Goethe's Secret Revelation
GA 57
11 March 1909, Berlin
Translator Unknown
III. The Riddle in Faust: Exoteric
It was in August, 1831, that Goethe sealed up a packet and handed it to his faithful secretary Eckermann and prepared his testamentary directions for the editing of this sealed-up treasure. This packet contained in a comprehensive way the whole striving of Goethe's life. It contained the second part of Goethe's Faust; which was not to be published until after Goethe's death. Goethe was aware that in this work he had given the contents of his rich, many-sided, far-reaching and deeply-penetrating life to human existence, and the importance of this moment for him may be gathered from the words he uttered at the time, ‘I am now finished my life's true work, anything I do further and whether I do it or not, is all the same!’ If we permit a fact such as this to work on the soul we can say: It would not be easy for a human life to become fruitful for the rest of humanity in a more beautiful, harmonious way, or indeed to become fruitful in a more conscious manner. There is something deeply affecting in the thought of Goethe's life at this point of time—for he lived barely one year longer—in that he should have visited Ilmenau once more and there re-read the beautiful verse he had written on the 7th of September, 1783, when he was still a comparatively young man.
‘Above all heights
Is rest,
In the tree tops
Thou feelest
Scarce a breath,
The birds are silent in the woods,
Only wait, soon
Thou too shalt rest.’
One may well ask whether these lines may not have signified at that time a frame of mind regulating Goethe's ideas in a new way as he re-read them in the evening of his life with affecting tears.
Goethe's Faust is truly a testament of the very first order when considered with reference to its literary and intellectual standpoint.
In 1831 Goethe finished the work which had occupied him from his earliest youth, having worked energetically from the year 1824 at the second part of Faust. We find that Goethe knew from the beginning of 1770 that he had what may be called the Faust disposition and that he began in 1774 to write down the first part of Faust, returning again and again to this poem in the most important moments of his life.
Notably he took the first part of Faust with him when he went to Weimar and owing to his position there entered the great world. Certainly it was not produced there. But because one of the Weimar Court ladies, Fräulein von Göchhausen, preserved a copy of the Faust which Goethe took with him to Weimar, we to-day possess the form in which it was when he took it there. We therefore know the form in which Faust was printed for the first time and published in 1790, and further we know the setting in which the whole of Goethe's works appeared in 1808 in the first edition. All that we have of Faust, including that very important document which Goethe left as his testament, shows us the different stages of Goethe's growth. It is endlessly interesting to observe how these four stages of Goethe's Faust-creation appear to us in different ways, according to its inner nature, and how they represent a crescendo in the whole of Goethe's life-endeavour. What Goethe took with him to Weimar is a literary work of a quite personal character into which he had poured the feelings, the degrees of knowledge and also the despair of knowledge, as they went with him through the Frankfort time into the Strassburg time and also into the first Weimar period. It is the work of a man hotly striving after knowledge, striving to feel himself into life, experiencing every despair that an upright honourable man can go through, and all this he had poured into this work. All this is in the first part of Faust. But when Faust appeared in 1790 as a fragment, it was recognized that Goethe had worked at it and transformed it out of a longing lying deep in his soul and inner life which had become enlightened through his contemplation of Italian nature and of Italian works of Art. Out of this personal work of one who had been tossed to and fro in life's storms there emerged the work of one, who to a certain degree, had become unshackled and who had a very clear view of life before his soul.
Then came the time of Goethe's friendship with Schiller. The time when in his inner being he learned to know and experience a world which had long become rooted within him. A world of which one can say that he who experiences it has had his spiritual eyes opened, so that he can see into the surrounding spiritual world. And now Faust's personality becomes a being placed between two worlds, between the spiritual world to which man can raise himself through purification, through the ennobling of himself and that world which drags him down. Faust becomes a being placed between the world of good and the world of evil. And while previously we saw in Faust the life of the single striving personality, now we see before us a great conflict carried on between the good and evil powers around man. Man is thus placed in the centre as the worthiest object for which the good and evil beings fight in the world. Though in the very beginning Faust is seen as a man doubting all knowledge, he now comes before us as one placed between heaven and hell. Thus the poem reaches an essentially higher stage and a higher existence.
In the form in which Faust appears in 1808 it seems as if thousands of years of human development resound. We are reminded of the great dramatic representation of man's life produced in ancient times in the Book of Job, where the evil spirit went among men and stood up before God, and God said to him: ‘Thou hast been to and fro on the earth, hast thou considered my servant Job?’ What is here said we find in the poem, ‘The Prologue in Heaven’ where God speaks with Mephistopheles, the messenger of the evil spirituality:
The Lord: Know'st Faust?
Mephistopheles: The Doctor Faust?
The Lord: My servant, he—
So out of what Goethe wrote in order that his Faust Mystery should appear in its right light there sounds an echo of the Book of Job, ‘Dost thou know my servant Job?’
Then Goethe's fine, full life continued further, going ever deeper into the human existence of which the world to-day knows so little. And having brought to expression in many different ways what he had experienced in his soul, in 1824 he looked back on his whole life, and once more sat down and described Faust's passage through the great world, but in such a way that the second part is a complete character picture of the inner human development of the soul.
Looking back to the first part we can see how completely true to life and to the reality of life is this description of a striving soul. Everything that meets us in the first part, especially in the beginning, is full of deep truths regarding nature, but much in it resembles a kind of theory of art—as if someone spoke of things that his soul had not yet fully experienced.
And the second part: Here everything is the inward experience of his own soul. Here are the highest experiences of a spiritual kind by means of which man climbs the stages of existence, passes through the physical world and penetrates to the place where the human soul is united with the spirituality of the world, dissolves together with it and knows wherein it finds peace and at the same time that which gives freedom, dignity and self-dependence. All this is given in the second part of Faust as his own inner experience. The time will come when Goethe's Faust will be understood in quite another way from what it is to-day, when people will understand what Goethe wished to say when he said to Eckermann on 29th Jan., 1827: ‘All in Faust is of the senses, material, thought out in terms of the theatre to please everyone and I wished for nothing more than that. If the crowd of onlookers takes pleasure in its appearance, the higher meaning will not escape the observation of the initiated.’
Though the first part in many ways appears to be theoretical and not worked down into life, the second part is one of the most realistic of those pieces of world literature which go most deeply into reality; for everything in the second part of Faust is experienced, though not with the physical eye, because to have such experiences, spiritual eyes and spiritual ears are necessary. It is for that reason that the second part of Faust has been so little understood. People merely saw symbols and allegories in what is for the spiritual inquirer, who can experience it in the spiritual worlds, something far more true and real than anything that can be seen with the outer physical eyes or heard with the outer physical ears. From such a work we can promise ourselves much, and the task of the lectures to-day and tomorrow will be to consider something of what lies in it. To-day we will consider the matter more from the outer side, but tomorrow we will show how Goethe's Faust poem, in the true meaning of the word, is a picture of an inner esoteric life and intuitive vision of the world. Step by step we will endeavour to penetrate into that which is within and to look behind the curtain where the deepest secrets of Goethe's life lie hidden.
The Faust mood was in Goethe even when he was a student at Leipzig, and we know that at that time he had a very serious illness, bringing him very near death. Much that a man's soul can grasp at such a time passed before Goethe, but many other things had already preceded this. He had learnt to know the way in which outer science looked at life. Certainly he had troubled himself very little about his own profession at Leipzig, but had occupied himself with many other sciences, more particularly with natural science. A strong faith never left Goethe that it would be possible to look into the deeper secrets of life through natural science; but at Leipzig at that time he stood full of despair before all that an outer knowledge could give him, in many ways a mere jumble of ideas and disconnected observations of nature. Nowhere could he find what he had already looked for as a boy, when at the age of seven he took a writing desk, placed on it some minerals and other geological products and plants, a wax taper and a burning glass. Then waiting for the morning, as the first rays of the sun came in, he took the burning glass, let the sun rays fall through it on to the wax taper and in this way lighted a fire on the altar which he had erected to the ‘great God’ of Nature, a fire which should have come from the foundation and source of life itself. But how far away were these sources of life from what Goethe met in the different branches of knowledge of the High School (Hoch-Schule), how far these ‘sources of life’ were removed from all such striving!
Goethe then went to Frankfort and came into touch with thoughtful, sensible men who possessed above all things through their developed soul life, something of the flowing together of the human inner life with the spiritual weaving and living in the world; men who in the fullest meaning of the word, felt in themselves what Goethe expresses in the words: ‘The self in them expands to a spiritual universe.’ At that time at Frankfort he had the feeling, ‘Away from the mere striving after ideas! Away from the merely perceptive sense observation! There must be a path to the sources of existence!’ and he came into touch with what one can call alchemistic, mystical and theosophical literature. He himself attempted the practice of alchemy. He relates how he came to know of a work through which many sought for similar knowledge at that time, Welling's ‘Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum.’ This book was much thought of then as giving a knowledge of the sources of existence. Goethe studied by degrees Paracelsus, Valentinus and above all a work which from its whole method must have produced a deep impression on all those who strove after such knowledge, ‘Aurea Catena Homeri.’ This was a representation of nature the Mystics in the Middle Ages believed to see. The study of these mystical, alchemistic, theosophical books must have had a similar effect on Goethe to that which a man striving to-day after the same things would experience if he took up the books of Eliphas Levy or any other thinker on the same lines. Indeed at that time these things must have had an even more bewildering effect upon Goethe because these different writers no longer really understood the magic, theosophy, etc., of which they wrote. It was impossible to speak in direct way of the real grandeur and meaning of these things, proceeding from an ancient wisdom which had lived in human souls, for the meaning was hidden under an outer garb which included all kinds of physical and chemical forms. For those who merely saw what appeared outwardly in these books it was the greatest nonsense, and at that time it was most difficult to penetrate behind these secrets and arrive at the real meaning. But we must not forget that Goethe from his deep striving for knowledge had developed an intuitive mind. He must have been greatly pleased when on opening the ‘Aurea Catena Homeri’ he saw on the first page a symbol which had a deep effect on his soul; two triangles interlaced; in the corners the signs of the planets, drawn in a wonderful way, a flying dragon wound round in a circle, beneath which another dragon had fixed stiffening itself, and when he read the words on the first page, saying that the flying dragon symbolizes the stream which sends those forces which stream down from out of the Cosmos to the stiffened dragon, showing how heaven and earth hang together, or as it is expressed there: ‘How the spiritual forces of heaven pour into the earth's centre.’
These mysterious signs and words must have made a great impression upon Goethe. For instance, those which depict the whole growth of the earth: ‘From chaos to that which is called the universal quintessence’—a remarkable sentence, curiously mixed up with signs of a chaotic nature, still undifferentiated right through the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, right up to man and to that perspective to which man is developing in ever greater refinement. But it was not easy to find a way of penetrating to the deeper meaning. So Goethe left Frankfort in a frame of mind which can be described in the following words: I have found nothing. These seekers into nature can only give me dry, empty ideas; anything that can be squeezed out of them is but life's water. I have busied myself with much that has come down to us from the past from those who declare that they saw into the secrets of life. But the way, the way drives one to despair!
