifal legend with history of the Middle Ages. This idea led to his wonderful artistic interpretation of the Good Friday tradition, so that it can truly be said that Wagner has succeeded in bringing religion into art, in making art religious.

In his artistic new creation of the Good Friday tradition, Wagner had the ingenious idea of combining the subject of faith with that of the Holy Grail. On the one hand stands the belief that mankind will be redeemed, and on the other, that through perfecting its nature humanity itself strives towards redemption; the belief that the Spirit permeating mankind—a drop of which lives in each individual as his higher self—in Christ Jesus foreshadowed humanity's redemption. All this arose as an inner picture in Wagner's mind already on that Good Friday in 1857 when he recognized the connection between the legend of Parsifal and Redemption through Christ Jesus.

We can begin to sense the presence of the Christ within mankind's spiritual environment when, with sensitivity and understanding, we absorb the story of the Holy Grail. And it can deepen to concrete inner spiritual experience when we sense the transition from the midnight of Maundy Thursday—events of Maundy Thursday—to those of Good Friday, which symbolize the victory of nature's resurrection.

Wagner's Parsifal was inspired by the festival of Easter. He wanted new life to pour into the Christian festivals, which originally were established out of a deep understanding of nature. This can be seen especially in the case of the Easter festival, which was established when it was still known that the constellation of sun and moon affected human beings. Today people want Easter celebrated an an arbitrarily chosen date, which shows that the festival is no longer experienced as it was when there was still a feeling for the working of nature. When the spirit was regarded as a reality it was sensed in all things. If we could still sense what was bequeathed to us through traditions in regard to the festivals, then we would also have a feeling for how to celebrate Good Friday. Richard Wagner did have that feeling, just as he also perceived that the words of the Redeemer: “I am with you to the end of the world,” called human beings to follow the trail that led to the lofty ideal of the Holy Grail. Then people who lived the Truth would become redeemers.

Mankind is redeemed by the Redeemer. But Wagner adds the question: "When is the Redeemer redeemed?" He is redeemed when He abides in every human heart. As He has descended into the human heart, the human heart must ascend. Something of this was also felt by Wagner, for from the motif of faith he lets sound forth what is the mystical feeling of mankind in these beautiful words from Parsifal:

Greatest Healing Wonder
Redemption for the Redeemer!

These words truly show Wagner's deep commitment to the highest ideal a person can set himself: to approach that Spiritual Power that came down to us and lives in our world. When we are worthy, we bring what resounds at the dose of Richard Wagner's Parsifal: Redemption for the Redeemer.

Richard Wagner und die Mystik

Gegen eineBetrachtung, wie die heutige eine ist, die Richard Wagner und die Mystik in einen Zusammenhang bringen wird, erheben sich wohl leicht von vorneherein gewisse Vorurteile, welche aus Mißverständnissen gewonnen sein können, die einer solchen Betrachtung eines Künstlers von einem gewissen geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkte aus überhaupt entgegengebracht werden können. Und eine zweite Art von Vorurteilen sind diejenigen, die der Mystik als solcher entgegengebracht werden.

Alles dasjenige, was heute zu sagen sein wird über Richard Wagners Stellung in der Kunst auf der einen Seite und in der Mystik auf der anderen Seite, kann den Widerspruch hervorrufen: Ja, da wird eine ganze Menge in Richard Wagner hineingetragen, wovon er selbst nie etwas ausgesprochen hat, worüber er selbst nichts irgendwie hat verlauten lassen. — Gegen ein solches Vorurteil muß gesagt werden, daß derjenige, der eine solche Betrachtung anstellt, wie die heutige sein wird, sich selbstverständlich einen solchen Einwand von vornherein machen würde. Aber es ist gar nicht die Absicht, wenn wir eine geistige Erscheinung in der Welt betrachten, nur dasjenige zu sagen, was die entsprechende Persönlichkeit selbst gesagt hat. Das würde, wenn es nur konsequent durchgedacht wird, überhaupt unmöglich machen, wahrhaft höhere Betrachtungen gegenüber den Erscheinungen der Welt anzustellen.

Denken Sie einmal, wenn der Botaniker — wir könnten auch sagen der Lyriker — über eine Pflanze, über eine Naturerscheinung dasjenige ausspricht, was er, also der Botaniker, über diese Naturerscheinung zu denken vermag, oder wenn der Lyriker ausspricht, was er zu fühlen vermag gegenüber einer Pflanze- oder einer Naturerscheinung, würde da irgend jemand verlangen, daß die Pflanze oder die Naturerscheinung selbst das zu sagen vermöchte, was dem Botaniker oder dem Lyriker aus der Seele herausströmt? Nicht darum kann es sich handeln, daß dasjenige, was wir über eine geistige oder eine andere Erscheinung der Welt zu sagen haben, von dieser Erscheinung selbst gesagt wird. Da müßten Sie auch verlangen, daß die Pflanze selbst dem Botaniker die Gesetze ihres Wachstums auszudrücken vermag, da müßten Sie es als ein Unrecht ansehen, daß der Lyriker einer Naturerscheinung gegenüber von Gefühlen spricht,die diese Naturerscheinung nicht selbst auszudrücken vermag. Vielmehr müssen wir sagen, daß gerade in der menschlichen Seele sich dasjenige ankündigen muß, was die Außenwelt nicht über sich selbst zu sagen vermag.

In solcher Art, bitte, nehmen Sie alles dasjenige, was Ihnen heute über eine solche geistige Erscheinung wie Richard Wagner gesagt werden soll. So wahr es ist, daß die Pflanze die Gesetze ihres Wachstums nicht selbst weiß, aber danach wächst, sich danach gestaltet, so wahr ist es, daß ein Künstler nicht selber zu sagen braucht, was ein geisteswissenschaftlicher Betrachter als die Gesetze seines Werdens und die Gesetze seiner ganzen Wesenheit aussagen muß. Aber ebenso wahr ist es, daß der Künstler diese Gesetze darlebt, danach schafft, wie die Pflanze nach den Gesetzen schafft, die man hinterher findet, wie sie die Gesetze, die ihr eingeprägt sind, darlebt. Daher darf es kein Einwand sein, daß Richard Wagner diese Dinge nicht selbst gesagt hat, die heute vorgebracht werden. Das andere bezieht sich auf das, was man als die Mystik kennt. Gelehrte und Ungelehrte sprechen von der Mystik so, als wäre sie eine dunkle, nebulose Betrachtung der Welt, gegenüber dem, was man die eigentliche wissenschaftliche, begriffliche Betrachtung der Welt nennt. Die Gnostiker, die großen Mystiker der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte, haben anders über die Mystik gedacht. Und diejenigen, welche überhaupt etwas von der Mystik verstehen, denken zu allen Zeiten anders über die Mystik. Die Gnostiker haben die Mystik «mathesis» genannt, Mathematik, nicht weil die Mystik Mathematik wäre, sondern aus dem Grunde, weil der wahre Mystiker in bezug auf seine Ideen und VorstelJlungen von den höheren geistigen Welten dieselbe kristallklare, durchsichtige Helligkeit anstrebt, welche auf gewissen anderen Gebieten die mathematischen Vorstellungen und Begriffe haben. Die Mystik ist, wenn sie in Wahrheit erfaßt wird, nicht ein dunkles, gefühlsmäßiges Erfassen der Welt, sondern das Klarste, Kristallklarste, was es überhaupt geben kann. Von diesen zwei Gesichtspunkten, die durch die Zurückweisung zweier Vorurteile hier dargelegt worden sind, wollen wir ausgehen.

Man kann Richard Wagner wirklich vom höchsten geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkt aus betrachten. Denn wenn es bei irgendeinem der Geistsucher im letzten Jahrhundert der Fall war, daß er sich sein ganzes Leben hindurch in der ehrlichsten, redlichsten Weise bemüht hat, die Quellen und Grundlagen der Weltenrätsel zu finden, bei ihm war es der Fall. Er nennt sein Haus in Bayreuth «Wahnfried», indem er damit selbst angibt den Grund dafür, daß dort «sein Wähnen Ruhe fand». Mit diesem Wort, daß da sein Wähnen Ruhe fand, ist viel, recht viel gesagt.

Derjenige, der ehrlich und redlich den Pfad der Erkenntnis zu gehen versucht, und der, gleichgültig ob in dieser oder jener Form, in künstlerischer oder in anderer Form die Gebiete des geistigen Lebens, die er auf dem Erkenntnispfade gefunden zu haben glaubt, ausprägt, derjenige, der so redlich den Erkenntnispfad geht, der weiß, was das Wort Wähnen heißt, wieviel Wahngebilde auf dem Erkenntnispfad sich ihm in den Weg stellen, und er weiß, daß das Erkennen nicht etwas ist, was sich in einer nüchternen, trockenen Weise abspielt. Er weiß, daß das Erkennen in Wahrheit etwas ist, was sich unter Katastrophen des inneren seelischen Lebens, unter Aufsteigen und Abfallen in bezug auf das menschliche Innere abspielt, er weiß, daß es da furchtbare Gefahren auf der einen Seite und Seligkeiten, wunderbare Seligkeiten auf der anderen Seite gibt. Und er weiß, daß eines demjenigen in Aussicht steht, der diesen Erkenntnispfad geht: die Ruhe, die göttliche Ruhe, die aus einem intimen Sich-Einleben in die göttlichen Weltengeheimnisse hervorgeht. Etwas von solcher Gesinnung, etwas von solcher Stimmung drückt sich bei Richard Wagner in dem Wort aus: «Weil hier mein Wähnen Ruhe fand, Wahnfried sei dieses Haus genannt.»

Er war nicht ein Künstler wie so viele andere, die aus einer wesenlosen Phantasie heraus schaffen wollen. Er war ein Künstler, der von allem Anfang an seinen Beruf als große weltgeschichtliche Mission auffaßte, dem im künstlerischen Schaffen Schönheit zu gleicher Zeit Wahrheit, AusJeben der Erkenntnis sein sollte. Religiöses Fühlen und Empfinden war ihm zugleich die Seele des künstlerischen Schaffens, und die Kunst war ihm etwas Heiliges. Für ihn hatte der Künstler eine Art priesterlichen Beruf, und das, was Richard Wagner als Künstler der Menschheit schenkte, sollte in seinem Sinne eine religiöse Weihe haben, eine religiöse Aufgabe und Mission im Entwicklungsgang der Menschheit erfüllen. So empfand er sich selbst als einen derjenigen, die ihrem Zeitalter aus der Tiefe und Fülle der Wahrheit heraus etwas geben wollen.

Wenn die Geisteswissenschaft nicht eine abgezogene graue Theorie, nicht ein Schweben in einem weltfremden Wolkenkuckucksheim sein soll, dann muß sie den Weg finden, um eine so bedeutsame geistige Erscheinung wie Richard Wagner von ihrem Gesichtspunkte aus zu verstehen und zu würdigen. Das kann sie, wenn sie in der richtigen Art verstanden wird.

Richard Wagner hat in sich das Gefühl, die Empfindung gehabt, die ihn hinleiteten zu denselben Wahrheiten von den Ursprüngen der Menschheitsentwicklung, zu denen uns auch die Geisteswissenschaft weist. Etwas verbindet Richard Wagner tief mit dem geisteswissenschaftlichen Fühlen und Empfinden, mit aller wahren Mystik: das, was er bei sich den Zusammenklang der verschiedenen Künste, die Einheit der Künste, das liebevolle, harmonische Zusammenklingen der Künste nennt. Das, was er als einen Mangel unseres künstlerischen Wirkens der Gegenwart empfand, war dasjenige, was er die Selbstsucht, den Egoismus der einzelnen Künste nannte. Er empfand ein Ideal über ihm schwebend, welches sich ihm so darstellte, daß nicht die eine Kunst den einen Weg und die andere ihren anderen Weg geht, sondern daß eine Harmonie der Künste sich herausgestaltet, zu der alle zusammenwirken können in selbstloser Weise und liebevoller Hingabe. Er sagt, eine solche Kunst oder ein solches künstlerisches Ideal hat es im Laufe der Weltenentwicklung einmal gegeben. Namentlich suchte er ein solches Ideal im alten Griechentum, das vorangegangen war der künstlerischen Epoche des Sophokles, Euripides und anderen. Er sagt, bevor die Künste sich gespalten haben, bevor das dramatische Kunstwerk für sich, der Tanz für sich war, haben sie zusammengewirkt, sind in selbstlosem Streben vereinigt gewesen in dem Gesamtkunstwerk. Dieses Gesamtkunstwerk ahnt er in einer Art hellsichtiger Schau. Die Historie erwähnt nichts davon, aber sie muß ihm recht geben, denn sie geht zu dem Urstand der verschiedenen Völker zurück, wo nicht nur die Künste zusammengewirkt haben zu einer einheitlichen großen Harmonie, sondern wo zusammengewirkt haben die verschiedenen Geistes- und Kulturströmungen überhaupt.

Das, was wir heute Kunst und Wissenschaft nennen, sieht die Geisteswissenschaft als verschiedene Zweige an, die aus einer einzigen Wurzel herausgewachsen sind. Ob wir in die alte Griechenzeit zurückgehen, ob in die alte ägyptische Zeit, ob zu den indischen und persischen Völkern, ob wir in unsere germanische Heimat selbst zurückgehen: überall treffen wir auf eine Urkultur, die unsere materialistische Forschung nicht, aber die hellseherische Schau erreichen kann. Wir treffen auf eine Kultur, wo es eine gesonderte Wissenschaft und Kunst nicht gab, wo alles vereinigt war, wo alles so war, daß man geneigt war, es Mysterium zu nennen. Bevor es Kunststätten, bevor es wissenschaftliche Stätten gab, gab es Mysterienstätten. Was waren sie? Sie waren eine Vereinigung von Weisheit, Schönheit und religiöser Frömmigkeit.