This was sometimes the mood in Goethe's soul. He was not to be bewitched by easy speculations or philosophizing, or by confused symbols and explanations from those old books, which worked so wonderfully and forebodingly on him. They looked at him with their mysteries as something to which he could find no way. But anyone who knew Goethe's soul, knew the seed was already sown in his soul which was to germinate later. But he felt himself as one who was rejected and unworthy to unravel the secrets of life. Then he went to Strassburg.
There he met people who must have interested him in one way or the other. He got to know Jung-Stilling with his deeply mystical soul, who owing to the development of peculiar forces generally found sleeping in men, had looked deeply into the hidden side of existence. He met Herder at Strassburg, who had gone through similar moods and who in times of desperation had often been at the point of a denial of future life. In Herder he learnt to know a man who suffered from a surfeit of life and who said, I have studied much, discerning sundry things connected with men's works and men's strivings on the earth. But he was unable to say to himself, I have had one moment when my longing after the sources of life has been satisfied. This was when he was ill and inclined to deny everything with bitter irony. Yet it was Herder who pointed out many depths in the riddles of life, and Goethe found in him a truly human Faust. But that side of negation which is not the outcome of mockery and scorn Goethe learnt to know later through his friend Merck. Goethe's mother who disliked criticism of people and all moralizing said of Merck, he can never leave Mephistopheles at home, in him we are quite used to it. In Merck Goethe found a disclaimer of much that is worth striving for in life. Over against all these impressions which Goethe received from the Strassburg people, it was through Nature and his observation of Nature that many of life's puzzles were cleared up for him.
At the same time we must think of Goethe as a man possessed of a sharp, penetrating mind; he was not an unpractical man. He was an advocate, but only practised for a short time. Those who knew Goethe's work as an advocate and later as a Minister, were acquainted with his eminently practical mind. As advocate he knew little more than what he had learnt by heart from law books. But he was a man able to decide very quickly on any point laid before him; such a man can also map out clearly life's course.
So Goethe comes before us with, on the one side, faculty for the clearest thinking with relation to the world; and on the other, for feeling in the deepest way the sorrow attached to an unsatisfied pursuit of knowledge, seeking for the deepest things and yet defeated by them.
And then there came something else. Goethe had learnt to know that frame of mind which we can only characterize as the feeling of guilt! He felt guilty in respect of the simple country girl, Friederike at Sesenheim, in whose soul he had awakened so many hopes and desires and whom he had all the same to forsake later. All this was mixed up in Goethe's soul in the most remarkable way and out of these feelings there grew within him a poetic figure, which had its rise in the perception of a form which at that time followed him step by step. This was the figure of Faust, that remarkable character who had lived in the first half of the sixteenth century. This Faust had been the object of innumerable folk-plays and pantomimes and through Christopher Marlowe had reached a literary significance and had become a living problem for poets, especially for Lessing and Goethe. How did it happen that Goethe connected his own sorrow and his own feelings with this figure of Faust?
It is related that Faust lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, at a time when for history much had been decided. If we compare this time with the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when studious lives were led, we find a great difference. In the twelfth century it was possible for those minds to unite the knowledge of what the times offered them with what they could find in their own souls. When they raised their spiritual vision to the creative power of the world, enthroned in the heights, and out of it formed their ideas, they were able to unite them with what they had learnt to know through external Natural Science. What they learnt was like a natural process. On the lowest step they studied what they called physical knowledge, on the next step they learnt to know what was taught of the higher mysteries of life, the hidden mysteries of existence, which could be reached through the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear; and on the highest step they reached to the recognition of the sublime, through ideas which were fine and transparent as crystal, but full of life, and working powerfully on the soul. These were the steps to the divine knowledge and were all connected with each other. Man may shrug his shoulders and look down on the minds of that time, but their way was one which never suffered intermission. If for instance we take up the ‘Way of Knowledge’ by Albertus Magnus, we find it begins with a description of the lowest part of nature and ends in a vision of God. You find here no dry, empty ideas, but ideas which enlighten the heart and warm the soul. When Faust lived this time had passed. Ideas then became dry and empty; though they had the stamp of the theologian, they were abstract or drawn from thought. They were ideas which could be studied by men and into which the reasoning of the understanding could sink, but no connection could be found by reason between these ideas and the living existence lying around us, or any possibility of enlightening the soul or bringing warmth to the heart. And then it came to this, that the science of that time—a mysticism, a magic, a theosophy, treating of things which are only to be perceived through spiritual eyes and spiritual ears—was caught in a complete decline, chiefly because much that was previously hidden in handwriting, was now published in print, and thus read by minds understanding nothing of it and who merely copied it. Humbug and nonsense of all kinds went on in the laboratories. What should have been experienced in a spiritual manner, was understood merely according to the words appearing in the books, although they were really only an outer form, but possessing a very deep meaning. Through formulae and retorts all kinds of stuff was made, with the result that what at that time was called theosophy, magic and the occult, came very near to being what we should now look upon as swindling and imposture. In a certain sense the way to the spiritual is connected with danger. Those whose striving has not been honest, whose understanding and reason has not been purified, who are unable to arrive in thought at ideas freed from the physical, may easily stumble and easily fall into the abyss. Therefore it was possible for those who still knew something or who studied the writings of the mystics with great pains, to miss the way and being unable to find it to be deceived by the swindling and charlatanism then prevalent. But it could also happen that the opposite view was taken by many people. This striving for higher things was denounced as witchcraft, and men such as Sponheim, Agrippa von Nettesheim and many others who sought honourably and blamelessly for the spiritual forces in nature, were branded as black magicians and swindlers, as men who had quitted the right path given them through religion. Faust lived during this time in the sixteenth century, a time when many saw the setting of an old spiritual movement as a rosy evening which at the same time became the rosy dawn of a new time bringing out such stars as Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Copernicus and others. Such times are called periods of transition. But of all these periods, none deserves the name so much as the time of Faust.
From what we know of Faust he appears as one who felt very deeply the insufficiency of the knowledge of that time concerning the spiritual world. Theology he had studied and had turned away from it. He sought for the sources of existence from the mediaeval remnants of magic and similar things from the Middle Ages; and because Faust was a brilliant figure oscillating between an honourable striving after knowledge and those limits which passed over into charlatanism, it is better to consider him in this way and not attempt to understand him with sharper outlines. As he really was, the spiritual tendency at that time failed to understand him, and the general popular striving of the time was regarded as the outer garment of this Faust-figure in the sixteenth century. So he meets us as a legendary figure or dramatically as a man fallen away from the old traditions of religion and theology, who had given himself up to an endeavour, which owing to the narrow-minded ideas of that time could not possibly lead to any good in life. The opinion of the world between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is expressed in the words from a popular book of that time on Faust: ‘He has for a time put the Holy Scriptures behind the door, and laid them under the bench, and wishes to hear no more of Theology, as he has become a man of the world and calls himself a D. Medicinæ.’
What was felt and thought about Faust was expressed in such words. It was felt that he sought in his own breast for the source leading to the depths of life and his own origin, and that he wished to free himself in his own way from the old traditions. Anything in the old folk-plays or pantomimes referring to this figure of Faust was little adapted to give more than his outward appearance. But all that had remained as the tradition of Faust influenced Goethe, and he entrusted to this character his life's striving and his urgent desire for knowledge. So we find him in his 70th year beginning to see himself in the character of Faust. In this character he expressed all the dissatisfaction, and all the sorrow proceeding from the desire for knowledge which remained unsatisfied. And when we look at the first monologue in ‘Faust’ we see clearly what was described at the beginning of to-day's lecture. We see a man who having occupied himself deeply in outer science had reached a state of despair which threatened to shatter his life completely. We see how he seizes on the old book—Goethe called it the Book of Nostradamus, but anyone acquainted with the literature of magic also known to Goethe, will clearly recognize the book to which he referred—in which Faust perceived the sign of (lie macrocosm and of which he says:
‘Like heavenly forces rising and descending,
Their golden urns reciprocally lending,
With wings that winnow blessing
From Heaven through Earth I see them pressing,
Filling the All with harmony unceasing.’Faust, Scene I.
and then added to these words a description of feeling, a kind of rapture that passed through him at the sight of this page.
Through all this we see what at that time worked on Goethe. It was possible for such moods and ideas to flow into Goethe's soul, that he could truthfully describe them. When he stood before the remarkable sign of the two interlaced triangles and the two dragons—the upper one representing the spiritual and the lower one the physical—with the signs of the planets in the corners of the interlaced triangles, such forces penetrated through them that he really had the shining planets before him as the golden urns, with the forces flowing between them and filling the All with harmony unceasing.
When we consider Goethe's soul with its deep and honest striving for knowledge, we begin to doubt whether it is possible to have clear ideas or to speculate much about it. We can only try to place the fact before our souls so that any feeling for such things may be satisfied. But anyone understanding life and the way in which it develops through age, knows that in spite of such battles, Goethe was a man in whose soul a germ had been laid which would ripen and bear fruit very much later, in years to come. We see too how the germs which developed later so wonderfully in Faust were really there, and much can be gained from the study of this life by those who have a distinct leaning to spiritual science.
To-day unfortunately such striving is very superficial. We see many people taking it up in a hurry, but they drop it again after having acquired a few ideas. The riddles that exist are only known to one who can look back to a time twenty or thirty years previously when a fluid was poured into his soul and then stored over by the events of the following years and by many experiences, so that only thirty years later he is able to give an approximate answer respecting what was poured in his soul so long before. From this point of view we cannot look too deeply into Goethe's life. We see the echo of his feeling in relation to the ‘Aurea Catena Homeri’ or ‘The Golden Chain of Homer.’ We see it expressed when Faust breaks forth into the words, ‘What a show!’ Yes, a very powerful show, when the soul sinks deeply into these pictures, without even a guess of what they will become in the future. It is a show. But does it stop at mere guessing?
Then these words necessarily follow:
... but only a show! ...
At that time Goethe did not understand the deep meaning of these words, but a shade of that feeling already lived in his soul, for ‘All that is transient is but a semblance!’ and having these remarkable pictures before him, he could say as if in pain, ‘However artistically these characters are drawn, they are but outer symbols!’
‘How grand a show! But, ah! a show alone.
Thee, boundless Nature, now make thee, my own.’
Each line is deeply felt:—only a show, something which copies the great world. But Goethe had studied the many problems of natural science and had learnt the deep experience given to man, when he has to say to himself: ‘Thou art guilty!’ Having experienced this, he could hope for more depth of feeling on perceiving other signs closely connected with man's life. This feeling is expressed by Faust:—The book is turned over and in place of the sign of the great world, there appears the sign of the little world, the pentagon, and its surroundings. Then the magic word, which if rightly applied can awake certain slumbering forces, appears before Goethe's soul. Goethe certainly had a premonition that there is something, characterized here as slumbering forces in man, and that through gazing at certain symbols and images these forces could be awakened, so as to make it possible for him to look into the spiritual world. He could believe that he came into contact with that which stands very near to man's soul and expresses itself in the signs of the microcosm, the little world. He expresses this through his ‘Faust’ when he says that if man gives himself up to deeper inner meditation certain inner experiences develop and the ‘earth spirit’ appears, that spirit which quickens the earth and which sees to it, that out of the general life and stream of the world man comes to be and increases. Goethe understood in a marvellous way how to compress into a few words what are the secrets of the earth spirit, and in what way he belongs to the whole earth—just as each human soul and human spirit is related to the physical body of man—who is, we might say, the ruler of all the natural development, increase and historical growth of man. This ruler has no visible form, but can appear to a man whose spiritual eyes are opened, so that he can perceive and know that there is such a spirit of the earth. Goethe has characterized Him in a wonderful way:
Spirit:
‘In the tides of Life, in Action's storm,
A fluctuant wave,
A shuttle free,
Birth, the Grave,
An eternal sea,
A weaving, flowing
Life, all-glowing.’‘Thus at Time's loom 'tis my hand prepares
The garment of Life that the Deity wears!’
If we could penetrate every word of this formula we should find that what is described by Goethe, can be really experienced by anyone whose development has brought his soul to the requisite stage of existence. But all know what comes to pass: Faust does not feel himself and cannot feel himself as developed to what thus presents itself. He has not found the way to the secret depths of life. What ‘flows in life and lives and weaves in action's storm’ exists for him as a ‘terrible face.’ He turns away and hears the words:
Spirit:
‘Thou'rt like the spirit thou comprehendest, Not me!’
Out of the old traditions he gained the belief that he was the exact image of the Divinity, and now he had to say to himself, ‘Not even thee!’
‘Thou resemblest the mind thou canst grasp.’ If only people could once feel this sentence! That it was felt by Goethe can be seen from the whole situation in the first part of ‘Faust.’ Man can understand nothing beyond that point to which he has developed himself.
On another occasion Goethe said, ‘As one is, so is one's God,’ and this resembles a confession on Goethe's part, that he had not, up to that time, found the way to the source of life. A confession which he here connects with Faust. When we consider Faust in this first form, we see what difficulties Goethe had to contend with in order to connect his world with the spiritual world towards which he was striving. We find in this first ‘Faust’ immediately afterwards, and without any real transition, the meeting of Mephistopheles with the student.
What is Mephistopheles? Anyone who knows the way into the spiritual world, knows that there really is a Mephistopheles, that he is one of the two tempters who meet man when he desires to enter the road to the spiritual land, when he seeks the way to the spiritual world. There are two potencies or powers whom man meets. One power we call Lucifer. He lays hold of man in a more inward way, in the centre of his soul, seeking to drag him down through his passions, desires, lusts, etc., into the lower scale of the personal and ignoble. All that works on man himself is Luciferic, and because man was once caught in his earthly life by this Luciferic principle, he was delivered up to another principle. If man had never been seized by this Luciferic principle, the outer world would never have appeared to him in its merely material outward form, but would have presented itself in such a way that man could have said from the beginning that all outward things were physiognomic expression of the Spirit. Man would have seen the Spirit behind all physical material things. But because matter became condensed through the influence of the Luciferic power that which was false became mingled with (lie outer appearance, so that its outward form seemed Maya or illusion, as if it were not the outer physiognomic expression of the spirit. This power presenting the outer world to the view of a man in an untrue form was first recognized in its complete depth by Zarathustra. Under the name of Ahriman, Zarathustra first presented this being as the opponent of the God of Light. In everything connected with the teaching of Zarathustra, Ahriman was the deceitful being, who hid everything in mist and smoke which otherwise would have been visible to man as a transparent, spiritual splendour. To express it plainly, this being who caused the ruin of man, because he forced him into the fetters of matter, and also deceived him about its true form, was called Mephistopheles. This figure was called in Hebrew, Mephiz, the spoiler, and Topel, the liar. This being passed over into the West in the Middle Ages in the form of Mephistopheles. In the books on Faust, we see as opposed to Faust this Power, also called the ‘old serpent.’
Goethe learnt to know this Mephistopheles. The later traditions of Faust no longer distinguished properly between the forms of Lucifer and of Mephistopheles. In the age following the sixteenth century there was no longer a clear idea of these forms. Men no longer knew how to distinguish between Lucifer and Ahriman, and they united them in the form of the Devil or Satan; and because nothing was known of the spiritual world, no particular difference was made. But to Goethe, all that he received through the outer senses, and through the human understanding, with its physical instrument the brain, by which he gained perception of the outer world, appeared to him as Mephistopheles. The man appealing to these qualities of the ordinary understanding, was the same to him as one who through the ego strove to enter the spiritual world. So that for Goethe—as also for Merck or Herder—all that appealed merely to the understanding is represented in a wonderful way in the figure of Mephistopheles, who does not believe in a world of the good, or consider it significant or important. In Goethe himself was this second ego, which could be brought to a state of doubt concerning the spiritual world, and sometimes he felt in himself the discord caused by what we may call the Mephistophelian power. He felt himself placed in conflict between this evil power raging in his soul and the truly honourable striving of his soul for the heights. Goethe felt both these forces in his soul. But in what position to place himself with regard to the spiritual world Goethe at that time did not know. He was a long way from that experience which we find in the second part of ‘Faust’ in such a magnificent way. In the scene ‘The way to the Mothers’ we see the man striving inwardly for the spiritual heights but detained by a deceptive picture and captivated by reason of what Mephistopheles has placed before him through trickery. Mephistopheles represents all that can be found in outer physical science which is bound up with the understanding. He stands there with the keys—this knowledge is certainly good, for it leads to the door of the spiritual world.—But within Mephistopheles cannot go. Therefore he describes that into which Faust must go as a ‘nothing,’ And we hear from the words of Mephistopheles, spoken in a classic, grandiose manner, what is thrown by the materialistic minds of men in the face of those who are striving to discover the foundations of life out of spiritual science. He says: ‘Thou art a dreamer and a fantastic. We are not going to be taken in by what such dreamers tell us about the spiritual foundations of things. We care nothing for that!’ And the spiritual enquirer can reply as did Faust to Mephistopheles, ‘In thy nothing I hope to find the all!’
But Goethe was experiencing that boisterous youth out of which he had just brought Faust and was far from possessing at that time such clarity of soul. He did not know then how to bring Mephistopheles into touch with Faust, for Mephistopheles is there in the original Faust as Goethe had experienced him as the power that drags man down, and represented him as a mocker in the ‘student scene.’ Only later did Goethe find the means for Mephistopheles by degrees to approach Faust though his changing forms.
We find next that Faust is drawn by Mephistopheles and falls into the abyss of sensuality in the scene in ‘Auerbach's wine cellar’ and the road begins down which Faust is led to evil. The end of the ‘prison scene’ is not given in the fragment which appeared in 1790; Goethe kept it back, but this terribly affecting scene was in the first fragment. It was in what we may call the tragedy of Gretchen that Goethe placed that side of his life which can be expressed by the words ‘I am guilty.’ What Goethe expresses in the first part of ‘Faust’ is the word ‘Personality.’
It was in that Goethe, who travelled to Italy, that a part of the seed sown in his soul first began to develop. He found a wonderful road during his Italian journey; it can be followed step by step. He said when he wrote at last to his friends at Weimar, ‘So much is certain, the old artists had quite as great a knowledge of nature and just as good an idea of that which we see and the manner in which it should be seen, as Homer had. Unfortunately the number of works of art of the first order is much too small. But anyone able to see them, need wish for nothing further than the right to recognize them and then go in peace. These great works of art were produced according to true and natural laws; the arbitrary, the fanciful collapses; here is necessity; here is God!’—‘I have an idea that the creators of these works of art acted according to those laws which guide nature, and on whose tracks I am.’ He is no longer the same Goethe who was full of an abstract longing, but is filled with self-denial and resignation, ready to investigate existence step by step along the road by which he hopes to discover the problems of life revealed.
It is not surprising if nothing is discovered of the great spiritual aim of mankind, if it is only sought in an abstract way, but which if sought for in the right way leads directly to the highest problems of life. Those who have no inclination to compare one plant with another, one animal with another, one bone with another, or to consider life, step by step, as they go through the world in order to find the spirit in each single being, in such people an abstract longing will lead to nothing.
Let us consider Goethe when during his Italian journey, he gradually arrived at the discovery of the primeval plant, he collected stones, prepared himself diligently to take up the work of research, and did not seek to know immediately ‘how one thing strives to enter another’ but said to himself: ‘If you would gain a premonition’ of ‘how one thing works and lives in another’ as heavenly powers rise and fall, offering each the ‘golden urn,’ examine the vertebras of the spinal column and the way in which one bone is connected with the next; and how one faculty helps another. Seek in the smallest thing the picture of the greatest.
Goethe became a very diligent student during his travels in Italy, examining everything. He formed the opinion that if an artist acted ‘according to the laws which are followed by nature herself’ and understood by the Greeks, the divine will be present in his works even as it is in the works of creation. For Goethe, art is a ‘manifestation of the secret laws of nature.’ The creations of the artists are works of nature on a higher stage of perfection. Art is man's continuation and conclusion of nature. ‘For since man is the head of nature so he regards himself as a complete nature, but also as one which can call forth a further rise. He strives for this through the acquisition of all accomplishments and virtues which call for choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and at last rises to the production of the work of art.’
We can say that during the Italian journey everything that came before Goethe took on definite forms and through inner soul experiences appeared clearly before him. So once again he took up ‘Faust,’ and we perceive how he endeavoured to bring the separate parts into union. But we also perceive how he interested himself in an objective manner in what Faust could become for the people of the North. In Italy he became particularly conscious of the great difference between people who had been brought up amid classical surroundings and those who had not. He found it strange that so little should be heard in Rome of ghost stories such as were common in the North. In the Villa Borghese he wrote at this time the ‘Witches Kitchen’ scene, as one who had lost touch with all such things, but also as one who recalled to memory the spirit of the earth. When he had previously written about the earth spirit, he represented it in such a way that Faust turned away from it, as from a ‘hideous worm.’ But the fact of turning away from it, even without understanding why, remains in the soul and works on further, as it did in Goethe. But those who become impatient and refuse to wait until after long years the seed grows, are unable to see the way clearly. And when in Italy Goethe knew that a turning away from the terrible countenance would have its effect upon his soul, and now these words arise:
‘Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, gavest me all
For which I begged. It was not without reason
That thou didst turn thy face in fire to me
And for a kingdom gavest me the glorious nature
With strength to feel it and to enjoy it. Not
A coldly astonished gaze didst thou grant to me
But didst permit me to look into her profound bosom
As into that of a friend.
Past me didst thou lead the ranks of the living
And didst teach me to know, in the quiet bushes,
In air, and in water, my brother.
And when the storm roared and rattled in the woods
And there fell the neighbouring branches of the giant fir
Squashing the undergrowth and in their fall
Sounding like thunder in the hollow of the hills,
Thou didst lead me to a safe Grotto, where
Thou didst show me myself and opened my heart
To deep and secret wonders.’