Wir können uns eine Vorstellung machen, was in jenen Tempelstätten, die zu gleicher Zeit Schulen und zu gleicher Zeit die wahren künstlerischen Stätten waren, vorging, wenn wir uns vor die Seele malen das große Weltendrama, von dem, wie gesagt, die materialistische Geschichte nichts zu melden hat, das sich aber abgespielt hat vor den zu den alten Weihestätten, den Mysterien Zugelassenen. Der, welcher da zugelassen wurde, sah in dramatischer Darstellung alles, was man aufbringen konnte an dramatischer Repräsentation, an musikalischer Leistung, durchtränkt von dem, was man glaubte, an Weisheit ergriffen zu haben, und durchtränkt von dem, zu dem die Seele in wahrhaft religiöser Frömmigkeit aufschaute. In wenigen Worten können wir vor die Seele hinmalen, wie es ausgeschaut hat in jener Zeit, aus der uns keine Urkunden als die der Geisteswissenschaft etwas melden. Da wurden die, welche zugelassen wurden, vereinigt, um eine Art Weltschöpfungsdrama anzuschauen. Solche Weltschöpfungsdramen hat es überall gegeben. Da wurde gezeigt, wie göttliche Urwesenheiten aus geistigen Höhen sich herunterbewegten, wie sie ihr Wesen einströmen ließen in den Weltenstoff und wie sich der Weltenstoff formte zu den verschiedenen Naturwesen, zu den verschiedenen Naturreichen, das mineralische Reich, das Pflanzenreich, das tierische Reich und das Menschenreich, wie also das Göttliche hineinströmte in dasjenige, was draußen in den verschiedenen Naturwesen uns entgegenleuchtet und entgegenblickt, wie dann dieses Göttliche eine Art von Auferstehung in den menschlichen Seelen feiert.

Dasjenige, was tiefere Persönlichkeiten immer empfunden haben, daß die Welt von einem Göttlichen ausgeströmt ist, daß dieses Göttliche in den Menschenseelen zu einem Bewußtsein kommt, gleichsam aus den menschlichen Augen und Sinnen herausschaut und sich selbst in seinem Schaffen betrachtet, dieser Abstieg und diese Auferstehung des Göttlichen wurde in Ägypten in dem Osiris-Drama und in den verschiedensten Weihestätten Griechenlands begangen. Derjenige, der da zuschauen durfte und sah, wie alles, was an Kunst und Weisheit da war, dazu diente, um dieses Weltenschöpfungsdrama darzustellen, der empfand gegenüber diesem Drama, das man Urdrama nennen könnte, zunächst eine religiöse Stimmung. Verehrungs- und ehrfurchtsvoll sah er den Gott, der herunterstieg in die Materie, in allen Wesen schlummern und in der Menschenseele auferstehen. Ehrfurchtsvoll genoß er jene Stimmung, die Goethe einmal schön und bedeutungsvoll ausgedrückt hat in den Worten: «Wenn die gesunde Natur des Menschen als ein Ganzes wirkt, wenn er sich in der Welt als in einem großen, schönen, würdigen und werten Ganzen fühlt, wenn das harmonische Behagen ihm ein reines, freies Entzücken gewährt, dann würde das Weltall, wenn es sich selbst empfinden könnte, als an sein Ziel gelangt, aufjauchzen und den Gipfel des eigenen Wesens und Werdens bewundern.» Und eine wunderbare religiöse Stimmung ergoß sich in die Herzen der Zuschauer dieses Weltendramas.

Aber nicht bloß religiöse Stimmung war es, die vorhanden. war, auch Weisheit war es, dasjenige, was später der Mensch in Form von wissenschaftlichen Begriffen, in Form von Ideen und Vorstellungen sich klarmachte über die Weltentstehung und ihre Wesenheiten. Das sah man hier vor Augen: Weisheit, die geschaut wurde im äußeren Bilde, und Wissenschaft, die zugleich Religion war. Da man alles das, was man an Schönheit aufbringen konnte, äußerlich in Bildern ausdrücken konnte, und da die Weisheit zur Frömmigkeit stimmte, so war dieses Weltendrama Wissenschaft und Kunst zu gleicher Zeit.

Daß es so eine ursprüngliche Harmonie gegeben hat, lebte als dunkle Ahnung in der Seele Richard Wagners. Er sah freilich zunächst auf jene Urkultur im alten Griechenland, die noch religiösen Charakter hatte, und er sagte sich, da wirkte noch nicht Musik, noch nicht Drama, noch nicht Tanz und Architektur für sich, sondern im grauesten Altertum wirkten alle zusammen: Religion, Kunst und Weisheit überhaupt. Und dann, so sagte sich Richard Wagner, sind die Künste herausgetreten aus ihrer Selbstlosigkeit, da wurden sie selbstsüchtig und egoistisch. Nun hatte Richard Wagner eine große ahnungsvolle Intuition. Er schaute zurück in die Zeiten urferner Vergangenheit, wo die Menschen noch nicht so individuell waren wie heute, noch nicht so persönlich wie später, als sich die einzelnen Menschen noch als Glieder ihres Stammes, ihres ganzen Volkes fühlten, wo man noch dasjenige als Realität ansah, was man Volksgeist, Stammesgeist nannte. In jene alten Zeiten einer natürlichen Selbstlosigkeit sah Richard Wagner zurück, und ihm ging die Idee auf: Um ein Selbst zu sein, mußten die Menschen jene alten Stammesgemeinschaften verlassen, das persönliche Element mußte hervortreten. Nur auf Grund des persönlichen Elementes konnten die Menschen ihre Freiheit gewinnen. Diese ist aber nicht zu gewinnen ohne eine Art von Egoismus, So sah Richard Wagner zurück in alles das, was die Menschen zusammengehalten hat. Die Menschen mußten diese Selbstlosigkeit verlassen, bewußter und bewußter mußten sie werden. So stellte sich ihm die urferne Vergangenheit dar. Und dann sagte er sich: Nachdem sie die Freiheit errungen haben, müssen sie den Weg wieder zurückfinden zu Bruderbünden, zu liebevollen Verbänden, und aus der Bewußtheit heraus muß der selbstsüchtige Mensch wieder selbstlos werden. Die Liebe muß wieder alle durchdringen.

Das erscheint ihm als Ideal einer fernen Kunst, und so verbindet sich bei ihm die Gegenwart mit der Zukunft, und die Kunst ist es, der er eine wichtige Stellung in bezug auf die Entwicklung anweist. Die Kunst scheint ihm parallelgehend mit der Menschheitsentwicklung zu sein. Wie die Menschheit, so haben sich die Künste entwickelt. Aus einer Gesamtheit der Künste hervorgehend, wurden die Künste egoistisch. Das Drama, die Architektur und der Tanz wurden etwas für sich. So ist es geworden in der Gegenwart. Parallel der egoistisch gewordenen Welt haben wir die egoistisch gewordene Kunst. Er blickt hin auf eine Zeit, wo auch die Kunst wieder eine Kunstgemeinschaft haben wird. Daher nennt man Richard Wagner den «Kommunisten» der Künstler, weil er einen «Kommunismus» der Künstler so vor Augen hatte. So sieht er im Zusammenklang der Künste, zu dem er sein Scherflein beitragen will, einen mächtigen Hebel, um aus der Selbstlosigkeit der Kunst heraus etwas in die Seelen der Menschen zu gießen von jener Selbstlosigkeit, die einen zukünftigen menschlichen Bruderbund begründen muß. So war er künstlerisch ein Missionar menschlicher sozialer Selbstlosigkeit, indem er in jede Menschenseele jenen Impuls gießen wollte, der die Seele hinleitet zur inneren Selbstlosigkeit, die die Menschen in Harmonie verbindet. Wahrhaftig, ein großer Missionsgedanke, der vor Richard Wagners Seele auftauchte, ein Missionsgedanke, den nur eine Persönlichkeit haben konnte, ganz durchdringen konnte, die in sich selber etwas von dem wirklichen geistigen Impuls, die einen tiefen Glauben an die Wahrheit des geistigen Lebens hatte. Diesen tiefen Glauben aber hatte Richard Wagner.

Wir können uns an einem seiner Werke, zunächst vorbereitend, diesen Glauben Richard Wagners an die geistige Welt hinter der sinnlichen vor die Seele halten, an seinem «Fliegenden Holländer». Schon da tritt uns Richard Wagners richtiger und wahrhaft redlicher Glaube an die geistige Welt hinter der sinnlichen entgegen. Halten Sie sich vor Augen, daß ich nicht im entferntesten behaupte, daß die Gedanken, die hier ausgesprochen werden, bewußt vor der Seele Richard Wagners standen, ebensowenig wie die Gedanken der Botaniker oder Lyriker bewußt in der Pflanze leben. Aber wie der Botaniker oder Lyriker an ihr empfindet, so lebte Richard Wagner im Sinne dieser Vorstellung und im Sinne dieser geistigen Gesetze.

Der materialistische Mensch sieht die Menschen um sich herum an und er sieht sie in sinnlicher Abgeschlossenheit im materiellen Dasein nebeneinanderstehen. Die Seele ist eingeschlossen in sinnliche Leiber, und so glaubt der Materialist, daß es keine andere Art von Gemeinschaft gäbe zwischen Mensch und Mensch als diejenige, die äußerlich, sinnlich vermittelt wird. Was der einzelne Mensch dem anderen sagen kann, was der einzelne dem anderen tun kann, ist rein äußerlich, materiell wirklich; daran glaubt der materialistische Denker. Daß es eine verborgene Gemeinschaft der Menschen gibt, daß es etwas gibt, was von Seele zu Seele wirkt, auch wenn kein äußerliches Wirken durch sprachliche oder materielle Mittel da ist, davon ist derjenige überzeugt, der etwas weiß von der geistigen Welt hinter der sinnlichen Welt. Geheime geistige Wirkungen gehen und strömen von Seele zu Seele. Dasjenige, was einer denkt und fühlt, auch wenn es innerhalb der Seele beschlossen bleibt, ist nicht bedeutungs- und wertlos für den anderen Menschen, auf den sich die Gedanken und Gefühle beziehen. Der materialistische Denker weiß bloß davon, daß der andere Mensch mit der Hand berührt werden kann, daß man ihm mit materiellen Mitteln beistehen kann. Er glaubt nicht, daß das Gefühl, das in ihm lebt, eine reale Bedeutung für die anderen Menschen hat, daß Seele und Seele durch Bande verknüpft ist, die man nicht mit sinnlichen Augen sehen kann. Der Mystiker weiß, daß ein solches Band von Seele zu Seele sich schlingt. Richard Wagner war tief durchdrungen davon, daß das der Fall ist.

Wenn wir uns klarmachen wollen, was damit angedeutet ist, dann blicken wir zurück auf eine schöne mittelalterliche Sage, die der heutige Mensch nur als Sage empfindet, die aber für denjenigen, der sie geschrieben hat, und für den, der sie mystisch zu verstehen weiß, etwas anderes ist als eine Sage, nämlich der Ausdruck einer geistigen Wirklichkeit. Da erinnert uns eine Sage, die uns ein mittelalterliches Epos überliefert hat, an den armen Heinrich, der eine furchtbare Krankheit hatte. Da hören wir, daß nur eines den armen Heinrich von seiner furchtbaren Krankheit heilen kann, nämlich wenn sich ein reines weibliches Wesen für ihn opfert. Die Liebe der reinen weiblichen Seele ist imstande, etwas zu bedeuten, etwas Reales zu sein für das andere Menschenleben. Daß Seele für Seele im rein geistigen Reiche etwas füreinander sein können, wovon sich das materialistische Denken keine Vorstellung macht, das liegt hinter einer solchen Sage. Die Opferung des reinen weiblichen Wesens für den armen Heinrich, ist sie denn schließlich etwas anderes als ein sinnlicher Ausdruck für dasjenige, was ein großer Teil der Menschheit überhaupt als die mystische Wirkung des Opfers ansieht? Ist denn das Opfer dieser Jungfrau für den armen Heinrich nicht dasjenige, was der Erlöser am Kreuze für die Menschheit dargebracht hat, ist es nicht jene mystische geistige Wirkung von Seele zu Seele? Daß hinter dem Außeren etwas leben kann, das sehen wir da, da glaubt das Bewußtsein ahnungsvoll, daß es eine solche Geistigkeit gibt. Deshalb kam Wagner zu der Sage vom Fliegenden Holländer, jenem Mann, der sich mit dem Materiellen verbunden hatte und keine Erlösung finden kann von dem Stoff, mit dem er verstrickt ist. Nicht mit Unrecht hat man den Fliegenden Holländer den Ahasver des Meeres, den Ewigen Juden des Meeres genannt. Wie in der Idee des Ewigen Juden etwas Tiefes liegt, so in der Idee vom Ewigen Juden des Meeres, vom Fliegenden Holländer.