Before Goethe, there stands the possibility of the human soul, through its own development expanding to a spiritual universe. Through a patient sacrificial resigned search, the fruits stand before his soul which as germs were planted when he came into touch with the earth spirit. We can see through this monologue in ‘Wald und Höhle’ (wood and grotto) what a forward jerk this was towards the ripening of the fruits in his soul, for it shows us that the seed already sown was not sown in vain. And as a warning to have patience, to wait until such seeds had ripened in his soul, that fragment of ‘Faust’ meets us which appeared with this setting in 1790. And now we see how Goethe finds the way step by step after being led to his ‘safe grotto where the secret deep wonders of his own heart were opened to him,’ he obtains that comprehensive survey which bids him no longer abide with his own sorrow, but teaches him to rise above his sorrow, to send his foreseeing spirit out into the Macrocosmos, watch the fighting of the good and evil spirits and see men on their battle ground. And in ‘Faust’ in 1808 he sent out beforehand the ‘Prologue in Heaven:’
Raphael:
‘The sun-orb sings, in emulation,
'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:
His path predestined through Creation
He ends with step of thunder-sound.’
We next see how the macrocosmic Mights oppose the forces of the great world. We see too from out the experiences of Goethe's soul, what a remarkable light falls on the two dragons with which at one time in his youth he came in touch.
‘Faust’ is such a universal poem because it contains so many warnings. It also gives us that golden saying: ‘Wait in confidence for the development of thy inner forces, even if that means waiting a very long time!’ These words also sound as a warning which stand as an attribute before Faust, when Goethe looks back to those ‘fluctuating figures which in early days had once shown a troubled countenance’ but which now are flooded with light. Now he had waited so long that the friends who had taken such a vivid interest in Faust as he had appeared to them in the first form, had died, and those who had not died were very far away. Goethe had been obliged to wait for the development of the seed already sown in him.
Now these striking words meet us:
‘My sorrow speaks to an unknown crowd,
Their applause e'en makes my heart feel heavy,
And those who once delighted in my song
If they still live, in other lands are scattered.’
No longer did it matter to those who in youth had felt with him. He had had to wait, as the last lines of this dedication so beautifully express it—‘What was once a reality to me, has gone into the unreal: but what has remained for me and appears to outer vision as unreal, that to me is now true, and it is only now that I can give it as truth.’ So we see how this poem, even if only looked at in such an external manner as we have to-day, leads us into the depths of the human soul.
‘Faust’ was begun in a desultory manner, some parts being pushed in between others, and therefore Goethe was unable to show in a continuous way what he had experienced in his soul. But something else led to the fact that Goethe expressed his deepest experiences in ‘Faust.’
The ‘Helena scene’ also belongs to the first part of ‘Faust’ written by Goethe. But we find it was not included even in the ‘Faust’ of 1808. Why not? Because the manner in which Goethe had finished ‘Faust’ at that time would not allow it. What Goethe wished to say through the Helena scene was the expression of such a deep premonition of the deepest riddle of existence, that the first part was not sufficiently prepared to allow of this. Only when Goethe had reached an advanced age, was he able to give a true form to what really was the inner work of his life.
We see how his mind had expanded so that he was able to grasp the worlds of the macrocosm, as expressed in the ‘Prologue in Heaven.’ We shall also see the way in which Goethe represents the stages of the soul's experience, leading men from the first stage up to that of imaginative vision, where the soul penetrating ever deeper and deeper, bursts at last the doors of the spiritual world, which Mephistopheles would close. Goethe also represents these inner experiences. For he places in the second part of ‘Faust’ the experiences of a soul through secret scientific study, and we see here one of the deepest riddles of existence, which if recognized, would be found to be an announcement of Western spiritual science given in imposing language. One is tempted to place such a poem as the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ and the second part of ‘Faust’ side by side. For great and powerful wisdom speaks out of such Eastern writings. It seems as if the gods themselves desired in them to speak with men to express the wisdom out of which the world was formed. Indeed it is so.
Now let us look at the second part of ‘Faust.’ Here we see a striving human soul which has raised itself to spiritual vision from outer physical perception; we see how it has worked its way up to true clairvoyance when Faust enters the spiritual world and finds the spiritual choir around him ...
‘Hearken! Hark!—The Hours careering
Sounding loud to spirit-hearing.
See the new-born day appearing!
Rocky portals jarring shatter,
PhSbus' wheels in rolling clatter,
With a crash the Light draws near!
Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes—
Eye is blinded, ear amazes:
The Unheard can no one hear!’Faust II, Act I.
to that passage where Faust is outwardly dazzled, so that the outer world is lost to his perception and he says to himself: ‘Only within shines clear light! ...’ up to that passage in which the soul works itself up to the spheres of world existence, where the spiritual worlds are to be seen in all their purity, and the riddle of the world discloses itself to the soul. This is a way which we must designate as an esoteric one.
The way in which we can penetrate from the outer to the inner life of Goethe's world enigma, we shall see tomorrow, and we shall also see from out of what depths Goethe spoke the word which at last gave him the certainty he needed with reference to all the longings, all the sorrows, pains and strivings for knowledge in his life.
‘Whoever zealously strives
We can redeem him;
And if love from above
Feels an interest in him,
The blest choir will be there
With a friendly greeting.’
We shall consider tomorrow how Goethe solved this riddle of existence, and how that which lives in the soul can rise up to its true home. It will give us the answer to what Goethe placed as the riddle of his existence and about which he gives us such a hopeful answer at the end of the second part of ‘Faust:’
‘For the spiritual world,
That noble member,
Is saved from evil.
Whoever strives zealously
We can redeem him! ...’
This tells us Faust can be saved and those spirits will not conquer who by bringing men into the material bring them also to destruction.
Die Rätsel in Goethes «Faust» Exoterisch
Es war im August 1831, da siegelte Goethe ein Paket ein und übergab es seinem treuen Sekretär Eckermann und traf die testamentarische Verfügung zur Herausgabe des eingesiegelten Schatzes. Denn dieses Paket enthielt in einem umfassenden Sinne Goethes ganzes Lebensstreben. Es enthielt den zweiten Teil von Goethes «Faust», der erst nach Goethes Tod veröffentlicht werden sollte. Goethe hatte selbst das Bewußtsein, daß er den Inhalt seines reichen, weit verzweigten und in die Tiefen des Menschendaseins gehenden Lebens in dieses Werk hineingelegt hatte; und wie sehr für ihn selbst dieser Augenblick bedeutungsvoll war, das mag aus den Worten hervorgehen, die er in dieser Zeit sprach. Er sagte: Nun habe ich eigentlich mein Lebenswerk abgeschlossen; was ich weiterhin tue, und ob ich überhaupt noch etwas tue, das ist gleichgültig!
Wenn man eine solche Tatsache auf die Seele wirken läßt, dann sagt man sich: In schönerer und harmonischerer Weise kann eigentlich nicht leicht ein Menschenleben für die übrige Menschheit fruchtbar gemacht werden, und zwar, was das Wesentliche ist, bewußt fruchtbar gemacht werden. Und es hat etwas tief Erschütterndes, wenn man Goethes Leben von diesem Zeitpunkt an - es dauerte ja nicht mehr ein Jahr - verfolgt und eine solche Tatsache auf sich wirken läßt wie die, daß er dann noch einmal Ilmenau besuchte und jene schönen Verse wieder las, die er am 7. September 1783, also sozusagen in seiner Jugend, geschrieben hatte:
Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.
Da mag man sich wohl sagen: Mögen diese Verse dazumal in der Jugend auch eine Augenblicksstimmung bedeutet haben, sie ordneten sich dem Gesamtbild Goethes in einer neuen Weise ein, als er sie an seinem Lebensabend unter Tränen der Rührung wieder las.
Goethes «Faust» ist wirklich in literarischer und geistiger Beziehung ein Testament allerersten Ranges an die Menschheit. Was Goethe damals 1831 zum Abschluß brachte, nachdem er neuerdings seit dem Jahre 1824 energisch an diesem zweiten Teil des «Faust» gearbeitet hatte, das war seit der frühesten Jugend Goethes begonnen. Denn wir sehen, wie Goethe seit dem Anfang der siebziger Jahre des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts in seiner Seele fühlte, was man die faustische Stimmung nennen könnte, und wie er dann 1774 begann, die ersten Teile seines «Faust» niederzuschreiben. Und in den wichtigen Augenblicken seines Lebens kam er immer wieder auf diese Dichtung seines ganzen Daseins zurück.
Merkwürdig tritt es uns vor Augen: Er bringt mit nach Weimar, da er nach seiner Art eintritt in die große Welt, die ersten Partien des «Faust». Sie erscheinen da allerdings noch nicht, aber dadurch, daß von einer weimarischen Hofdame, Fräulein von Göchhausen, eine Abschrift von dem damals mitgebrachten «Faust» erhalten geblieben ist, haben wir heute noch die Gestalt des «Faust», wie sie in der Dichtung war, als Goethe in Weimar eintraf. Bekannt ist dann die Gestalt, in welcher der «Faust» im Jahre 1790 zum ersten Male gedruckt an die Öffentlichkeit trat; dann weiterhin die Fassung, die 1808 in der ersten Gesamtausgabe von Goethes Werken erschienen ist. Alles, was wir über den «Faust» haben, einschließlich jenes bedeutungsvollen Dokumentes, das Goethe als sein Testament hinterlassen hat, zeigt uns die verschiedenen Stufen Goetheschen Werdens. Denn es ist unendlich interessant, zu beobachten, wie doch ihrem ganzen inneren Wesen nach diese vier Stufen von Goethes Faust-Schöpfung uns verschieden entgegentreten, wie sie ein Aufsteigen des ganzen Goetheschen Lebensstrebens bedeuten.
Was Goethe nach Weimar mitgebracht hat, ist ein literarisches Werk ganz persönlichen Charakters, in das er hineingegossen hat die Stimmungen, die Stufen des Erkennens und auch des Verzweifelns an der Erkenntnis, wie sie ihn begleitet haben in seiner Frankfurter Zeit, in der Straßburger Zeit und auch noch in der ersten Weimarer Zeit, ein Werk eines Menschen, der heiß strebt nach Erkenntnis, heiß strebt, sich hineinzufühlen in das Leben, der alles, was ein aufrichtig und ehrlich Strebender an Verzweiflung erleben kann, durchgemacht hat und hineingegossen hat in dieses Werk.Das alles ist in der ersten Gestalt des «Faust» darinnen. Und als der «Faust» 1790 als Fragment erschien, hatte ihn derjenige Goethe umgestaltet und daran gearbeitet, der nach einer tief in seiner Seele liegenden Sehnsucht sein ganzes Streben und inneres Leben abgeklärt hatte durch das Anschauen der italienischen Natur und der italienischen Kunstwerke. Aus dem persönlichen Werke eines in den Lebensstürmen Hin- und Hergeschlagenen ist geworden das Werk eines bis zu einer gewissen Stufe Abgeklärten, der nun eine Perspektive des Lebens vor sich hat, die in sehr bestimmter Art und Weise vor seiner Seele steht.
Dann kommt die Zeit der Verbindung Goethes mit Schiller, die Zeit, wo Goethe im eigenen Innern erkennen und erleben lernte eine Welt, die lange schon in ihm veranlagt war, eine Welt, von der man sagen kann, daß sie der erlebt, dem die geistigen Augen zum Schauen der geistigen Umwelt aufgegangen sind. Jetzt wird ihm die Persönlichkeit des Faust eine Wesenheit, die hineingestellt ist zwischen zwei Welten: zwischen die Welt desGeistigen, zu dem der Mensch hinaufstrebt durch seine Läuterung, durch seine Veredlung, und diejenige Welt, die ihn herunterzieht. Faust wird eine Wesenheit, die hineingestellt ist zwischen die Welt des Guten und die Welt des Bösen. Während wir vorher im «Faust» das ringende Persönlichkeitsleben des Einzelnen gesehen haben, sehen wir jetzt vor unsere Seele hingerückt einen großen Kampf der guten und der bösen Mächte um den Menschen, der in den Weltenkampf hineingestellt ist als das würdigste Objekt, um das die guten und die bösen Wesenheiten in der Welt kämpfen. Und während uns gleich im Anfange des «Faust» der am Wissen verzweifelnde Mensch hingestellt wird, tritt uns jetzt entgegen der Mensch, der zwischen Himmel und Hölle hineingestellt ist, und damit wird das Gedicht wesentlich um eine Stufe hinaufgehoben zu einem erhöhten Dasein. Da ist es uns, als ob in der Gestalt, in der uns der «Faust» 1808 entgegentritt, Jahrtausende der Menschheitsentwickelung zusammenklingen würden. Da müssen wir denken an die großartigste dramatische Darstellung des Menschenlebens, welche die alte Zeit hervorgebracht hat, an das Buch Hiob - wie da der böse Geist herumgeht in der Menschheit und dann herantritt vor Gott, und der Gott zu ihm sagt: Du hast dich auf der Erde umgetan; hast du achtgegeben auf meinen Knecht Hiob? Was uns da entgegenklingt, wieder ertönt es uns in der Dichtung, die uns im Faust entgegentritt. Im «Prolog im Himmel» unterredet sich der Gott mit Mephistopheles, mit dem Sendling der bösen Geistigkeit:
«Kennst du den Faust?» — «Den Doktor?» — «Meinen Knecht!»
So klingt nach in dem, was Goethe hingestellt hat, um sein ganzes Fausträtsel im richtigen Lichte erscheinen zu lassen, was uns im Buche Hiob so entgegentönt: Kennst du meinen Knecht, den Hiob?
Dann geht Goethes ganzes reiches Leben weiter, weiter in einer Vertiefung in das Menschendasein, von der heute die Welt sehr wenig ahnt. Und nachdem er in mannigfaltiger Weise in diesem oder jenem Werke zum Ausdruck brachte, was sich da in seiner Seele durchgelebt hat, geht er dann, rückschauend auf sein ganzes Leben, 1824 noch einmal daran und schildert jetzt Fausts Durchgang durch die große Welt, aber so, daß der zweite Teil jetzt ganz ein Charakterbild innerer menschlicher Seelenentwickelung wird.
Blicken wir hin auf den ersten Teil, so müssen wir sagen: Unendlich lebenswahr und lebenswirklich ist das, was da von einer strebenden Seele geschildert wird. Alles, was uns in dem ersten Teil, insbesondere in den zuerst entstandenen Partien entgegentritt, ist von einer tiefen, tiefen Naturwahrheit, aber mancherlei, was da hineinklingt, es klingt uns noch wie eine Art Theorie, wie wenn jemand von Dingen spricht, die er noch nicht selbst in der Seele voll erlebt hat.
Und nun der zweite Teil: Da ist alles innerstes Erlebnis der eigenen Seele. Da sind höchste Erlebnisse geistiger Art, durch die der Mensch die Stufen des Daseins hinansteigt, die physische Welt durchdringt und eindringt da, wo des Menschen Seele sich vereinigt mit der Geistigkeit der Welt, mit ihr zusammenschmilzt und sich erhält mit der Welt, in der sie zugleich Raum und Licht und das findet, was ihr Freiheit, Würde und Selbständigkeit gibt. Alles das ist wie eigenstes, innerstes Erlebnis in diesem zweiten Teil des Goetheschen «Faust» enthalten.
Es wird die Zeit kommen, wo man Goethes «Faust» noch ganz anders anschauen wird als heute, wo man besser verstehen wird, was Goethe sagen wollte, als er am 29. Januar 1827 zu Eckermann sprach: «Aber doch ist alles sinnlich und wird, auf dem Theater gedacht, jedem gut in die Augen fallen. Und mehr habe ich nicht gewollt. Wenn es nur so ist, daß die Menge der Zuschauer Freude an der Erscheinung hat, dem Eingeweihten wird zugleich der höhere Sinn nicht entgehen...»
Erscheint uns der erste Teil in mancher Beziehung noch theoretisch, nicht bis zum Leben herunter gearbeitet, der zweite Teil ist eines der realistischsten, eines der am tiefsten in die Wirklichkeit gehenden Werke in der Weltliteratur. Denn alles im zweiten Teil des «Faust» ist erlebt, nur nicht erlebt mit physischen Augen und physischen Ohren, sondern mit geistigen Augen und geistigen Ohren. Das hat auch den Grund gegeben, warum dieser zweite Teil so wenig verstanden worden ist. Man hat Symbole, Allegorien gesehen in dem, was für den Geistesforscher, für den, der es erleben kann in den geistigen Welten, etwas viel Wahreres und Wirklicheres ist als das, was äußere physische Augen sehen und äußere physische Ohren hören. Wahrhaftig, von einem solchen Werke kann man sich viel versprechen, und einiges von dem, was in diesem Werke liegt, zu betrachten, das wird die Aufgabe des heutigen und des morgigen Vortrags sein. Heute soll mehr die äußerliche Seite, morgen mehr dargestellt werden, wie Goethes Faust-Dichtung im wahren Sinne des Wortes ein Bild einer inneren, esoterischen Lebens- und Weltanschauung ist. Stufe um Stufe werden wir versuchen, in das Innere zu dringen und hinter den Vorhang zu schauen, hinter dem Goethe die tiefsten Geheimnisse seines Lebens gelebt hat.
Faustische Stimmung war in Goethe ja schon vorhanden, als er Leipziger Student war. Wir wissen, daß er in der Leipziger Zeit durch eine Krankheit dem Tode ins Auge sah. Vieles von dem, was eineMenschenseele ergreifen kann, ist damals durch Goethes Seele gezogen. Aber noch mancherlei anderes war da in ihm vorgegangen. Er hatte die Art und Weise kennengelernt, wie äußere Wissenschaft das Leben ansieht. Er hatte sich ja gerade in Leipzig wenig um seine eigentliche Fachwissenschaft bekümmert; er hatte sich umgetan in mancherlei anderen Wissenschaften, besonders in der Naturwissenschaft. Niemals ist Goethe der feste Glaube abhanden gekommen, daß man gerade durch Naturwissenschaft hineinsehen kann in die tieferen Geheimnisse des Daseins, aber verzweifelnd stand er gerade in der Leipziger Zeit immer wieder vor dem, was die äußere Wissenschaft zu sagen und zu geben hatte. Das war in vieler Hinsicht ein Begriffsgestrüpp, zerstückelte Beobachtung der Natur. Da konnte er nirgends das finden, was er schon als Knabe gesucht hatte, als er als Siebenjähriger ein Notenpult nahm, Mineralien aus seines Vaters Sammlung, Pflanzen und andere, geologische Produkte darauf legte, ein Räucherkerzchen nahm und ein Brennglas, und nun den Morgen abwartete. Und als die ersten Strahlen der Morgensonne hereinfielen, nahm er das Brennglas und ließ die Sonnenstrahlen auf das Räucherkerzchen fallen, und ließ auf diese Weise auf dem Altar, den er dem «großen Gotte der Natur» dargebracht hatte, ein Feuer sich entzünden, das aus den Ursprüngen und den Quellen des Daseins selber herauskommen sollte. Aber wie weit mußten diese Quellen des Daseins entfernt sein von dem, was Goethe in der Philosophie, der Naturwissenschaft und in den verschiedenen Zweigen des Erkenntnisstrebens auf der Hochschule entgegentrat! Wie weit waren diese «Quellen alles Lebens» entfernt von all solchem Streben!
Nun kam Goethe nach Frankfurt, kam zusammen mit sinnigen Menschen, die vor allen Dingen durch ein entwickeltes Seelenleben etwas von dem Zusammenfließen des menschlichen Innern mit der durch die Welt webenden und lebenden Geistigkeit besaßen, Menschen, die im vollen Sinne das in sich fühlten, was Goethe mit den Worten ausdrückt: «Das eigene Selbst erweitert sich zu einem geistigen Universum.» Schon damals in Frankfurt überkam ihn die Stimmung: Hinaus über das bloße Begriffsstreben! Hinaus über das bloße sinnliche Beobachtungsmaterial! Es muß einen Weg geben zu den Quellen des Daseins! - Und er kam in Berührung mit dem, was man alchimistische, mystische und theosophische Literatur nennen könnte. Er machte ja auch selbst praktische alchimistische Versuche. Er erzählt selbst, wie er ein Werk kennengelernt hat, in dem mancher damals ähnliche Wege suchte: Wellings «Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum», ein Werk, das damals als ein Weg angesehen wurde, um die Quellen des Daseins zu erkennen. Er lernt nach und nach Paracelsus, Basilius Valentinus kennen, und vor allen Dingen ein Werk, das seiner ganzen Art und Weise nach auf alle Strebenden einen tiefen Eindruck machen mußte, die «Aurea Catena Homeri». Das war eineDarstellung derNatur, wie sie die mittelalterlichen Mystiker zu schauen glaubten. Was da Goethe als solche mystischen, alchimistischen und theosophischen Werke kennenlernte, mußte auf ihn den Eindruck machen, den etwa heute irgendein ähnlich strebender Mensch bekommt, wenn er, meinetwillen, in die Hand nimmt Bücher von Eliphas Levy oder ähnlich gesinnten Geistern. Ja, noch einen viel verwirrenderen Eindruck mußten diese Sachen damals auf Goethe machen, weil die Darstellung der verschiedenen Schriften, die sich mit Magie, Theosophie und so weiter befaßten, eine solche war, daß sich zwar hinter den äußeren Sinnbildern Geheimnisse verbargen, die aber eigentlich schon nicht mehr verstanden waren von denen, welche diese Bücher geschrieben hatten.