Betrachten wir uns den Ahasver von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus. Er ist der Mensch, der nicht glauben kann an den Erlöser, an eine Persönlichkeit, die die Menschheit vorwärtsführt zu größeren Höhen, zu immer vollkommeneren und vollkommeneren Stufen der Entwicklung. Der Ahasver ist verstrickt in das bleibende Dasein; während der Mensch in Wahrheit, wenn er weiterkommen will, aufwärtssteigen muß von Stufe zu Stufe, kann sich der, welcher nicht streben will, mit der Materie verbinden. Er kann demjenigen Hohn sprechen, der Führer der Menschheit zu höheren und höheren Stufen ist. Dann muß er in die Materie verstrickt werden. Was heißt es: In die Materie verstrickt werden? Wer in die Materie verstrickt wird, für den wiederholt sich das äußere Leben im ewigen Einerlei. Denn dadurch unterscheidet sich das materielle vom geistigen Auffassen, daß das Materielle sich immer wiederholt, während der Geist aufsteigt. In dem Augenblicke, wo der Geist der Materie verfällt, verfällt er der Wiederholung des immer Gleichen. Und so ist es mit dem Fliegenden Holländer. In jenen alten Zeiten hatten die verschiedenen Völker das Bekanntwerden mit fremden Ländern benützen können, um die Ideen immer höher und höher zu heben. Wer dieses erreichen konnte, der betrachtete das Fahren über das Meer, das Hinausstürmen zu fremden Küsten als ein bloßes Mittel der Vervollkommnung der Menschheit. Derjenige, der die Vollkommenheitsidee, das Fließen der Geistesströmung nicht spürte, verstrickte sich in das Einerlei des bloß zur Materie, zum Stofflichen Gehörigen. Der Fliegende Holländer, der seinen Hang nur zum Stofflichen hat, wird verlassen von den Kräften der Entwicklung, von der Liebe, die das Mittel ist zur Vervollkommnung, das Mittel zum Aufstieg, zur Entwicklung, so daß er sich in die Materie, in die Stoffe hineinspinnt und sich für ihn dasselbe dann in ewiger Wiederholung wiederholen muß. Solche Wesen, die nicht ergriffen, nicht erfaßt werden können zu einem höheren Aufstieg, müssen berührt werden von jungfräulichem Wesen. Jungfräulich und von reiner Liebe erfüllt muß das Wesen sein, das den Fliegenden Holländer erlösen kann.

Die Seele, die noch nicht in den Stoff verstrickt ist, hat eine Beziehung zu der Seele, die in den Stoff verstrickt ist. Das ahnt Richard Wagner und das drückt er in seinem Drama in so bedeutungsvoller Weise aus. Das war ein mystisches Empfinden der Wahrheit, das war die Empfindung der Gemeinschaft der Geister, die hinter der Gemeinschaft des Stoffes ist. Wahrhaftig, ein solcher, der so fühlte, durfte sich eine so hohe geistige Mission zuschreiben, wie Richard Wagner sie sich zuschrieb, der durfte seine Gedankenflüge hinlenken in Gebiete, wo er über Musik und Drama ganz anders dachte, als man vor ihm gedacht hat. Er sah in seiner Art zurück in jene griechische Urzeit, wo es einheitliche Kunstwerke gab, wo die Musik nur zum Ausdruck brachte, was das übrige Dramatische nicht in seiner Vollständigkeit zum Ausdruck bringen konnte, wo die ewigen Weltgesetze in dem Rhythmus des Tanzes zum Ausdruck kamen. Er sah etwas in dem alten Kunstwerk, wo noch zusammenwirkten Tanz, Rhythmus und Harmonie im dramatisch-musikalischen Kunstwerk des urfernen Altertums. Es erstand vor ihm eine eigentümliche Anschauung über das Wesen des Musikalischen. Das eigentliche Wesen des Musikalischen sah Richard Wagner in der Harmonie der Töne. Aber er sagte sich, nur dann, wenn die Schwesterkünste dasjenige, was sie hineinzugeben haben, hergeben für die Harmonie, dann strömt von solchen Schwesterkünsten in die Harmonie der Musik etwas ein. Die eine der Künste ist der Tanz. Nicht der Tanz, der später die Menschheit ergriff, sondern der, welcher in den Formen des Tanzes Bewegungen in der Natur und Bewegungen der Sterne ausdrückt. So war der alte Tanz. Der alte Tanz war herausgeboren aus einem Erfühlen der Naturgesetze, durch eigene Bewegung ein Nachbild dessen, was in der Natur sich bewegte. Dieses Wesen des Tanzrhythmus strahlte hinein in die musikalische Harmonie und gab der Harmonie der Musik den Rhythmus. Dann trat die andere Schwesterkunst hinzu, die Dichtung. Sie konnte nur einiges in Worten ausdrücken. Aber dasjenige, was Worte nicht ausdrücken konnten, das mußten die Schwesterkünste zum Ausdruck bringen. So wirkten Tanz, Musik, Dichtung in Harmonie und es entstand das Musikalische als Dreiklang von Harmonie, Rhythmus und Melodie. Es entstand, weil die Schwesterkünste zusammenwirkten.

Das stand vor dem Mystiker als der Geist des alten Kunstwerks, wo noch nicht Melodie, Rhythmus und Harmonie in der späteren Vollkommenheit da waren. Das weiß Richard Wagner und das weiß auch der Mystiker. Nun sagte er sich: in späterer Zeit trennten sich die Künste, die hier schwesterlich zusammenwirkten. Der Tanz wurde etwas für sich, die Dichtung wurde etwas für sich. Dadurch wurde das rhythmische Erleben als etwas für sich hingestellt und ebenso auch die Musik, die nichts mehr wissen wollte von der Schwester, ebenso wie die Dichtung sich trennte von dem Musikalischen und nichts mehr hineinströmen konnte in das Musikalische.

Richard Wagner sah, wie mit der Zunahme der Egoismen der Menschen die Künste egoistischer wurden, und er verfolgte so die Künste bis in die neueste Zeit hinein. Wir können ihm jetzt nicht folgen, wie er seine Künste verfolgt, wie sie selbständiger und egoistischer werden. Sehen wir, wie er selbst versuchen will, aus den Einseitigkeiten, die ihm vorliegen, etwas Harmonisches zu schaffen. Da wollen wir ihm folgen, da zeigt sich seine ganze Größe, die hinter das Wesen der Dinge auf diesem Gebiete zu kommen sucht.

Zwei Geister standen vor Richard Wagners Seele, die die Einseitigkeit der Künste pflegten, die er zusammenbringen wollte. Die Einseitigkeit des Musikalischen und die Einseitigkeit des Dramatischen zeigten Beethoven und Shakespeare. Shakespeare war für Richard Wagner der einseitige Dramatiker, weil es für Richard Wagner klar war, daß, wenn er sein tiefes Inneres betrachtete, die ganze StufenJeiter der Empfindungen und Gefühle, die man von außen nicht sehen kann, die nicht in Gesten, nicht einmal in Worte übergehen kann, wenn es sich um Wesenhaftes handelt, daß diese Stufenleiter der Empfindungen nicht im Wortdrama zum Ausdruck kommen kann. Das Wortdrama stellt die Handlung dar, wenn sie schon hinausgetreten ist aus den inneren Impulsen in Raum und Zeit. Wenn das Drama sich abspielt, so müssen wir schließen, daß die Person die Impulse schon erlebt hat. Wir sehen das schon alles übergehen in das, was das Auge sehen und das Ohr hören kann und nicht mehr als das, was sich abspielt als Dramatik im Innern der Person selbst. So muß der Dramatiker sich ausschweigen über dasjenige, was als die tieferen Gefühle und Empfindungen die Untergründe für dasjenige darstellen, was sich äußerlich auf der Bühne zeigt. Auf der anderen Seite sind ihm die einseitigen Künstler die Symphoniker, die reinen Instrumental-Musiker, diejenigen, die wirklich in ihrem wunderbaren Tongefüge dasjenige darzustellen vermögen, was im Inneren der Seele vorgeht, die innere Dramatik, die aber gestenlos bleibt, die nicht nach außen in Raum und Zeit überströmt. So hat er auf der einen Seite die musikalische Kunst, den Ausdruck des menschlichen Innern, die, wenn sie nach außen will, ihr Unvermögen fühlt, und auf der anderen Seite hat er die dramatische Kunst, die mit der musikalischen Kunst sich nicht verschwistert, die erst darzustellen vermag, wenn die Impulse in Raum und Zeit hinausgeflossen sind. Shakespeare — Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven stellen ihm zwei Seiten dar, künstlerisch ausgeprägt. In Beethovens Neunter Symphonie sieht er etwas, was die eine einseitige Kunstform aus sich heraus durchbrechen will. Er sieht, wie in der Neunten Symphonie gleichsam die Hüllen zerspringen, wie sie gleichsam sich auslebt im Wort, weil sie in Liebe die ganze Menschheit umfassen will, weil sie hinausdrängt in die ganze Welt. Da sieht er etwas, was hinaus will in Raum und Zeit; und es noch weiter hinauszuführen in Raum und Zeit, das betrachtet er als seine Mission. Nicht nur so, wie es in der Neunten Symphonie ist, den Ausdruck der Empfindungen, die innere Dramatik der Seele ausströmen zu lassen, nicht nur so, wie es da ist, wünscht er es, sondern er wünscht es einfließen zu lassen in Wort und Handlung, so daß man beide vor sich auf der Bühne hat, die innere Skala der Empfindungen in der Musik und in der Dramatik das — weil sie herausgeht in Raum und Zeit —, was die innere Skala der Empfindungen zu äußeren Handlungen bildet. Shakespeare und Beethoven in einer höheren Einheit — das will er sein. Den ganzen Menschen will er darstellen.

Sehen wir eine Handlung auf der Bühne, dann sollen wir nicht bloß sehen, was sich vor Augen und Ohren abspielt, sondern wir wollen auch hören, was die innersten Impulse des menschlichen Wesens sind. Deshalb genügt Richard Wagner auch die alte Oper nicht. Denn da waren Dichter und Musiker jeder für sich. Der Dichter drückte aus, was er auszudrücken hatte, der Musiker kam hinzu, um die Dichtung auszudrücken. Die Musik aber soll dazu da sein, um auszudrücken, was die Dichtung nicht ausdrücken kann. Das menschliche Wesen besteht aus dem Inneren, das im Außeren nicht zum Ausdruck kommen kann, und aus dem Außeren, das zwar im Wortdrama zum Ausdruck kommen kann, aber sich ausschweigen muß über die inneren Impulse. Deshalb muß das Musikalische nicht so sein, daß es die Dichtung illustriert, sondern so, daß es die Dichtung vervollständigt. Die Musik muß ausdrücken, was die Dichtung nicht ausdrücken kann.

Das ist der große Gedanke Richard Wagners. So will er schaffen, so schreibt er sich seine Mission zu für ein selbstloses Zusammenwirken von Musik und Dichtung in einem Gesamtkunstwerk. Und so sehen wir im Grunde genommen diesen seinen Grundgedanken auf eine mystische GrundJage zurückgehen, auf jene Grundlage, die den ganzen Menschen erfassen will, nicht den äußeren Menschen bloß, sondern den ganzen Menschen, der durchdrungen ist von dem inneren. Der Mensch ist mehr als das, was sich äußerlich auslebt. Richard Wagner weiß, daß in des Menschen Inneren ein höheres Selbst ruht, ein höheres Selbst vorhanden ist. Aber nur teilweise kommt in dem, was in Raum und Zeit erscheint, das höhere Selbst zum Ausdruck. Aber das innere Höhere, was über das Gewöhnliche hinausgeht, will Richard Wagner erfassen. Daher genügt ihm das eine Mittel nicht, sondern er sucht, was den Menschen in verschiedener Weise erfassen kann. Er muß daher auch seine Zuflucht nehmen zu dem, was hinausgeht über die unmittelbare Persönlichkeit, was sich erhebt zum Übermenschlichen. Das geschieht im Mythos. In der mythischen Individualität tritt uns nicht der einzelne Mensch entgegen, sondern gleichsam ein Übermenschliches. Was der Übermensch im Menschen bedeutet, das drückt uns der Mythos aus. Was nicht in einem, sondern in vielen Menschen lebt, das drücken uns mythologische Figuren wie Siegfried und Lohengrin aus. Weil Wagner in das Tiefste der Menschen gehen wollte, brauchte er die übermenschlichen Persönlichkeiten der Mythen.

Wie tief er hineingreift in den ganzen Werde- und Entwicklungsprozeß, können wir verstehen, wenn wir ihm nur ein bißchen folgen. Zu den höchsten menschlichen Rätselfragen, wie sie sich aussprechen in so großartiger Weise in dem Nibelungendrama und im Parsifaldrama, erhebt er sich und sucht sie herauszugestalten aus der Anschauung, der Empfindung und dem Gefühl für die ganze Menschheit.