Weil man es nicht aussprechen konnte in seiner unmittelbaren Größe und Bedeutung, ist dort in ein äußeres wesenloses Gewand, in allerlei physikalische und chemische Formeln gekleidet, was eine wirkliche uralte Weisheit war, was einmal gelebt hat in den Menschenseelen. Für den, der nur das sah, was äußerlich in den Büchern stand, machten sie allerdings den Eindruck des absolutesten Unsinns, und es gab kaum einen Weg damals, hinter die Geheimnisse zu kommen und in denSinn einzudringen. Aber man darf nicht verkennen, daß Goethe aus der Tiefe seines Erkenntnisstrebens heraus ein ahnungsvoller Geist war. Und da mußte es ihn, wenn er aufschlug die «Aurea Catena Homeri» und gleich die erste Seite erblickte, sonderbar anmuten, wenn er da ein tief auf die Seele wirkendes Zeichen sah: zwei ineinander verschlungene Dreiecke, an den Ecken in wunderbarer Weise gezeichnet die Zeichen der Planeten, herumgewunden im Kreise ein fliegender Drache und unten ein merkwürdig festgewordener, sich in sich selbst verfestigender Drache - und wenn er dann die Worte las, die da zu finden waren auf der ersten Seite, wie der flüchtige Drache die Strömung symbolisiert, die da immer dem festen Drachen jene Kräfte einflößt, die vom Weltenall herunterströmen, oder wie Himmel und Erde zusammenhängen, mit andern Worten, wie es dort heißt: «Wie des Himmels Geisteskräfte sich ergießen in der Erde Zentrum.»
Tief mußten auf Goethe solche geheimnisvolle Zeichen und Worte wirken. Jene zum Beispiel, die den ganzen Werdegang der Welt darstellten, wie man sagte«vom Chaos bis zu dem, was man nennt die universale Quintessenz» — ein merkwürdiger Übergang in sonderbar ineinandergreifenden Zeichen von der chaotischen Materie, die noch unterschiedlos ist, durch das mineralische, pflanzliche und tierische Reich hindurch -,, bis hinauf zum Menschen und zu jenen Perspektiven, zu denen sich der Mensch hinentwickelt, in immer weiterer Verfeinerung.
Aber es gab nicht leicht einen Weg, hineinzudringen in den tieferen Sinn. Und so ging Goethe damals von Frankfurt in einer Stimmung fort, die man etwa so bezeichnen kann: Nichts habe ich gefunden! Was mir die Naturforscher geben können, sind trockene nüchterne Begriffe, etwas, aus dem herausgepreßt ist alles wirkliche Lebenswasser. Jetzt habe ich mich hier herumgetrieben in mancherlei von dem, was uns erhalten ist aus Zeiten, die behauptet haben, hineinzuschauen in die Geheimnisse des Lebens. Aber der Weg, der Weg ist zum Verzweifeln! - So war wirklich manchmal die Stimmung der Goetheschen Seele. Dazu war er freilich nicht angetan, mit einer leichten Spekulation und einem leichten Philosophieren, mit wüstemSymbolisieren und Versinnlichen sich einzulassen auf das, was da so wunderbar ahnungsvoll aus diesen alten Büchern auf ihn wirkte. Sie schauten ihn an mit ihren Geheimnissen wie etwas, zu dem er den Weg nicht finden kann. Es war für den, der Goethes Seele kennt, damals schon der Keim in dieser Seele, wirklich einmal einzudringen in die Geheimnisse des Daseins, aber er sollte erst später sich entfalten. Und so fühlte sich Goethe wie hinweggestoßen, wie unwürdig, um in die Geheimnisse des Daseins hineinzukommen.
Nun kam er nach Straßburg. Da traf er Menschen, die von der einen und von der andern Seite ihn interessieren mußten. Er lernte Jung-Stilling kennen, der eine tief mystische, «psychische» Anlage hatte, der durch die Entwickelung eigentümlicher, sonst beim Menschen in der Seele schlummernder Kräfte tiefe Blicke hineingetan hatte in die verborgenen Seiten des Daseins. Kennenlernte er in Straßburg Herder, der ähnliche Stimmungen durchgemacht hatte, und der in den Zeiten der Verzweiflung oftmals bis zur völligen Verneinung des Lebens gekommen war. In Herder lernte Goethe einen Menschen kennen, der am Überdruß des Daseins litt, und der ungefähr folgendes sagte: Ich habe viel studiert, habe mancherlei gefunden über den Zusammenhang des menschlichen Wirkens und des menschlichen Strebens auf der Erde. — Nicht aber konnte er sich sagen: Ich habe auch nur einen einzigen Augenblick gehabt, wo mein Sehnen nach den Quellen des Lebens befriedigt worden wäre! - Krank war er dazu, und so war er geneigt, mit herber Kritik alles mögliche abzusprechen. Dennoch war es Herder, der Goethe aufmerksam machte auf mancherlei Tiefen der Daseinsrätsel. Einen wahrhaft faustischen Menschen lernte Goethe in Herder kennen. Und diejenige Seite des Negierenden, die nicht herauskommt aus dem Spott und dem Hohn, lernte Goethe später in seinem Freunde Merck kennen. Selbst Goethes Mutter, von der wir wissen, wie sie alles Bemoralisieren und Kritisieren der Menschen weit von sich wies, sie sagte von Merck: Ja, dieser Merck kann den Mephistopheles eigentlich niemals zu Hause lassen, das ist man schon an ihm gewohnt. — Einen Verneiner von vielem, was erstrebenswert ist im Leben, lernte Goethe in Merck kennen.
Gegenüber all diesen Eindrücken, die Goethe von den Menschen in Straßburg empfing, war es die Natur, in deren Betrachtung ihm dort mancherlei Rätsel des Daseins aufgingen. Nun müssen wir uns zu gleicher Zeit Goethe als einen Menschen mit eindringendem, scharfem Geist denken, nicht als einen unpraktischen Menschen. Goethe wurde bekanntlich Advokat. Kurze Zeit nur hat er diese Tätigkeit ausgeübt. Wer aber die Tätigkeit Goethes als Advokat oder später als weimarischer Minister kennt, der weiß, daß ihm ein eminent praktischer Sinn eigen war. Als Advokat wußte er ja rein äußerlich nicht viel mehr als die auswendig gelernten Gesetzbücher, aber er war ein Mensch, der mit schnellem Blick entscheiden konnte über das, was ihm vorlag. Ein solcher Mensch weiß auch die Linien des Lebens mit scharfen Umrissen vor sich hinzuzeichnen. So erscheint uns Goethe mit der Fähigkeit, auf der einen Seite die schärfsten Begriffe über die Welt zu haben, auf der andern Seite in der tiefsten Weise zu empfinden das Leid eines unbefriedigten Erkenntnisdranges. Er erscheint uns als einer, der die tiefsten Dinge suchte und von ihnen zurückgewiesen war. Und dazu kam etwas anderes.
Goethe hat diejenige Stimmung kennengelernt, die man kennzeichnen kann: er wußte, was es heißt, sich schuldig fühlen! Schuldig hat er sich gefühlt gegenüber dem einfachen Landmädchen Friederike in Sesenheim, in der er so mancherlei Hoffnungen und Seelenstimmungen erweckt hatte, und die er doch dann verlassen mußte. Alles das kreuzte sich in der merkwürdigsten Art in der SeeleGoethes, und aus all diesen Stimmungen heraus gestaltete sich ihm eine dichterische Figur, die ihren Grund hatte in der Beobachtung derjenigen Gestalt, die ihm dazumal auf Schritt und Tritt entgegentreten konnte: der Gestalt des Faust, jener merkwürdigen Persönlichkeit, die in der ersten Hälfte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts gelebt hat, jenes Faust, der dann den Gegenstand mannigfaltiger Volksschauspiele und Puppenspiele gebildet hat, der ja auch durch Christopher Marlowe eine literarische Bedeutung erlangt hat, und der in der damaligen Zeit eigentlich für viele Dichter, wie für Lessing zum Beispiel, so auch für Goethe ein lebendiges Problem wurde. Wie kam es denn, daß Goethe sein eigenes Leid und seine eigenen Stimmungen anknüpfte an diese Figur des Faust?
Faust, so wird erzählt, hat gelebt in der ersten Hälfte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, einer Zeit, in der sich für die Geschichte vieles entschieden hat. Wenn man diese Zeit vergleicht mit dem elften und zwölften Jahrhundert, wo man ein Erkenntnisleben führte, findet man diese Zeiten sehr verschieden. Im zwölften Jahrhundert war es möglich für diejenigen Geister, die eindrangen in das, was ihnen die Zeit bot, das zu vereinbaren mit dem, was sie in der eigenen Seele finden konnten. Wenn sie den geistigen Blick hinaufsandten zu dem, was in den göttlichen Höhen thronte als das Schöpferische der Welt, und wenn sie sich darüber Begriffe bildeten, so war es für sie möglich, anzuknüpfen an das, was sie aus der äußeren Naturwissenschaft kannten. Wie eine Stufenfolge war es, was die Seelen da kennenlernten: unten, auf der untersten Stufe, das, was man als Physiker kennenlernt, auf der nächsten Stufe das, was man kennenlernt über die höheren Geheimnisse des Daseins, über die verborgene Seite des Daseins, die das geistige Auge und das geistige Ohr zu erreichen vermochte, und wiederum auf den höchsten Stufen wurde erkannt in hehren, in feinen kristalldurchsichtigen Begriffen, die aber lebensvoll und wirksam auf die Seele waren, die Stufen des göttlichen Daseins, und alles hing miteinander zusammen.
Mag man heute auch achselzuckend auf die Geister jener Zeit herabblicken, es ist ein Weg, der nirgends eine Unterbrechung erleidet. Wenn man zum Beispiel den Erkenntnisweg des Albertus Magnus nimmt, der unten beginnt in der untersten Natur und endet in einem Anschauen Gottes — nicht sind es da Begriffe, die trocken und nüchtern sind, sondern Begriffe, die die Seele warm machen und das Herz durchleuchten. Das war in den Zeiten, in denen Faust lebte, dahin. Da waren die Begriffe, die von einem Theologen geprägt wurden über die Stufen des göttlichen Daseins, zwar auch abstrakt, das heißt gedanklich abgezogen, aber trocken und nüchtern. Es waren Begriffe, die man studieren konnte, in die sich die Vernunft, der Verstand hineinversenken konnten. Nirgends aber fand die Vernunft die Möglichkeit, diese Begriffe anzuknüpfen an das lebendige, um uns herumliegende Dasein, nirgends aber auch die Möglichkeit, die Seele lichtvoll und das Herz warm zu machen. Und dann war es so gekommen, daß die Wissenschaft, die man als Mystik, Magie, Theosophie hatte, und die von den Dingen handelte, die man mit geistigen Augen und geistigen Ohren wahrnimmt, in einem völligen Niedergange begriffen war, vor allen Dingen deshalb, weil durch den Buchdruck mancherlei von dem, was früher in den Handschriften verborgen war, hinausgetragen wurde in die Öffentlichkeit und aufgefaßt wurde von Geistern, die es nicht verstanden, die darin nichts anderes sahen als etwas, was sie nachmachen mußten. Humbug und Unsinn mancherlei wurde damit in den Laboratorien getrieben. Was in einer geistigen Weise hätte erlebt werden sollen, wofür das, was in den Büchern stand, nur äußere Formeln waren, die aber einen tiefen Sinn hatten, das nahm man wörtlich. Man machte allerlei Zeug mit Formeln und in Retorten, und die Folge davon war, daß in dieser Zeit das, was man 'Theosophie, Magie, Okkultismus nennt, bedenklich nahe demjenigen kam, was man Schwindel und Scharlatanerie nennt.