Wir können nun einzelne Streiflichter auf dasjenige werfen, in dem Richard Wagners künstlerische Seele lebt. Wir werden sehen, wenn wir auch nur weniges herausgreifen, wie tief er verbunden ist mit dem, was man die mythischen Zusammenhänge der Menschheit nennt. Warum greift Wagner gerade zum Siegfrieddrama? Was wollte er damit darstellen? Wir gelangen am leichtesten dazu, wenn wir anknüpfen an Richard Wagners Idee von der ganzen Menschheitsentwicklung. Er sah zurück in die Urzeiten, wo der Mensch durch enge Stammesbande der Menschheit in einer ursprünglichen, selbstlosen Liebe verknüpft war. Er sah zurück in jene Zeiten, wo die Menschen sich so fühlten, daß der einzelne seine Selbständigkeit in seinem dumpfen Bewußtsein noch nicht empfand, sondern sich als ein Glied in einem Stamme fühlte, zu dem er gehörte, daß er gleichsam in der Stammesseele etwas Wirkliches, etwas Reales fühlte. Vor allen Dingen spürte Richard Wagner, wie dasjenige, was in Europa lebte, zurückführt in uralte Zeiten, wo eine ursprüngliche Liebe die Menschen noch zu brüderlichen Gruppen und Verbänden vereinigte. Er blickte auch zurück in jene Zeiten, von denen die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung spricht, die sagt, daß alles in Entwicklung ist. Die geisteswissenschaftliche Anschauung sagt uns, daß auch das Bewußtsein sich nach und nach entwickelt hat. Das heutige klare Bewußtsein hat sich aus Zuständen entwickelt, von denen spärliche Nachklänge noch vorhanden sind. Im Traumbewußtsein, im Bildertraum sah Richard Wagner Nachklänge eines Bilderbewußtseins, das früher der ganzen Menschheit eigen war. Das heutige Tagesbewußtsein, das vom Morgen bis zum Abend, bis zum Einschlafen dauert, hat ein viel dumpferes Bewußtsein verdrängt. In diesem alten, dumpfen Bewußtseinszustand hingen die Menschen viel tiefer zusammen. Da kam die menschliche Individualität noch nicht so heraus wie später und damit auch nicht der menschliche Egoismus, der eine notwendige Stufe in der menschlichen Entwicklung bedeutet. Richard Wagner sah, daß es eine natürliche Liebe gab, die schon im Blute lag und die einzelnen Blutsverwandten zusammenknüpfte.

Nun will ich aus der rationalen Mystik heraus eine Anschauung darlegen, die für diejenigen, welche die anderen Vorträge nicht gehört haben, etwas Groteskes haben, aber für die anderen etwas Mathematisch-Sicheres bekommen wird. Dasjenige, was heute in Europa Jlebt als heutiges klares Tagesbewußtsein, hat sich aus einer uralten Menschheit entwickelt, der atlantischen Menschheit, die der unsrigen vorangegangen ist und da gelebt hat, wo heute die Fluten des atlantischen Ozeans sind. Diejenigen, welche achtgeben auf das, was in der Welt vorgeht, werden wissen, daß selbst die Naturwissenschaft schon von einem atlantischen Kontinent spricht. Auch in der naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift «Kosmos» erschien ein Artikel darüber. Da lebten die Vorfahren der Menschen, die heute Europa bewohnen, unter anderen physikalischen Bedingungen. Sie lebten noch in Luft und Wasser. Der Boden war weithin bedeckt mit großen, mächtigen Nebelmassen. Damals sah man nicht die Sonne, wie man sie heute sieht. Sie war umgeben von mächtigen Farbenhöfen, weil alles bedeckt war mit mächtigen Nebelmassen. Die germanische Sagenwelt hat das Gedächtnis an jene alten Lande in dem Ausdruck Niflheim, Nibelungenheim bewahrt. Das sind die Erinnerungen an jenes alte Nebelland, und es ist eine feine, intime Wendung in dem, was sich aus jener Urzeit als Sage erhalten hat, daß, als die Flut allmählich die atlantischen Lande überspülte, dieselbe Flut auch die Flüsse der deutschen Tiefebene gebildet hat, so daß das Wesen des Rheins angesehen wird wie ein Überbleibsel jenes Wesens, das als das atlantische Nebelwesen einstmals weithin die Lande bedeckt hat. Es ist so, wie wenn das Rheinwasser abgeflossen wäre aus den Nebelmassen der alten Atlantis, des Nebelheims, des Nibelungenheims. So stellt die Sage das in dumpfem, ahnungsvollem Bewußtsein dar. Und indem die Völker ostwärts zogen, weil die physischen Verhältnisse so wurden, daß sie die Gegenden verlassen mußten, verließ sie das dumpfe Bewußtsein. Dieses wurde heller und heller, der Egoismus wurde aber auch größer.

Das alte dumpfe Bewußtsein hatte eine gewisse SelbstJosigkeit zur Folge. Mit dem Reinigen der Luft zog der Egoismus herauf. Der Nebeldunst der alten Atlantis bildete rings um den Menschen eine Atmosphäre von Weisheit, die erfüllt war von Selbstlosigkeit, von Liebe. Das strömte in die Wasser des Rheins und ruhte da unten als Weisheit, als Gold. Wenn das aber vom Egoismus erfaßt wird, dann gibt es zu gleicher Zeit die egoistische Macht. So sahen die Repräsentanten der alten Bewohner von Nibelungenheim, als sie ostwärts zogen, den Rhein den Hort in sich schließen, der aus dem Gold der Weisheit bestand, die einstmals in selbstloser Art gewirkt hat. Das alles ruhte — nicht so ausgesprochen — in der Sagenwelt, deren sich Richard Wagners Seele bemächtigte. Und diese Seele war dem großen geistigen Wesen, das darinnen wirkte und das Gedächtnis der alten Tatsachen bewahrte, so kongenial, daß sie aus dieser Sagenwelt dasjenige herausholte, was der Extrakt seiner ganzen Weltanschauung war. So hören wir nachklingen in der Musik Richard Wagners und sehen im Drama über die Bühne schreiten das Werden und Weben des menschlichen Egoismus. Das Zusammenschließen des Rings, wir sehen es in dem, daß Alberich dem Rhein, den Wellenmädchen das Gold abnimmt. In Alberich sehen wir den egoistisch gewordenen Repräsentanten der Nibelungen. Wir sehen den Menschen, welcher der Liebe, die den Menschen in ein Ganzes hineingestellt hat, abschwört. Die Macht des Besitzes verknüpft Richard Wagner mit der Idee, die in jener Sagenwelt webt. So sieht er jene alte Welt. Es tritt ihr entgegen diejenige Welt, die Walhalla begründert hat, es tritt entgegen die Welt des Wotan der Welt der alten Götter. Sie haben dasjenige, was alle Menschen gemeinsam hatten. Sie stellen eine Art von Gruppenseele dar, so auch Wotan. Aber da, wo die Einzelpersönlichkeit ergriffen wird von dem Ring, der sich um das Ich des Menschen spannt, wird auch er erfaßt von der Gier nach Gold. So sehen wir das, was als Volksseele in Wotan lebte, dasjenige, was der Mensch in egoistischer Art an dem Rheingold in sich erlebt, in einer feinen Art in Richard Wagners ganzer Kunst, in seinem ganzen Schaffen. Wir hören es aus den Klängen seiner Musik heraus. Wer sollte es nicht spüren können? Niemand sollte sagen, daß da in sein Werk etwas hineingelegt wird. Dagegen habe ich mich verwahrt. Aber wer sollte nicht spüren in der Es-Dur-Stelle des «Rheingold» das Einschlagen des Ich? Wie sollte das menschliche Ohr nicht spüren können das Auftreten des Ich in diesem langen Ton der Es-Dur-Stelle des «Rheingold»?

So könnten wir bis in die musikalische Kunst hinein Richard Wagners mystisches Fühlen verfolgen.

Wir sehen dann, wie sich Wotan auseinanderzusetzen hat nicht mit dem Bewußtsein, das sich von Seele zu Seele gesponnen hat, sondern mit dem, was sich noch nicht herausgesponnen hat da, wo das Volksbewußtsein noch lebendig gespürt worden ist. Dieses Bewußtsein tritt da auf, wo Wotan den Riesen den Ring entreißen will. Da tritt das alte Bewußtsein vor ihm auf in der Gestalt der Erda. Bedeutsam ist die Art, wie da gesprochen wird. Oder ist die Gestalt nicht so geschildert, daß sie die Repräsentantin des alten Bewußtseins ist, die nicht bloß weiß, was der Verstand verbindet, sondern auch weiß aus hellseherischem Bewußtsein heraus, was in der Umwelt vorgeht?

Bekannt ist dir,
Was die Tiefe birgt,
Was Berg und Tal,
Luft und Wasser durchwebt.
Wo Wesen sind,
Wehet dein Atem;
Wo Hirne sinnen,
Haftet dein Sinn:
Alles, sagt man,
Sei dir bekannt.

Man kann nicht klarer das Bewußtsein darstellen, das in Nebelheim war, man kann das alte Bewußtsein nicht klarer kennzeichnen, als es in den Worten ausgeprägt ist:

Mein Schlaf ist Träumen,
Mein Träumen Sinnen,
Mein Sinnen Walten des Wissens.

So war es: wie ein Träumen, aber ein Träumen, das wußte von der ganzen Umwelt, das wirkte von Mensch zu Mensch, das wirkte in die tiefste Tiefe der Natur hinein. Das war sein Sinnen, das war sein Wollen, sein Handeln, denn der Mensch handelte aus diesem Bewußtsein heraus. Dieses Bewußtsein trat vor Wotan in der Erda hin. Es entstand dadurch ein neues Bewußtsein.

In allem Mystischen wird das Höhere durch eine weibliche Persönlichkeit dargestellt. Das ist es auch, was sich in Goethes schönen Worten im Chorus mysticus verbirgt: «Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan.» Die verschiedenen Völker haben dieses Streben der Seele zu einem höheren Bewußtsein dargestellt als eine Vereinigung mit irgendeinem Weiblichen, in dem das Höhere in der menschlichen Seele dargestellt wird. Die Seele ist dasjenige, was von den Weltgesetzen durchstrahlt wird, und diese Weltgesetze sind es, mit denen sie sich wie in einer Ehe vereinigt. So sehen Sie, wie im alten Ägypten die Isis und wie überall sonst ein höherer Bewußtseinszustand der Seele als Weibliches hingestellt wird, und zwar in der Weise, wie es dem Charakter eines Volkes entspricht. Was das Volk als sein eigentliches Wesen empfindet, das wird ihm dargestellt in der Verbindung des Menschen mit der betreffenden weiblichen Persönlichkeit entweder im Tod oder schon während des Lebens.

Auf zwei Arten — das haben uns die Vorträge bisher gezeigt - kann der Mensch über die Sinnlichkeit hinauswachsen. Einmal kann er das Sinnliche abstreifen und sich verbinden mit dem Geiste im Tode oder schon hier im Leben, wenn sein geistiges Auge geöffnet wird. Dementsprechend sehen wir, wie dieses Höhere, das der Mensch erleben kann, auch in der deutschen Mythe als eine weibliche Persönlichkeit dargestellt wird. Für die Vorfahren der Mitteleuropäer ist es der Kriegsmann, der tapfer kämpft und auf dem Schlachtfelde fällt, der nach dem Tode in die geistige Welt geht, um mit dem Höheren vereinigt zu werden, daher kommt dem Kriegsmann die Walküre entgegen, die ihn hinaufträgt in die Welt des Geistigen. Die weibliche Figur der Walküre stellt die Verbindung mit dem höheren Bewußtsein dar. Wotan zeugt mit Erda die Brünnhilde, mit der sich Siegfried vereinigen soll, wenn er hingeführt werden soll zu dem geistigen Leben. Die Töchter der Erda stellen das höhere Bewußtsein des Eingeweihten dar. In Siegfried wächst der neue Mensch heran, der durch eine besondere Ausprägung und Vollkommenheit des Inneren schon während des Lebens die Vereinigung mit der Walküre vollziehen kann.

Was die deutsche Sagenwelt birgt, was in ihr lebt, hat Richard Wagner zum Ausdruck gebracht. Auch das hat er zum Ausdruck gebracht, daß die alte Gruppenseele absterben muß in einer Götterdämmerung, ebenso wie das individuelle Bewußtsein des Menschen in Siegfried sich ausleben muß. Das alles wirkte und lebte und webte in seiner Seele. Die höchsten Menschheitsprobleme lebten und wirkten in ihm, und er hat sie, insofern sie des Menschen Inneres darstellen, im Musikalischen, und insofern sie menschliche Taten darstellen, im Dramatischen dargestellt,

So sehen wir, wie Richard Wagner als Künstler den höheren Werdegang des Menschen aus dem Mystischen heraus schöpft. Das hat ihn auch dazu geführt, eine tief bedeutsame Gestalt zum Mittelpunkt einer solchen Dramenschöpfung zu machen, die Gestalt des Lohengrin. Was ist der Lohengrin? Diesen Lohengrin verstehen wir nur, wenn wir sehen, wie sich die Sage im Volk einlebt während einer Zeit, wo in ganz Europa bedeutsame soziale Umwälzungen vor sich gingen. Wir verstehen, was in der Seele desjenigen lebte, der das Bild des Lohengrin in seiner Vereinigung mit dem Weibe, die bei Richard Wagner Elsa von Brabant ist, darstellt. Wir sehen, wie durch ganz Europa hindurch ein neues Zeitalter sich bildet, das Zeitalter, in dem das Ringen der menschlichen Individualität zum Ausdruck kommt. Mit etwas scheinbar ganz Prosaischem, hinter dem aber etwas ganz Tiefes steckt, können wir es ausdrücken. In Frankreich, Schottland, England, hinten in Rußland, überall sehen wir ein neues soziales Gebilde entstehen: die freie Stadt. Während draußen auf dem Lande die Menschen in den Nachklängen alter Stammesgemeinschaften lebten, strömten diejenigen Menschen, welche sich der Stammeszusammengehörigkeit entreißen wollten, aus derselben heraus in die Stadt. Da, in der Stadt, entstand das individuelle Freiheitsbewußtsein. Da lebten die Menschen, die sich den Zusammengehörigkeitsbanden entreißen wollten, die ihr Leben da einzig und allein leben wollten. Es war ein mächtiger Umschwung, der sich damals vollzog. Bisher war es der Name, der angab, wozu der Mensch gehörte und was er wert war. In der Stadt war der Name nichts wert. Was bekümmerte man sich da darum, aus welcher Familie der Mensch herausgewachsen war? Da war er so viel wert als er Können hatte. Da entwickelte sich der individuelle Mensch. Die Entwicklung von der Selbstlosigkeit zur Individualität wurde zur Entwicklung von der Individualität zum Bruderbund. Das stellte in der Mitte des Mittelalters die Sage dar, indem das Alte ersetzt wurde durch das, was der Mensch aus seinem Inneren heraus sich selbst zu geben in der Lage war.

Sehen wir zurück auf die alten führenden Priestergeschlechter, auf diejenigen, die früher Führer waren, auf diejenigen, die die Adelsgeschlechter, die Weisen abgegeben haben: sie stammten aus Familienverbänden. Daß sie einem solchen Verbande angehörten, daß sie das richtige Blut hatten, darauf kam es an. In der Zukunft wird es darauf nicht mehr ankommen. Der, welcher ein Führer der Menschheit sein wird, der kann unbekannt sein durch das, was ihn mit der Menschheit verbindet, da profaniert man ihn, wenn man ihm einen Namen gibt. Daher das Ideal der großen Individualitäten, das Ideal des namenlosen Weisen, das sich immer mehr herausbildet. Der namenlose Weise ist nicht durch das Herkommen etwas, sondern durch das, was er ist. Er ist die freie Individualität, die von den anderen anerkannt wird, weil sie alles aus sich selbst ist, weil sie nichts anderes sein will, als was sie für die anderen ist. So steht Lohengrin als Repräsentant, als Führer der Menschheit zur Freiheit da. Das mittelalterliche Städtebewußtsein sehen wir repräsentiert in dem Weibe, das sich mit Lohengrin verbindet. Mit einer der großen Individualitäten der Menschheit verbunden wurde derjenige, der zwischen der Menschheit und den großen Wesen steht, der den Verkehr zwischen den großen Führern der Menschheit und den Menschen vermittelt. Ein solcher hat immer einen bestimmten Namen gehabt. Den nennt man in aller Geheim- und Geisteswissenschaft mit dem technischen Namen des «Schwan». Der Schwan ist eine ganz bestimmte Stufe der höheren Geistesentwicklung. Der Schwan vereinigt den gewöhnlichen Menschen mit dem höheren Führer der Menschheit. Einen Abglanz von diesem sehen wir in der Lohengrinsage.

Wir brauchen solche Dinge nicht in Begriffe zu fassen, die einer pedantischen Lebensauffassung entnommen sind. Ja, wir tun Unrecht, wenn wir es tun. Wir kommen nur zur Klarheit, wenn unsere Begriffe weitherzig werden, so daß uns die Dinge, die uns Richard Wagner verständlich macht, nicht pedantische Worthülsen sind, sondern Vorstellungen entzünden, die weit, weit sich ausspinnen. Gestatten Sie mir, daß ich nicht Begriffe mit pedantischen Konturen vor Sie hinstelle, sondern solche, die weite Perspektiven eröffnen. Daher muß man eine Gestalt wie Lohengrin in ihrer welthistorischen Bedeutung hinstellen und zeigen, wie in Richard Wagners Seele sich ein Verständnis dafür angesponnen hat und wie dieses Verständnis künstlerische Gestalt gewonnen hat.

So ist es Richard Wagner auch gegangen mit der Idee vom heiligen Gral. Im letzten Vortrage: «Wer sind die Rosenkreuzer?» trat diese Idee vom heiligen Gral vor unsere Seele. Es ist höchst merkwürdig, daß in Richard Wagners Seele in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte etwas aufleuchtet, was wie ein Ahnen von jener großen Lehre des Mittelalters, vom heiligen Gral war. Diese Lehre leuchtete ihm erst auf, als eine andere vorangegangen war. Im Jahre 1856 war es, als in Richard Wagners Seele die Idee auftauchte, die in dem Drama «Die Sieger» dargestellt werden sollte. Das Drama ist nicht ausgeführt worden. Das, was er aber hineingeheimnissen wollte, kam im «Parsifal» zum Ausdruck. Aber wohin die Idee ging, das stellt uns die Konzeption des Dramas «Die Sieger» dar:

Ananda wird geliebt von einem Tschandalamädchen. Ananda aber ist durch das Kastenvorurteil weit getrennt von der Liebe des Tschandalamädchens. Er darf der Liebe des Tschandalamädchens nicht nachgehen. Er wird Sieger über die eigene Natur dadurch, daß er ein Zögling des Buddha wird. In der Anhängerschaft des Buddha findet er den Sieg, da findet er sich zurück, da überwindet er die menschliche Neigung, und dem Tschandalamädchen wird eröffnet, daß es in einem früheren Leben ein Brahmanenmädchen war und die Liebe eines Tschandalajünglings ausgeschlagen hat. Sie wird dann auch Siegerin und ist vereinigt im Geiste mit dem Ananda, dem Brahmanenjüngling.

In schöner Weise drückt Richard Wagner die Idee aus, sie geht bis zu den anthroposophisch-christlichen Grundlagen von Reinkarnation und Karma. Wir werden geführt bis zu dem Punkt, wo das Mädchen in ihrem früheren Leben sich selbst das zugefügt hat, was es jetzt erlebt. Im Jahre 1856 hat er das schon ausgearbeitet.

Im Jahre 1857, am Karfreitag war es, wo er in der Einsiedlerhütte, dem «Asyl auf dem grünen Hügel», saß und hinausschaute auf das Feld und sah, wie die Pflanzenwelt aus dem Erdboden herauskam. Da hatte er eine Ahnung von jenen Triebkräften, die durch die Strahlen der Sonne herauskamen aus der Erde und die durch die ganze Welt gehen, eine Ahnung von jener Triebkraft, die in jedem Wesen lebt, aber nicht so einfach bleiben kann. Wenn sie zu höheren und höheren Stufen hinaufsteigen will, muß sie durch den Tod hindurchgehen. So empfand er gerade an der sprießenden und sprossenden Pflanzenwelt, die er erblickte, indem er hinauswendete den Blick über den Züricher See und die Villa Wesendonck, die polarische Idee, die andere Idee, die Idee des Todes, das, was Goethe so schön ausgedrückt hat in dem Satze, der das Gedicht «Selige Sehnsucht» beschließt:

Und so lang du das nicht hast,
Dieses: Stirb und Werde,
Bist du nur ein trüber Gast
Auf der dunkeln Erde.

Und was er in dem Hymnus an die Natur so umschrieb: Die Natur hat den Tod erfunden, weil sie mehr Leben haben wollte, weil sie ein höheres, geistiges Leben nur aus dem Tode heraus schaffen kann.

So empfand Richard Wagner am Karfreitag, wo das Symbolum des Todes vor die Menschheit und das Menschheitsgedächtnis hintritt. Da empfand er den Zusammenhang zwischen Tod, Leben und Unsterblichkeit. Er lenkt sein Gefühl von dem Leben, das aus der Erde heraussprießt, zu dem Tod am Kreuze, zu dem Tode, der aber zu gleicher Zeit der Urquell ist für den Glauben der Christenheit, daß das Leben den Sieg erringen wird über den Tod, daß es das ewige Leben erringen wird. Das Leben der Ewigkeit sprießt aus diesem Tod. Die tiefe Verwandtschaft der Karfreitagsidee, der Erlösungsidee, mit der sprießenden, sprossenden Natur, das lebte in Richard Wagner, und diese Idee ist identisch mit dem, was wir als die Gralsidee schildern konnten, wo die keusche Pflanze mit ihrer Blüte der Sonne entgegenstrebt im Gegensatz zum begierdevollen Menschen. Er sah den Menschen, wie er von der Begierde durchzogen ist, und betrachtete das Ideal der Zukunft, wo der Mensch durch die Überwindung der Begierde das höhere Bewußtsein, jene höhere befruchtende Kraft erlangt haben wird, die der Geist erzeugen wird. Und er schaute hin auf das Kreuz, wie das Blut des Erlösers geflossen ist, das aufgefangen wurde in der Gralsschale, und die das Symbolum gebildet hat für diese Idee von der Erlösung, und sie verband sich ihm mit dem Werden der Natur. Diese Idee zog im Jahre 1857 durch Richard Wagners Seele, und er schrieb damals mit einigen Strichen auf, was er dann in seinem Karfreitagszauber zum Ausdruck brachte. Er schrieb hin: Aus dem Tod die werdende Pflanzenwelt und im Tod dem Christen das unsterbliche Leben. Da empfand er den Geist hinter allen Dingen und den Geist als Sieger über den Tod.

Es mußte zwar zunächst hinter den anderen künstlerischen Ideen seiner Seele diese Idee des Parsifal zurücktreten, aber sie kam doch noch heraus am Ende seines Lebens, wo sie ihm immer klarer wurde als Bild des Erkenntnispfades des Menschen. Das hat ihn veranlaßt, den Weg zum heiligen Gral darzustellen, um zu zeigen, wie bewirkt werden kann, daß des Menschen Begierdennatur geläutert wird. Dieses Ideal ist dargestellt in der heiligen reinen Schale, die darstellt den Pflanzenkelch, der vom Sonnenstrahl, der heiligen Liebeslanze, zu reinem und keuschem neuen Schaffen befruchtet wird. Es sticht der Sonnenstrahl hinein in das Stoffliche wie die Lanze des Amfortas in das sündige Blut. Da aber bewirkt sie Leid und den Tod. Reinigt sich dieses sündige Blut, so daß es so rein ist wie der Pflanzenblütenkelch auf einer höheren Stufe, ohne Begierde, keusch wie der Pflanzenkelch dem Sonnenstrahl gegenüber, so erscheint das wie der Weg zum heiligen Gral. Der Weg dahin kann nur gefunden werden von dem, der mit reinem Herzen, ohne berührt zu sein von dem, was die Welt gibt, ohne weltliches Wissen, als reiner Tor dahin geht und in dem die Frage nach dem Weltgeheimnis lebt.

So sehen wir, wie in Richard Wagner aus mystischer Grundlage heraus die Parsifalidee aus der heiligen Gralsidee geboren wird. Er hat sie einmal darstellen wollen, indem er die ganze mittelalterliche Geschichte in einer Art geschichtlichen Betrachtung in seinem Werk «Die Wibelungen » darzustellen beabsichtigte. Es sollte sich die mittelalterliche Kaiseridee vergeistigen dadurch, daß er Barbarossa nach dem Orient ziehen lassen wollte, und mit dem äußeren Reich wollte er dann alles Indische, wo der Held das ursprünglich Geistige des Christentums aufsuchen wollte, hineinströmen lassen. So ergießt sich dann für ihn die Idee der mittelalterlichen Kaisergeschichten in der Parsifalsage, und so konnte er dann in der Parsifalidee die Karfreitagstradition der Christenheit in solch wunderbarer Weise künstlerisch zum Ausdruck bringen, daß ich sagen darf, Richard Wagner hat vollbracht, was ihm als Ideal vorschwebte: die Kunst religiös zu machen. In dieser künstlerischen Neugestaltung der Karfreitagstradition hat Richard Wagner jene schöne geniale Idee zum Ausdruck gebracht von dem Zusammenwirken des Glaubens- und Gralsmotives, jene Idee, daß die Menschheit erlöst werden wird, daß sie, sich vervollkommnend, hinstreben wird zur Erlösung, daß in dem, was die Menschheit als Geist durchströmt, von dem jede Seele einen Tropfen hat als höheres Selbst, daß das in dem Christus Jesus als Erlösung der Menschheit voranleuchtet.

Das stand an jenem Karfreitag 1857 schon vor der Seele Richard Wagners und hat ihm eingegeben die Verbindung der Parsifalidee mit der Erlösung durch den Christus Jesus, der die geistige Atmosphäre, in der die Menschheit lebt, durchströmt, und den wir fühlen können, wenn wir verständnisvoll erfühlen die Erzählung vom heiligen Gral. Das kann wieder zu einem konkreten geistig-seelischen Leben erwachen, wenn man in der Karfreitagsidee wieder herausfühlt den Übergang von der Mitternacht von Gründonnerstag, von der weichenden Gründonnerstagwelt, zum Karfreitag, dem Symbolum des Sieges der auferstehenden Natur.