Es ist ja so, daß in einer gewissen Beziehung der Gang in die geistigen Welten hinauf mit Gefahren verknüpft ist, und daß Naturen, deren Streben nicht lauter ist, deren Verstand und Vernunft nicht geläutert ist, die in ihrem Denken nicht zu reinen sinnlichkeitsfreien Begriffen kommen, leicht straucheln, leicht in diesen Abgrund hinein kommen können. Und so konnte es sein, daß diejenigen, die noch etwas wußten oder mit heißem Bemühen die Schriften der Mystiker studierten, den Weg nicht fanden, oder auch, weil sie ihn nicht finden konnten, an den Schwindel, an die Scharlatanerie herankamen. Aber auch das andere konnte eintreten: daß unter vielen Mißverständnissen im Volke dieses Streben als Zauberei verschrien wurde, daß Tritheim von Sponheim, Agrippa von Nettesheim und manche andere, die ehrlich und redlich nach geistigen Kräften in der Natur forschten, als schwarze Zauberer und Schwindler hingestellt wurden, als Menschen, die von der guten Bahn abgewichen waren, welche die alte Religion vorgezeichnet hat.
In diese Zeit hinein fiel das Leben des Faust des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, in eine Zeit, die in manchem die Abendröte einer alten Geistesströmung sah, die aber zugleich auch die Morgenröte war einer ganz neuen Zeit, einer Zeit, die dann solche Sterne hervorbrachte wie Giordano Bruno, Galilei, Kopernikus und so weiter. Man nennt mancherlei Zeiten die Zeiten des Überganges. Von allen Zeiten aber verdient keine so sehr diesen Namen wie die Zeit des Faust.
Nach allem, was wir wissen, war die Faust-Gestalt eine solche, die tief empfand das Unzulängliche des damaligen Studiums über die geistige Welt. Theologie hatte auch Faust studiert, sich abgewendet davon, und suchte nun in dem letzten Rest der mittelalterlichen Magie und ähnlichem nach den Quellen des Daseins. Und weil ja die Gestalt des Faust am besten erfaßt wird so hin- und herschillernd zwischen dem ehrlichen Streben nach Erkenntnis und den Grenzen, die nach der Scharlatanerie hinübergehen, so ist es auch besser, wenn wir ihn in dieser Beleuchtung lassen und nicht einmal versuchen, ihn mit scharfen Konturen zu erfassen. Denn er wurde auch von der geistigen Strömung selbst nicht so erfaßt, wie er wirklich war; sondern all das Streben, das im Volke selbst vorhanden war, wurde jetzt aufgefaßt wie das äußere Kleid dieser Figur des Faust des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. So tritt er uns entgegen in sagenhafter Gestalt oder im Drama als ein Mensch, der abgefallen war von den alten Überlieferungen der Religion, von der Theologie, der sich ergeben hatte einem Streben — wie man aus einer immer engherziger werdenden Anschauung heraus glaubte —, das nimmermehr zu etwas Gutem im Leben führen konnte. Es drückt sich ja die ganze Weltanschauung der Zeit des sechzehnten bis achtzehnten Jahrhunderts aus in den Worten, die über Faust im Volksbuche standen: Er hat die heilige Schrift «ein weil hinder die Tür und unter die bank gelegt — wollte sich hernacher keinen Theologum mehr nennen lassen, ward ein Weltmensch, nannte sich ein D. Medicinae.»
In solche Worte legte man das hinein, was man über Faust dachte und fühlte. Man fühlte, daß er in der eigenen Brust den Quell suchte, der zu den Tiefen des Lebens und seinen Ursprüngen führte, daß er in seiner Art von den alten Traditionen sich freimachen wollte. Auch dasjenige, was sich in den Volksschauspielen und Marionettenspielen über diese Gestalt erhalten hatte, war wenig geeignet, viel anderes wiederzugeben als die äußere Gestalt des Faust. Aber auf Goethe wirkte das alles, was als Faust-Überlieferung geblieben war, so, daß er dieser Figur anvertrauen konnte, was in ihm selber als Lebensstreben und Erkenntnisdrang lebte. Und so sehen wir, wie er in den siebziger Jahren damit beginnt, sich selber zu vergegenständlichen in der Faustgestalt. All das Unbefriedigende, all das aus einem unbefriedigten Erkenntnisdrang hervorgehendeLeid lagerte er in dieser Faustfigur ab. Wenn wir den ersten Monolog des Faust betrachten, sehen wir im vollsten Sinne des Wortes, was wir im Eingange der heutigen Betrachtung charakterisiert haben: Wir sehen den Mann, der sich im vollsten Sinne in der äußeren Wissenschaft umgetan hat, der verzweifelt, und der nahe daran ist, am Leben völlig zugrunde zu gehen, am Erkenntnisdrang zu zerschellen. Wir sehen, wie er die alten Bücher ergreift. Goethe nennt es das Buch des Nostradamus, aber wer bewandert ist in der Literatur der Magie, die Goethe damals auch kannte, der wird leicht wiedererkennen, was Goethe mit dem Buche meinte, in welchem Faust das Zeichen des Makrokosmos erblickt. Sagen läßt er ihn darüber:
Wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen!
Mit segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen,
Harmonisch all das All durchklingen!
Und dann das, was sich wie eine Gefühlsschilderung angliedert an diese Worte, daß es ihn wie mit Wonne durchzieht beim Anblick dieses Blattes, in diesem allem erkennen wir, was auf Goethe in der damaligen Zeit gewirkt hat. Solche Stimmungen und Vorstellungen konnten sich in Goethes Seele ergießen, und er konnte sie wiederum in solcher Wahrheit hinschreiben, wenn er etwa stand vor jenem merkwürdigen Zeichen der zwei ineinandergeschlungenen Dreiecke, und der zwei Drachen, des oberen geistigen und des unteren physischen, wo an den Ecken der verschlungenen Dreiecke die Zeichen der Planeten stehen, deren Kräfte sich durchdringen, so daß man wirklich die goldglänzenden Planeten vor sich hat wie goldene Eimer, zwischen denen die Kräfte fließen, die harmonisch das All durchklingen.
Wenn man so etwas bedenkt, dann hat man Goethes Seele vor sich mit all ihrem tiefen und ehrlichen Erkenntnisdrang, und dann wird man fast daran zweifeln, ob man das alles in irgendwelche scharfe Begriffe bringen und viel darüber spekulieren soll. Man möchte eine solche Tatsache nur vor die Seele stellen, damit eine Seele, die ein Gefühl für solche Dinge hat, unendlich viel davon haben kann. Aber wer das Leben kennt, wie es sich durch die Lebensalter hindurch entwickelt, der weiß, wie solchen tiefen Seelenkämpfen gegenüber es berechtigt ist, zu sagen: Ja, Goethe war einer derer, bei denen zunächst einmal in der Seele veranlagt wird der Keim, der erst viel, viel später reifen und Früchte tragen kann, Wir sehen gleichsam da die Keime zu dem, was dann im späteren «Faust» in so herrlicher Weise aufgegangen ist. Und auch mancherlei Lehren für das Leben mag mancher daraus schöpfen, der einen gewissen Drang hat zur Geisteswissenschaft hin.
Heute wird ja ein solches Streben leider viel zu oberflächlich genommen. Heute sieht man die Leute flugs herantreten, und dann sind sie auch bald sehr schnell damit fertig, wenn sie ein paar Begriffe in der Seele haben. Der erst weiß, was für Rätsel da sind, der zurückblicken kann auf die Zeit vor zwanzig, vor dreißig Jahren, wo sich ein Fluidum ihm in die Seele gegossen hat, wo sich dann vieles darüber gelagert hat, wo manches an ihn herangetreten ist, Jahre und Erlebnisse darauf gefolgt sind; und dreißig Jahre nachher erst ist das, was sich ihm so in die Seele gießt, reif, auch nur annähernd eine Antwort darauf zu erhalten. Wir können nicht tief genug gerade von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus Goethes Leben betrachten, und wir sehen, wie nachklingt die Stimmung, die Goethe selber hat empfinden können der «Aurea Catena Homeri», der «goldenen Kette Homers» gegenüber; wir sehen sie ausgedrückt, wenn er in die Worte des Faust ausbricht: «Welch Schauspiel!» Ja, es ist ein gewaltiges Schauspiel, wenn sich die Seele vertieft in diese Bilder, ohne auch nur eine Ahnung davon zu haben, was sie weiter sind. Es ist ein Schauspiel. Aber bleibt es bei der Ahnung?
Dann kommen notwendig nach die Worte: «Aber ach! ein Schauspiel nur!» Verstanden hat Goethe diese tiefen Worte damals noch nicht; aber empfindungsgemäß lebte damals schon in seiner Seele jenes: «Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis!» Und wie im Schmerz mochte er sich sagen, wenn er die merkwürdigen Figuren vor sich hatte:
Wenn man auch noch so künstliche Figuren zeichnet, sie sind doch äußere Symbole!
Welch Schauspiel! Aber ach! ein Schauspiel nur!
Wo faß ich dich, unendliche Natur?
Jede Wendung tief empfunden: ein Schauspiel nur das, was die große Welt abbildet. Aber er hatte sich herumgetan in mancherlei Rätseln der Naturwissenschaft, und er hatte kennengelernt, was jenes tiefe Erlebnis dem Menschen gibt, wo er sich sagen muß: «Du bist schuldig geworden!» Er hatte das durchlebt. Da konnte er hoffen, mehr fühlen zu können, wenn er die andern Zeichen beschaute, die mehr an das unmittelbare Menschenleben sich anschließen. Auch diese Stimmung drückt sich im Faust aus. Das Buch wird umgeschlagen. An Stelle des Zeichens der großen Welt tritt das Zeichen der kleinen Welt, das Pentagramm und das, was da herum ist, und vor die Seele Goethes tritt das Zauberwort, durch das, wenn es richtig angewendet wird, gewisse schlummernde Kräfte richtig erweckt werden können. Ja, Goethe hat allerdings eine Ahnung davon bekommen, daß es so etwas gibt, wie es hier charakterisiert worden ist, daß es in der Seele des Menschen schlummernde Kräfte gibt. Goethe wußte, daß der Mensch durch das Anschauen gewisser Symbole und Vorstellungen in sich schlummernde Kräfte erwecken kann, so daß er hineinschauen kann in die geistige Welt.