Daß die Feste wieder lebendig werden, das war auch etwas, was in Richard Wagner lebte, als er aus einer unmittelbaren Festesidee sein Kunstwerk herausgeboren hat. Die Feste sind herausgeboren aus einem lebendigen Verständnis der Natur. Das Osterfest ist festgesetzt worden in einer Zeit, in der man wußte, daß die Konstellationen von Sonne und Mond hereinwirken aus der Natur in den Menschensinn. In dem Osterfest kommt es konkret zum Ausdruck. Die heutigen Menschen wollen es abstrakt festsetzen, so daß man es nicht mehr so erlebt, wie wenn man familiär vertraut ist mit der Natur. Wenn man geistig empfindet, so empfindet man alles, was um uns ist, geistig. Wenn wir noch spüren, was die Tradition uns überliefert hat an Festen, dann werden wir da auch spüren etwas, wie es uns der Karfreitag geben soll. Das spürte Richard Wagner und er fühlte auch, was das Erlöserwort «Ich bin bei euch bis ans Ende der Welt» bedeuten soll: Folgt den Spuren, die euch führen können zu dem hohen Ideal des heiligen Grals. Dann werden die Menschen, die in der Wahrheit leben, selbst Erlöser. Ein Erlöser hat die Menschheit erlöst. Richard Wagner fügt aber noch das andere Wort hinzu: Wann ist der Erlöser erlöst? Er ist erlöst, wenn er in jedem Menschenherzen wohnt. So wie er in jedes Menschenherz heruntergestiegen ist, so muß jedes Menschenherz hinaufsteigen. Und auch davon fühlte Richard Wagner etwas, als er aus dem Glaubensmotiv heraus das mystische Fühlen der Menschheit in das schöne Wort im Parsifal ausklingen ließ:

«Höchsten Heiles Wunder:
Erlösung dem Erlöser!»,

dieses Wort, das ihn so recht verschwistert und vermählt zeigt mit dem höchsten Ideale, das sich der Mensch setzen kann: sich zu nähern derjenigen Macht, die in der Welt lebt und zu uns herunter will. Wenn wir ihrer würdig werden wollen, dann bringen wir, was aus Richard Wagners Parsifal am Schlusse heraustönt: Erlösung dem Erlöser.

Richard Wagner and Mysticism

Certain prejudices, which may arise from misunderstandings that can be encountered when viewing an artist from a certain spiritual-scientific standpoint, are likely to arise from the outset against a view such as today's, which will bring Richard Wagner and mysticism into connection with each other. And a second type of prejudice is that which is directed against mysticism as such.

Everything that will be said today about Richard Wagner's position in art on the one hand and in mysticism on the other may provoke the objection: Yes, a great deal is being attributed to Richard Wagner that he himself never said anything about, that he himself never revealed in any way. — Against such a prejudice, it must be said that anyone who makes an observation such as the one we are about to make today would, of course, raise such an objection from the outset. But it is not at all our intention, when we consider a spiritual phenomenon in the world, to say only what the personality in question has said himself. If this were thought through consistently, it would make it impossible to engage in truly higher contemplation of the phenomena of the world.

Just think, if the botanist — we could also say the poet — expresses what he, that is, the botanist, is able to think about this natural phenomenon, or if the poet expresses what he is able to feel about a plant or a natural phenomenon, would anyone demand that the plant or the natural phenomenon itself be able to say what flows from the soul of the botanist or the poet? It cannot be a question of what we have to say about a spiritual or other phenomenon of the world being said by this phenomenon itself. You would also have to demand that the plant itself be able to express the laws of its growth to the botanist, and you would have to consider it wrong for the poet to speak of feelings toward a natural phenomenon that this natural phenomenon itself is unable to express. Rather, we must say that it is precisely in the human soul that what the outside world cannot say about itself must be revealed.

In this way, please take everything that is to be said to you today about such a spiritual phenomenon as Richard Wagner. Just as it is true that the plant does not know the laws of its growth itself, but grows and shapes itself according to them, so it is true that an artist does not need to say himself what a spiritual science observer must say as the laws of his becoming and the laws of his whole being. But it is equally true that the artist lives out these laws, creates according to them, just as the plant creates according to the laws that are discovered afterwards, just as it lives out the laws that are imprinted upon it. Therefore, it should not be an objection that Richard Wagner did not himself say the things that are being said today. The other point relates to what is known as mysticism. Scholars and the uneducated speak of mysticism as if it were a dark, nebulous view of the world, as opposed to what is called the actual scientific, conceptual view of the world. The Gnostics, the great mystics of the early Christian centuries, thought differently about mysticism. And those who understand anything about mysticism at all think differently about it at all times. The Gnostics called mysticism “mathesis,” mathematics, not because mysticism is mathematics, but because the true mystic strives for the same crystal-clear, transparent brightness in his ideas and mental images of the higher spiritual worlds as mathematical ideas and concepts have in certain other fields. When understood in truth, mysticism is not a dark, emotional grasp of the world, but the clearest, most crystal-clear thing that can exist. Let us start from these two points of view, which have been presented here by rejecting two prejudices.

Richard Wagner can truly be viewed from the highest spiritual-scientific standpoint. For if there was any seeker of truth in the last century who strove throughout his entire life in the most honest and sincere manner to find the sources and foundations of the world's mysteries, it was he. He named his house in Bayreuth “Wahnfried,” thereby indicating himself that it was there that “his delusions found peace.” This phrase, that his delusions found peace there, says a great deal, indeed a great deal.

Those who honestly and sincerely attempt to walk the path of knowledge, and who, regardless of whether in this or that form, artistically or in some other way, expresses the areas of spiritual life that he believes he has found on the path of knowledge, the one who walks the path of knowledge so honestly, knows what the word “delusion” means, how many delusions stand in his way on the path of knowledge, and he knows that knowledge is not something that takes place in a sober, dry manner. He knows that knowledge is in truth something that takes place amid catastrophes of inner spiritual life, amid ascents and descents in relation to the human inner life; he knows that there are terrible dangers on the one hand and bliss, wonderful bliss on the other. And he knows that those who follow this path of knowledge can look forward to one thing: peace, divine peace, which arises from an intimate immersion in the divine secrets of the world. Something of this attitude, something of this mood is expressed by Richard Wagner in the words: “Because my delusions found peace here, this house shall be called Wahnfried.”

He was not an artist like so many others who want to create out of an insubstantial fantasy. He was an artist who, from the very beginning, understood his profession as a great world-historical mission, for whom beauty in artistic creation was at the same time truth, the expression of knowledge. Religious feeling and sensibility were for him the soul of artistic creation, and art was something sacred to him. For him, the artist had a kind of priestly vocation, and what Richard Wagner gave to humanity as an artist was, in his view, to have a religious consecration, to fulfill a religious task and mission in the course of human development. Thus, he saw himself as one of those who wanted to give something to their age from the depth and fullness of truth.

If Spiritual Science is not to be a detached gray theory, not a floating in an unworldly cloud cuckoo land, then it must find a way to understand and appreciate such a significant spiritual phenomenon as Richard Wagner from its point of view. It can do this if it is understood in the right way.

Richard Wagner had within himself the feeling, the sensation that led him to the same truths about the origins of human development that Spiritual Science also points us to. Something connects Richard Wagner deeply with spiritual scientific feeling and perception, with all true mysticism: what he calls the harmony of the various arts, the unity of the arts, the loving, harmonious interplay of the arts. What he perceived as a deficiency in our contemporary artistic activity was what he called the selfishness, the egoism of the individual arts. He felt an ideal hovering above him, which presented itself to him in such a way that one art does not go one way and another art goes another way, but rather that a harmony of the arts emerges, to which all can contribute in a selfless manner and with loving devotion. He says that such an art or such an artistic ideal once existed in the course of world development. He sought such an ideal in ancient Greece, which preceded the artistic era of Sophocles, Euripides, and others. He says that before the arts split, before dramatic art was separate from dance, they worked together, united in selfless striving in the Gesamtkunstwerk. He senses this Gesamtkunstwerk in a kind of clairvoyant vision. History makes no mention of it, but it must agree with him, for it goes back to the primordial state of the various peoples, where not only did the arts work together in a unified great harmony, but where the various intellectual and cultural currents worked together as well.

What we today call art and science, Spiritual Science regards as different branches that have grown out of a single root. Whether we go back to ancient Greece, to ancient Egypt, to the Indian and Persian peoples, or even to our own Germanic homeland, everywhere we encounter a primordial culture that our materialistic research cannot reach, but which clairvoyant vision can. We encounter a culture where there was no separate science and art, where everything was united, where everything was such that one was inclined to call it mystery. Before there were places of art, before there were places of science, there were places of mystery. What were they? They were a union of wisdom, beauty, and religious piety.

We can form a mental image of what went on in those temple sites, which were at the same time schools and true artistic sites, if we picture in our minds the great world drama which, as I said, materialistic history has nothing to say about, but which took place before those admitted to the ancient sacred sites, the mysteries. Those who were admitted saw everything that could be mustered in terms of dramatic representation and musical performance, imbued with what was believed to be wisdom and imbued with what the soul looked up to in true religious piety. In a few words, we can paint a picture for the soul of what it looked like in those times, about which we have no records other than those of Spiritual Science. Those who were admitted were united to watch a kind of world creation drama. Such world creation dramas have existed everywhere. They showed how divine primordial beings descended from spiritual heights, how they poured their essence into the substance of the world, and how the substance of the world formed into the various natural beings, into the various natural kingdoms, the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the human kingdom, how the divine flowed into that which shines and looks back at us in the various natural beings outside, and how this divine then celebrates a kind of resurrection in human souls.

What deeper personalities have always felt, that the world emanates from a divine source, that this divine source comes to consciousness in human souls, as it were, looks out of human eyes and senses and contemplates itself in its creation, this descent and resurrection of the divine was celebrated in Egypt in the Osiris drama and in various places of worship in Greece. Those who were allowed to watch and saw how all the art and wisdom that existed served to portray this drama of the creation of the world initially felt a religious mood towards this drama, which could be called the original drama. With reverence and awe, they saw the god who descended into matter, slumbering in all beings and resurrecting in the human soul. With reverence, they enjoyed that mood which Goethe once expressed beautifully and meaningfully in the words: “When the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, when he feels himself in the world as in a great, beautiful, dignified, and valuable whole, when harmonious comfort grants him pure, free delight, then the universe, if it could feel itself, would rejoice at having reached its goal and admire the summit of its own being and becoming.” And a wonderful religious mood poured into the hearts of the spectators of this world drama.

But it was not only a religious mood that was present. It was also wisdom, that which man later made clear to himself in the form of scientific concepts, in the form of ideas and mental images about the origin of the world and its essences. This could be seen here before one's eyes: wisdom that was seen in the outer image, and science that was at the same time religion. Since everything that could be mustered in terms of beauty could be expressed externally in images, and since wisdom was in tune with piety, this world drama was both science and art at the same time.

The fact that such a primal harmony had existed lived on as a dark premonition in Richard Wagner's soul. At first, he looked to the ancient culture of Greece, which still had a religious character, and he said to himself that music, drama, dance, and architecture did not yet exist independently, but in the gravest antiquity, they all worked together: religion, art, and wisdom in general. And then, Richard Wagner told himself, the arts stepped out of their selflessness and became selfish and egotistical. Now Richard Wagner had a great, prescient intuition. He looked back to the distant past, when people were not yet as individual as they are today, not yet as personal as they would later become, when individuals still felt themselves to be members of their tribe, of their entire people, when what was called the spirit of the people, the spirit of the tribe, was still regarded as reality. Richard Wagner looked back to those ancient times of natural selflessness, and the idea dawned on him: in order to be themselves, people had to leave those ancient tribal communities; the personal element had to come to the fore. Only on the basis of the personal element could people gain their freedom. But this cannot be achieved without a kind of egoism. So Richard Wagner looked back at everything that had held people together. People had to abandon this selflessness; they had to become more and more conscious. This is how he saw the distant past. And then he said to himself: after they have gained freedom, they must find their way back to brotherhoods, to loving associations, and out of consciousness, the selfish human being must become selfless again. Love must permeate everything again.

This appears to him as the ideal of a distant art, and so for him the present is connected with the future, and it is art that he assigns an important position in relation to development. Art seems to him to run parallel to the development of humanity. Just as humanity has developed, so too have the arts. Emerging from a totality of the arts, the arts became selfish. Drama, architecture, and dance became something separate. That is how it has become in the present. Parallel to the world that has become selfish, we have art that has become selfish. He looks forward to a time when art will once again have an artistic community. That is why Richard Wagner is called the “communist” of artists, because he had a “communism” of artists in mind. He sees in the harmony of the arts, to which he wants to contribute his mite, a powerful lever to pour something into the souls of people from the selflessness of art, something that must establish a future human brotherhood. Artistically, he was a missionary of human social selflessness, wanting to pour into every human soul that impulse that leads the soul to inner selflessness, which unites people in harmony. Truly, this was a great missionary idea that arose in Richard Wagner's soul, a missionary idea that only a personality who had something of the real spiritual impulse within himself, who had a deep faith in the truth of spiritual life, could have and could fully penetrate. But Richard Wagner had this deep faith.

We can hold Richard Wagner's belief in the spiritual world behind the sensual one before our souls, first preparatory, in one of his works, his “Flying Dutchman.” Already there, Richard Wagner's true and genuinely honest belief in the spiritual world behind the sensual one confronts us. Bear in mind that I am not claiming in the slightest that the thoughts expressed here were consciously present in Richard Wagner's soul, any more than the thoughts of botanists or poets live consciously in plants. But just as the botanist or poet feels in relation to them, so Richard Wagner lived in accordance with this mental image and in accordance with these spiritual laws.

The materialistic person looks at the people around him and sees them standing side by side in sensual isolation in their material existence. The soul is enclosed in sensual bodies, and so the materialist believes that there is no other kind of community between people than that which is mediated externally, sensually. What one person can say to another, what one person can do for another, is purely external, materially real; this is what the materialistic thinker believes. Those who know something of the spiritual world behind the sensory world are convinced that there is a hidden community of human beings, that there is something that works from soul to soul, even when there is no external action through linguistic or material means. Secret spiritual influences flow from soul to soul. What one person thinks and feels, even if it remains within the soul, is not meaningless and worthless to the other person to whom the thoughts and feelings refer. The materialistic thinker knows only that the other person can be touched with the hand, that one can assist him with material means. He does not believe that the feeling that lives within him has any real meaning for other people, that soul and soul are linked by bonds that cannot be seen with the physical eyes. The mystic knows that such a bond entwines soul to soul. Richard Wagner was deeply convinced that this is the case.

If we want to understand what this means, we can look back at a beautiful medieval legend, which people today regard as nothing more than a legend, but which for those who wrote it and for those who understand it mystically is something other than a legend, namely the expression of a spiritual reality. A legend handed down to us in a medieval epic reminds us of poor Henry, who had a terrible illness. We hear that only one thing can cure poor Henry of his terrible illness, namely, if a pure female being sacrifices herself for him. The love of a pure female soul is capable of meaning something, of being something real for another human life. Behind such a legend lies the idea that souls can be something for each other in the purely spiritual realm, something that materialistic thinking cannot conceive of. Is the sacrifice of the pure female being for poor Henry ultimately anything other than a sensual expression of what a large part of humanity regards as the mystical effect of sacrifice? Is not the sacrifice of this maiden for poor Henry the same as that offered by the Savior on the cross for humanity, is it not that mystical spiritual effect from soul to soul? That something can live behind the outer appearance, we see that there, and consciousness believes intuitively that such spirituality exists. That is why Wagner came up with the legend of the Flying Dutchman, that man who had bound himself to the material world and cannot find redemption from the substance with which he is entangled. It is not without reason that the Flying Dutchman has been called the Ahasver of the sea, the Eternal Jew of the sea. Just as there is something profound in the idea of the Eternal Jew, so too in the idea of the Eternal Jew of the Sea, the Flying Dutchman.

Let us consider Ahasver from this point of view. He is the man who cannot believe in the Redeemer, in a personality who leads humanity forward to greater heights, to ever more perfect and complete stages of development. Ahasver is entangled in permanent existence; while in truth, if man wants to progress, he must ascend from stage to stage, he who does not want to strive can connect himself with matter. He can mock the one who is the guide of humanity to higher and higher stages. Then he must become entangled in matter. What does it mean to become entangled in matter? For those who become entangled in matter, external life repeats itself in eternal monotony. For this is the difference between material and spiritual perception: the material repeats itself over and over again, while the spirit ascends. The moment the spirit succumbs to matter, it succumbs to the repetition of the same thing over and over again. And so it is with the Flying Dutchman. In those ancient times, different peoples were able to use their acquaintance with foreign countries to raise their ideas higher and higher. Those who were able to achieve this regarded sailing across the sea, rushing out to foreign shores, as a mere means of perfecting humanity. Those who did not feel the idea of perfection, the flow of the spiritual current, became entangled in the monotony of what belonged solely to matter, to the material world. The Flying Dutchman, who has only an inclination toward the material, is abandoned by the forces of development, by love, which is the means to perfection, the means to ascent, to development, so that he spins himself into matter, into substance, and the same thing must then repeat itself for him in eternal repetition. Such beings, who cannot be moved or grasped to a higher ascent, must be touched by a virginal being. The being that can redeem the Flying Dutchman must be virginal and filled with pure love.

The soul that is not yet entangled in matter has a relationship with the soul that is entangled in matter. Richard Wagner senses this and expresses it in such a meaningful way in his drama. It was a mystical sense of truth, a sense of the community of spirits that lies behind the community of matter. Truly, someone who felt this way was entitled to attribute to himself such a high spiritual mission as Richard Wagner did; he was entitled to direct his flights of thought into areas where he thought about music and drama in a completely different way than anyone before him. In his own way, he looked back to those Greek primordial times when there were unified works of art, when music only expressed what the rest of the drama could not express in its entirety, when the eternal laws of the world were expressed in the rhythm of dance. He saw something in the ancient work of art, where dance, rhythm, and harmony still interacted in the dramatic-musical work of art of distant antiquity. A peculiar view of the essence of music arose before him. Richard Wagner saw the true essence of music in the harmony of tones. But he told himself that only when the sister arts give what they have to give to harmony does something flow from such sister arts into the harmony of music. One of the arts is dance. Not the dance that later captivated humanity, but the one that expresses movements in nature and movements of the stars in the forms of dance. Such was the ancient dance. Ancient dance was born out of a feeling for the laws of nature, a reflection of what moved in nature through its own movement. This essence of dance rhythm radiated into musical harmony and gave rhythm to the harmony of music. Then the other sister art, poetry, joined in. It could only express some things in words. But what words could not express had to be expressed by the sister arts. Thus dance, music, and poetry worked in harmony, and music arose as a triad of harmony, rhythm, and melody. It arose because the sister arts worked together.

This stood before the mystic as the spirit of the ancient work of art, where melody, rhythm, and harmony did not yet exist in their later perfection. Richard Wagner knows this, and so does the mystic. Now he said to himself: in later times, the arts that worked together here as sisters separated. Dance became something in itself, poetry became something in itself. As a result, the rhythmic experience was set apart as something in itself, as was music, which no longer wanted anything to do with its sister, just as poetry separated itself from music and nothing could flow into music anymore.

Richard Wagner saw how, with the increase in human egoism, the arts became more egoistic, and he followed the arts in this way into the most recent times. We cannot now follow him as he pursues his arts, as they become more independent and egoistic. Let us see how he himself tries to create something harmonious out of the one-sidedness that confronts him. Let us follow him, for here his greatness is revealed, seeking to get to the heart of things in this field.

Two spirits stood before Richard Wagner's soul, cultivating the one-sidedness of the arts that he wanted to bring together. Beethoven and Shakespeare represented the one-sidedness of music and the one-sidedness of drama. Shakespeare was, for Richard Wagner, the one-sided dramatist, because it was clear to Richard Wagner that when he looked into his deep inner self, the whole ladder of sensations and feelings that cannot be seen from the outside, that cannot be expressed in gestures, not even in words, when it comes to essential things, that this ladder of sensations cannot be expressed in verbal drama. Verbal drama depicts the action once it has already emerged from the inner impulses in space and time. When the drama unfolds, we must conclude that the person has already experienced the impulses. We see all this already transitioning into what the eye can see and the ear can hear, and no longer as what is happening as drama within the person themselves. Thus, the playwright must remain silent about the deeper feelings and sensations that form the basis for what is shown externally on stage. On the other hand, the one-sided artists are the symphonists, the pure instrumental musicians, those who are truly able to represent in their wonderful sound structure what is going on inside the soul, the inner drama, which, however, remains without gestures, which does not overflow outwardly into space and time. So on the one hand he has musical art, the expression of the human interior, which, when it wants to go outward, feels its inability, and on the other hand he has dramatic art, which is not related to musical art, which can only represent when the impulses have flowed out into space and time. Shakespeare — Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven represent two sides to him, artistically distinct. In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, he sees something that wants to break out of a one-sided art form. He sees how, in the Ninth Symphony, the shells burst open, as it were, how it lives itself out in words, because it wants to embrace all of humanity in love, because it pushes out into the whole world. There he sees something that wants to go out into space and time; and he considers it his mission to take it even further out into space and time. Not only as it is in the Ninth Symphony, letting the expression of feelings, the inner drama of the soul flow out, not only as it is there, he wishes it, but he wishes to let it flow into words and action, so that one has both in front of one on the stage, the inner scale of feelings in music and in drama — because it goes out into space and time — what forms the inner scale of feelings into outer actions. Shakespeare and Beethoven in a higher unity — that is what he wants to be. He wants to portray the whole human being.

When we see an action on stage, we should not only see what is happening before our eyes and ears, but we also want to hear what the innermost impulses of the human being are. That is why Richard Wagner is not satisfied with the old opera. For there, poets and musicians were each on their own. The poet expressed what he had to express, and the musician came along to express the poetry. But music should be there to express what poetry cannot express. The human being consists of the inner self, which cannot be expressed in the outer world, and the outer self, which can be expressed in spoken drama, but must remain silent about the inner impulses. Therefore, music must not illustrate poetry, but rather complete it. Music must express what poetry cannot express.

This is Richard Wagner's great idea. This is how he wants to create, this is how he defines his mission for a selfless interaction of music and poetry in a Gesamtkunstwerk. And so we see that his basic idea goes back to a mystical foundation, to that foundation that wants to encompass the whole human being, not just the outer human being, but the whole human being, who is permeated by the inner being. Human beings are more than what is expressed externally. Richard Wagner knows that a higher self rests within human beings, that a higher self exists. But this higher self is only partially expressed in what appears in space and time. But Richard Wagner wants to grasp the inner higher self, which transcends the ordinary. Therefore, one means is not enough for him; he seeks what can grasp the human being in various ways. He must therefore also take refuge in what transcends the immediate personality, what rises to the superhuman. This happens in myth. In mythical individuality, we do not encounter the individual human being, but rather, as it were, something superhuman. Myth expresses what the superhuman means in human beings. Mythological figures such as Siegfried and Lohengrin express what lives not in one but in many human beings. Because Wagner wanted to go to the deepest depths of human beings, he needed the superhuman personalities of myths.

We can understand how deeply he delves into the entire process of becoming and development if we follow him just a little. He rises to the highest human enigmas, as they are expressed in such a magnificent way in the Nibelung drama and in the Parsifal drama, and seeks to shape them from the perspective, sensation, and feeling for all of humanity.

We can now shed some light on what Richard Wagner's artistic soul lives in. We will see, even if we pick out only a few things, how deeply he is connected with what is called the mythical connections of humanity. Why does Wagner choose the Siegfried drama in particular? What did he want to portray with it? The easiest way to understand this is to refer to Richard Wagner's idea of the entire development of humanity. He looked back to primeval times, when people were linked by close tribal bonds in a primitive, selfless love. He looked back to those times when people felt that the individual did not yet perceive his independence in his dull consciousness, but felt himself to be a member of a tribe to which he belonged, that he felt something real, something tangible in the tribal soul, as it were. Above all, Richard Wagner sensed how what lived in Europe could be traced back to ancient times, when a primal love still united people into brotherly groups and associations. He also looked back to those times referred to in the spiritual scientific worldview, which says that everything is in development. The spiritual-scientific view tells us that consciousness has also developed gradually. Today's clear consciousness has developed from states of which sparse echoes still remain. In dream consciousness, in the dream of images, Richard Wagner saw echoes of an image consciousness that was once characteristic of all humanity. Today's daytime consciousness, which lasts from morning to evening until we fall asleep, has supplanted a much duller consciousness. In this old, dull state of consciousness, people were much more deeply connected. Human individuality had not yet emerged as it did later, and with it human egoism, which is a necessary stage in human development. Richard Wagner saw that there was a natural love that was already in the blood and that bound individual blood relatives together.

Now I want to present a view from rational mysticism that will seem somewhat grotesque to those who have not heard the other lectures, but will seem mathematically certain to the others. What lives in Europe today as clear daytime consciousness has developed from an ancient humanity, the Atlantean humanity that preceded ours and lived where the waters of the Atlantic Ocean are today. Those who pay attention to what is happening in the world will know that even natural science already speaks of an Atlantean continent. An article about this also appeared in the scientific journal Kosmos. The ancestors of the people who inhabit Europe today lived under different physical conditions. They still lived in air and water. The ground was largely covered with large, powerful masses of fog. At that time, the sun was not seen as it is seen today. It was surrounded by powerful halos of color because everything was covered with powerful masses of fog. Germanic mythology has preserved the memory of those ancient lands in the expressions Niflheim and Nibelungenheim. These are memories of that ancient foggy land, and there is a subtle, intimate twist in what has been preserved as legend from those primeval times: when the flood gradually washed over the Atlantic lands, the same flood also formed the rivers of the German lowlands, so that the essence of the Rhine is regarded as a remnant of that essence which, as the Atlantean mist, once covered the lands far and wide. It is as if the waters of the Rhine had flowed out of the mists of ancient Atlantis, the misty home, the home of the Nibelungs. This is how the legend depicts it in a dull, premonitory consciousness. And as the peoples moved eastward because physical conditions became such that they had to leave the areas, the dull consciousness left them. It became brighter and brighter, but egoism also grew greater.

The old dull consciousness resulted in a certain self-absorption. As the air cleared, egoism rose. The misty haze of ancient Atlantis formed an atmosphere of wisdom around human beings, filled with selflessness and love. This flowed into the waters of the Rhine and rested there as wisdom, as gold. But when this is seized by egoism, then at the same time there is egoistic power. Thus, when the representatives of the ancient inhabitants of Nibelungenheim moved eastward, they saw the Rhine enclose within itself the treasure consisting of the gold of wisdom that had once worked in a selfless manner. All this rested — not so explicitly — in the world of legends, which Richard Wagner's soul took hold of. And this soul was so congenial to the great spiritual being that worked within it and preserved the memory of ancient facts that it drew from this world of legends that which was the essence of its entire worldview. Thus, we hear echoes of this in Richard Wagner's music and see the development and interweaving of human egoism unfolding on the stage in his dramas. We see the merging of the ring in Alberich taking the gold from the Rhine, the wave maidens. In Alberich, we see the representative of the Nibelungs who has become selfish. We see the human being who renounces the love that has placed human beings in a whole. Richard Wagner links the power of possession with the idea that weaves through that world of legends. That is how he sees that old world. It is opposed by the world that founded Valhalla, it is opposed by the world of Wotan, the world of the old gods. They have what all humans had in common. They represent a kind of group soul, as does Wotan. But where the individual personality is seized by the ring that encircles the human ego, he too is seized by greed for gold. Thus we see what lived in Wotan as the folk-souls, what man experiences in a selfish way in the Rhine gold, in a subtle way in Richard Wagner's entire art, in his entire oeuvre. We hear it in the sounds of his music. Who could fail to feel it? No one should say that something has been put into his work. I have protested against that. But who could fail to feel the impact of the ego in the E-flat major passage of Rheingold? How could the human ear fail to feel the emergence of the ego in this long note of the E-flat major passage of Rheingold?

In this way, we can trace Richard Wagner's mystical sensibility into the realm of musical art.

We then see how Wotan has to deal not with the consciousness that has spun itself from soul to soul, but with that which has not yet spun itself out, where the consciousness of the people is still felt to be alive. This consciousness appears where Wotan wants to snatch the ring from the giants. There the old consciousness appears before him in the form of Erda. The way in which she speaks is significant. Or is the figure not portrayed as the representative of the old consciousness, who not only knows what the mind connects, but also knows from clairvoyant consciousness what is going on in the environment?

You know
What lies in the depths,
What interweaves mountain and valley,
Air and water.
Where beings are,
Your breath blows;
Where minds ponder,
Your mind adheres:
Everything, they say,
Is known to you.

One cannot more clearly depict the consciousness that was in Nebelheim, one cannot more clearly characterize the old consciousness than it is expressed in the words:

My sleep is dreaming,
My dreaming is thinking,
My thinking is the reign of knowledge.

That is how it was: like a dream, but a dream that knew the whole environment, that worked from person to person, that worked into the deepest depths of nature. That was his thinking, that was his will, his action, for man acted out of this consciousness. This consciousness appeared before Wotan in Erda. This gave rise to a new consciousness.

In all mysticism, the higher is represented by a female personality. This is also what is hidden in Goethe's beautiful words in the Chorus mysticus: “The eternally feminine draws us upward.” Different peoples have represented this striving of the soul toward a higher consciousness as a union with some feminine figure in whom the higher aspect of the human soul is represented. The soul is that which is permeated by the laws of the world, and it is with these laws of the world that it unites, as in a marriage. Thus, you see how in ancient Egypt Isis, and everywhere else, a higher state of consciousness of the soul is represented as feminine, in a manner corresponding to the character of a people. What the people perceive as their true essence is represented to them in the connection of the human being with the relevant female personality, either in death or already during life.

The lectures so far have shown us that there are two ways in which human beings can transcend sensuality. First, they can shed the sensual and unite with the spirit in death or even here in life, when their spiritual eye is opened. Accordingly, we see how this higher state, which human beings can experience, is also represented as a female personality in German mythology. For the ancestors of Central Europeans, it is the warrior who fights bravely and falls on the battlefield who goes to the spiritual world after death to be united with the higher, which is why the Valkyrie comes to meet the warrior and carries him up into the spiritual world. The female figure of the Valkyrie represents the connection with higher consciousness. Wotan begets Brünnhilde with Erda, with whom Siegfried is to unite when he is led to spiritual life. The daughters of Erda represent the higher consciousness of the initiate. In Siegfried, the new human being grows up, who, through a special character and perfection of the inner self, can already achieve union with the Valkyrie during his lifetime.

Richard Wagner expressed what German mythology contains, what lives within it. He also expressed that the old group soul must die in a Götterdämmerung, just as the individual consciousness of man must live out its life in Siegfried. All this worked and lived and wove in his soul. The highest problems of humanity lived and worked in him, and he represented them, insofar as they represent the inner life of man, in music, and insofar as they represent human deeds, in drama.

Thus we see how Richard Wagner, as an artist, draws the higher development of man from the mystical. This also led him to make a deeply significant figure the center of such a dramatic creation, the figure of Lohengrin. What is Lohengrin? We can only understand this Lohengrin if we see how the legend took root among the people at a time when significant social upheavals were taking place throughout Europe. We understand what lived in the soul of the person who portrayed the image of Lohengrin in his union with the woman who, in Richard Wagner's work, is Elsa of Brabant. We see how a new era is forming throughout Europe, an era in which the struggle for human individuality is expressed. We can express this with something that seems quite prosaic, but which has a very profound meaning. In France, Scotland, England, and Russia, we see a new social structure emerging everywhere: the free city. While out in the countryside people lived in the echoes of old tribal communities, those who wanted to break away from tribal solidarity flocked from it to the city. There, in the city, the individual consciousness of freedom arose. There lived the people who wanted to break away from the bonds of solidarity, who wanted to live their lives there alone. It was a powerful change that took place at that time. Until then, it was one's name that determined where one belonged and what one was worth. In the city, one's name was worthless. Who cared what family a person came from? One was worth as much as one was capable of. That is where the individual developed. The development from selflessness to individuality became the development from individuality to brotherhood. This was represented in the middle of the Middle Ages by the legend in which the old was replaced by what people were able to give themselves from within.

Let us look back at the old leading priestly families, at those who were leaders in the past, at those who produced the noble families, the wise men: they came from family associations. What mattered was that they belonged to such an association, that they had the right blood. In the future, this will no longer matter. The one who will be a leader of humanity may be unknown because of what connects him to humanity; giving him a name would profane him. Hence the ideal of great individualities, the ideal of the nameless sage, which is becoming increasingly prevalent. The nameless sage is not something because of his origins, but because of what he is. He is the free individuality that is recognized by others because he is everything from himself, because he wants to be nothing other than what he is for others. Thus, Lohengrin stands as a representative, as a leader of humanity toward freedom. We see medieval urban consciousness represented in the woman who unites herself with Lohengrin. The one who stands between humanity and the great beings, who mediates communication between the great leaders of humanity and the people, was connected to one of the great individualities of humanity. Such a person has always had a specific name. In all secret and Spiritual Science, this person is referred to by the technical name of “swan.” The swan is a very specific stage of higher spiritual development. The swan unites ordinary people with the higher leader of humanity. We see a reflection of this in the Lohengrin saga.

We do not need to conceptualize such things in terms taken from a pedantic view of life. Indeed, we do wrong when we do so. We can only achieve clarity when our concepts become broad-minded, so that the things Richard Wagner makes understandable to us are not pedantic empty phrases, but spark mental images that spin out far, far away. Allow me not to present you with concepts with pedantic contours, but rather those that open up broad perspectives. Therefore, one must present a figure such as Lohengrin in his world-historical significance and show how an understanding of this developed in Richard Wagner's soul and how this understanding took on artistic form.

This is also how Richard Wagner felt about the idea of the Holy Grail. In the last lecture, “Who are the Rosicrucians?”, this idea of the Holy Grail came before our souls. It is most remarkable that at a certain point in time, something dawned on Richard Wagner's soul that was like a premonition of that great teaching of the Middle Ages, of the Holy Grail. This teaching only dawned on him when another had preceded it. It was in 1856 that the idea arose in Richard Wagner's soul that was to be presented in the drama “Die Sieger” (The Victors). The drama was never performed. But what he wanted to express in it found expression in “Parsifal.” However, the conception of the drama “Die Sieger” shows us where the idea was going:

Ananda is loved by a Chandala girl. But Ananda is far removed from the Chandala girl's love due to caste prejudice. He is not allowed to pursue the Chandala girl's love. He becomes victorious over his own nature by becoming a disciple of the Buddha. In following the Buddha, he finds victory, he finds himself again, he overcomes human inclinations, and the Chandala girl learns that in a previous life she was a Brahmin girl who rejected the love of a Chandala youth. She then also becomes victorious and is united in spirit with Ananda, the Brahmin youth.

Richard Wagner expresses this idea beautifully, going back to the anthroposophical-Christian foundations of reincarnation and karma. We are led to the point where the girl in her previous life inflicted on herself what she is now experiencing. He had already worked this out in 1856.

In 1857, on Good Friday, he sat in the hermit's hut, the “asylum on the green hill,” and looked out over the field and saw how the plant world emerged from the earth. There he had an inkling of those driving forces that came out of the earth through the rays of the sun and that go through the whole world, an inkling of that driving force that lives in every being but cannot remain so simple. If it wants to ascend to higher and higher levels, it must pass through death. So, as he looked out over Lake Zurich and Villa Wesendonck, he felt, in the sprouting and budding plants he saw, the polar idea, the other idea, the idea of death, which Goethe expressed so beautifully in the sentence that concludes the poem “Selige Sehnsucht” (Blessed Longing):

And as long as you do not have this,
This: Die and Become,
You are only a gloomy guest
On the dark earth.

And what he described in his hymn to nature: Nature invented death because it wanted more life, because it can only create a higher, spiritual life out of death.

This is how Richard Wagner felt on Good Friday, when the symbol of death stands before humanity and human memory. There he felt the connection between death, life, and immortality. He directs his feeling from the life that sprouts from the earth to death on the cross, to death, which is at the same time the original source of the Christian belief that life will triumph over death, that it will attain eternal life. The life of eternity springs from this death. The deep connection between the idea of Good Friday, the idea of redemption, and the sprouting, blossoming nature lived in Richard Wagner, and this idea is identical to what we could describe as the idea of the Grail, where the chaste plant strives toward the sun with its blossom, in contrast to the lustful human being. He saw human beings as being permeated by desire and contemplated the ideal of the future, where human beings, by overcoming desire, will have attained the higher consciousness, that higher fertilizing power that the spirit will produce. And he looked up at the cross, how the blood of the Redeemer flowed, which was caught in the Grail cup, and which formed the symbol for this idea of redemption, and it connected with him with the becoming of nature. This idea passed through Richard Wagner's soul in 1857, and he wrote down in a few strokes what he then expressed in his Good Friday spell. He wrote: From death, the nascent plant world, and in death, immortal life for Christians. Then he felt the spirit behind all things and the spirit as the victor over death.

Although this idea of Parsifal had to take a back seat to the other artistic ideas in his soul at first, it still emerged at the end of his life, where it became increasingly clear to him as an image of the path of human knowledge. This prompted him to depict the path to the Holy Grail in order to show how human desire can be purified. This ideal is represented in the holy, pure bowl, which symbolizes the calyx of a plant fertilized by the sunbeam, the holy lance of love, for pure and chaste new creation. The sunbeam pierces the material world like Amfortas' lance pierces sinful blood. But in doing so, it causes suffering and death. If this sinful blood is purified so that it is as pure as the plant calyx on a higher level, without desire, chaste like the plant calyx in the face of the sunbeam, then this appears as the path to the Holy Grail. The path to it can only be found by those who walk it with a pure heart, untouched by what the world offers, without worldly knowledge, as pure fools, and in whom the question of the mystery of the world lives.

Thus we see how, in Richard Wagner, the idea of Parsifal is born from the idea of the Holy Grail on a mystical basis. He once wanted to portray it by attempting to depict the entire history of the Middle Ages in a kind of historical reflection in his work “Die Wibelungen.” He wanted to spiritualize the medieval idea of the emperor by having Barbarossa go to the Orient, and he wanted to let everything Indian, where the hero wanted to seek out the original spirituality of Christianity, flow into the outer empire. Thus, for him, the idea of medieval imperial history pours forth in the Parsifal legend, and thus he was able to express the Good Friday tradition of Christianity in such a wonderful artistic way in the Parsifal idea that I can say that Richard Wagner accomplished what he had in mind as his ideal: to make art religious. In this artistic reinterpretation of the Good Friday tradition, Richard Wagner expressed that beautiful, ingenious idea of the interaction between the motifs of faith and the Grail, that idea that humanity will be redeemed, that it will strive for perfection will strive for redemption, that in what flows through humanity as spirit, of which every soul has a drop as a higher self, that this shines forth in Christ Jesus as the redemption of humanity.

This was already before Richard Wagner's soul on that Good Friday in 1857 and inspired him to connect the idea of Parsifal with redemption through Christ Jesus, who permeates the spiritual atmosphere in which humanity lives and whom we can feel when we empathize with the story of the Holy Grail. This can be reawakened to a concrete spiritual and soul life when we feel out again in the Good Friday idea the transition from the midnight of Maundy Thursday, from the receding world of Maundy Thursday, to Good Friday, the symbol of the victory of the rising nature.

That the festivals should come alive again was also something that lived in Richard Wagner when he gave birth to his work of art from an immediate idea of celebration. The festivals are born out of a living understanding of nature. Easter was established at a time when it was known that the constellations of the sun and moon influence human consciousness from nature. This is expressed concretely in Easter. People today want to set it abstractly, so that it is no longer experienced in the same way as when one is familiar with nature. When one feels spiritually, one feels everything around us spiritually. If we still feel what tradition has handed down to us in festivals, then we will also feel something that Good Friday is meant to give us. Richard Wagner sensed this, and he also felt what the words of the Redeemer, “I am with you until the end of the world,” are meant to signify: Follow the traces that can lead you to the high ideal of the Holy Grail. Then people who live in truth will themselves become redeemers. A redeemer has redeemed humanity. But Richard Wagner adds another phrase: When is the savior redeemed? He is redeemed when he dwells in every human heart. Just as he has descended into every human heart, so must every human heart ascend. Richard Wagner also sensed something of this when, inspired by his faith, he expressed the mystical feeling of humanity in the beautiful words in Parsifal:

“Highest miracle of salvation:
Redemption to the Redeemer!”

These words show him to be truly united and married to the highest ideal that man can set himself: to approach the power that lives in the world and wants to descend to us. If we want to become worthy of it, then we bring forth what resounds at the end of Richard Wagner's Parsifal: salvation to the Savior.