Was der Menschenseele selber nahesteht, was sich ausdrückt in dem Zeichen der kleinen Welt, von dem konnte er glauben, daß er davon berührt wird. Er läßt seinen Faust das Wort aussprechen, durch das in der Tat, wenn der Mensch sich ihm hingibt in tiefer, innerer Meditation, gewisse innere Erlebnisse auftreten, er läßt es seinen Faust aussprechen, und es erscheint der «Erdgeist», derjenige Geist, der die Erde belebt, und der bewirkt, daß auf der Erde aus dem allgemeinen Lebens- und Weltenstrom der Mensch werden und gedeihen kann. Wunderbar hat es Goethe verstanden, gerade alles das kurz in Worte zusammenzupressen, was die Geheimnisse des Erdgeistes sind, dieses Erdgeistes, der sich etwa ebenso zu der ganzen Erde verhält, wie sich die einzelne Menschenseele, der Menschengeist zu dem physischen Leibe des Menschen verhält; der sozusagen der Regent alles natürlichen Menschenwerdens und -gedeihens und alles geschichtlichen Werdens ist. Er hat keine sichtbare Gestalt, aber wer in sich die geistigen Augen erschließt, dem kann er entgegentreten, der kann ihn schauen, so daß er weiß, es gibt einen solchen Geist der Erde. Was er ist, das charakterisiert uns Goethe in so wunderbarer Art:
In Lebensfluten, im Tatensturm
Wall ich auf und ab,
Webe hin und her!
Geburt und Grab,
Ein ewiges Meer,
Ein wechselnd Weben,
Ein glühend Leben,
So schaff ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.
Man könnte in jedes Wort dieser Formel eindringen und würde finden, daß das, was Goethe charakterisiert, wirklich derjenige erlebt, der durch Entwickelung seiner Seele bis zu den entsprechenden Daseinsstufen hinaufkommt. Aber es geschieht das, was Sie ja alle kennen: Faust fühlt sich nicht und kann sich nicht fühlen gewachsen dem, was sich da zeigt. Er kennt den Weg nicht zu den geheimnisvollen Tiefen des Daseins. Für ihn ist das, was «in Lebensfluten, im Tatensturm» lebt und webt, ein «schreckliches Gesicht». Er kann es nicht ertragen. Er wendet sich weg und muß hören die Worte:
Du gleichst dem Geist, den du begreifst,
Nicht mir!
Er glaubte aus den alten Traditionen heraus, er sei «ein Ebenbild der Gottheit», und jetzt muß er sich sagen: Nicht einmal dir!
«Du gleichst dem Geist, den du begreifst.» Wenn die Menschen diesen Ausspruch einmal fühlen könnten! Daß ihn Goethe gefühlt hat, das zeigt die ganze Situation im ersten Teil des «Faust». Der Mensch kann nichts weiter erkennen als das, zu dem er sich selbst entwickelt hat. «Wie einer ist, so ist sein Gott», hat Goethe ein anderes Mal gesagt. Und da ist es wie ein Selbstbekenntnis Goethes, daß er den Weg noch nicht gefunden hat zu den Quellen des Daseins hin, ein Bekenntnis, das er hier an dieser Stelle des «Faust» anknüpft. Wenn wir gerade diese erste Gestalt des «Faust» betrachten, dann sehen wir, wie Goethe selbst Schwierigkeiten hat, den Zusammenhang seiner Welt mit der geistigen Welt, nach der er hinstrebt, darzustellen. Ohne eigentlichen Übergang findet sich im ersten «Faust» gleich dahinter die Begegnung des Mephistopheles mit dem Schüler. Was ist Mephistopheles?
Wer den Weg kennt in die geistigen Welten hinein, der weiß, daß es diesen Mephistopheles wirklich gibt als einen der beiden Versucher, welchen der Mensch begegnet, wenn er den Weg in das geistige Land hinein geht, wenn er den Weg in die geistige Welt sucht. Zwei Gewalten oder Mächte gibt es da, denen der Mensch begegnet. Die eine Gewalt ist die, welche wir die luziferische Gewalt nennen, die den Menschen mehr innerlich ergreift, im Zentrum seiner Seele, und seine Leidenschaften, Triebe, Begierden und so weiter um einen Grad ins Persönliche, ins Unedle hinuntertreibt. Alles, was auf den Menschen selber wirkt, was den Menschen in seinem Innersten ergreift, ist das Luziferische. Dadurch, daß der Mensch aber einmal in seinem Werdegang durch die Welt erfaßt worden ist von diesem luziferischen Prinzip, wurde er einem andern Prinzip ausgeliefert. Wäre der Mensch niemals von diesem luziferischen Prinzip erfaßt worden, dann würde sich ihm die Außenwelt auch niemals in einer bloß materiellen Form entgegenstellen; dann würde die Außenwelt dem Menschen so gegenübertreten, daß sich der Mensch gegenüber allem von vornherein sagen könnte, daß alles Außere ein Ausdruck, eine Physiognomie des Geistes ist. Den Geist würde der Mensch hinter allem materiell Sinnlichen sehen. So aber, weil alles Materielle verdichtet worden ist durch den Einfluß der luziferischen Gewalt, mischte sich in die äußere Anschauung auch das hinein, was dem Menschen im Äußeren nur das Trugbild eines äußerlich Materiellen vorgaukelt; es ist das, was dem Menschen das Äußere in Gestalt der Maya oder der Illusion zeigt, als wenn es nicht der äußere physiognomische Ausdruck des Geistes wäre.
Diese Gewalt, die dem Menschen die äußere Welt in einer unwahren Gestalt zeigt, hat zuerst in der ganzen Tiefe Zarathustra erkannt. Unter dem Namen «Ahriman» hat Zarathustra zuerst jene Gestalt dargestellt, die sich dem Lichtgotte entgegenstellt. Ahriman nennt Zarathustra diesen Gegner der Lichtgottheit, und für alle die, welche an die Kultur des Zarathustra anknüpften, wurde dann Ahriman jene trügende Gestalt, die gegenüber allem, was der Mensch sonst in durchsichtiger geistiger Klarheit sehen würde, das mit einem Rauch und Nebel zur Illusion Durchsetzende ist. Wenn man es besonders schroff ausdrücken wollte, dann nannte man diese Gestalt, denjenigen, der den Menschen verdarb, weil er ihn in die Fessel der Materie zwang und ihn über die wahre Gestalt des Materiellen belog, Mephistopheles. So wurde diese Gestalt im Hebräischen genannt, wobei «mephiz» der Verderber bedeutet, und «topel» der Lügner. Und diese Gestalt ging dann hinüber in das Abendland, in die mittelalterliche Gestalt des Mephistopheles. Da sehen wir in den Faust-Büchern den Faust gegenübergestellt dieser Macht; sie wird ja da auch die «alte Schlange» genannt.
Goethe lernte diesen Mephistopheles kennen. Die spätere Faust-Tradition hat dann die Gestalten des Luzifer und des Mephistopheles nicht mehr ordentlich auseinanderhalten können. Man hat ja in den Zeiten, die auf das sechzehnte Jahrhundert folgten, keine klare Vorstellung mehr von diesen Gestalten gehabt. Man wußte nicht mehr, wie sich Luzifer und Ahriman unterscheiden; das floß alles zusammen in die Gestalt des Teufels oder des Satans. So flossen sie beide ohne Unterschied zusammen, und weil man überhaupt. nichts wußte von der geistigen Welt, so unterschied man nicht besonders. Goethe aber trat alles das entgegen als Mephistopheles, was durch die äußeren Sinne, durch den menschlichen Verstand, der ein physisches Gehirn als Instrument zu brauchen gewohnt ist, als Anschauung über die äußere Welt vermittelt wird. Der Mensch, der nur an diese Fähigkeit des gewöhnlichen Verstandes appelliert, war ihm gleichsam wie ein anderes Ich des in die geistige Welt hinaufstrebenden Menschen.
So wurde für Goethe alles, was — wie bei Merck oder Herder - an das bloß Verstandesgemäße appelliert, repräsentiert in einer wunderbaren Weise in der Figur des Mephistopheles, der nicht an eine Welt des Guten glaubt oder sie nicht für bedeutungsvoll und wichtig hält. In Goethe selbst war dieses zweite Ich, das bis zum Zweifeln an der geistigen Welt kommen konnte, und Goethe fühlte sich manchmal hineingestellt in den Zwiespalt, den wir die mephistophelische Macht nennen können. Er fühlte sich hineingestellt zwischen diese böse Macht, die in seiner Seele wühlte, und zwischen das wahrhaft ehrliche Streben seiner Seele nach den geistigen Höhen. Diese zwei Gewalten fühlte Goethe in seiner Seele. Sich zu stellen zur geistigen Welt, das wußte Goethe noch nicht. Er war noch weit entfernt von dem Erleben, das uns dann bei ihm in einer so grandiosen Weise im zweiten Teil des «Faust» entgegentritt.
Dem nach den geistigen Höhen strebenden inneren Menschen, der an ein Trugbild gebannt ist in dem, was Mephistopheles den Menschen vorgaukelt, dem stellt sich entgegen im zweiten Teile des «Faust», in der Szene des «Ganges zu den Müttern», Mephistopheles, der Vertreter alles dessen, was man finden kann durch den an die materielle äußere Wissenschaft gebundenen Verstand. Er steht da mit den Schlüsseln. Gewiß, diese Wissenschaft ist gut; sie führt bis zum Tor der geistigen Welt. Hinein aber kann Mephistopheles nicht, und er bezeichnet dasjenige, in das Faust hinein muß, als ein «Nichts». Wir hören aus dem, was Mephistopheles da spricht, heraustönen in klassisch grandioser Weise, was der materialistische Geist der Menschen auch heute demjenigen entgegenwirft, der aus der Geisteswissenschaft heraus die Urgründe des Daseins zu erforschen strebt. Da sagt man ihm: Du bist ein Träumer und Phantast! Wir lassen uns nicht ein auf das, was du, Träumer, uns da von den geistigen Untergründen der Dinge sprichst. Das ist nichts für uns! — Und der Geisteswissenschaftler mag ganz richtig antworten, wie Faust dem Mephistopheles antwortet: «In deinem Nichts hoff ich das All zu finden!»
Aber Goethe ist in dem Erleben derjenigen Jugend, wo er «zuerst den Faust herausgebraust hat», noch weit entfernt von einer solchen Klarheit der Seele. Da weiß er noch nicht, wie er eigentlich den Mephistopheles an den Faust herantreten lassen soll. Der Mephistopheles ist im Urfaust da, wie ihn Goethe als herunterziehende Macht erlebt hat, wo er sich spöttisch ergeht in der Schüler-Szene. Erst später hat Goethe die Vermittlung gefunden, wo Mephistopheles in den sich verwandelnden Gestalten nach und nach an Faust herantritt.
Dann sehen wir da, wo Faust heruntergezogen wird durch Mephistopheles in der Szene in «Auerbachs Keller», wo er sich herunterstürzt in den Strudel der Sinnlichkeit, die Bahn beginnen, die Faust zur Schuld führt. In dem 1790 erschienenen Fragment stand noch nicht der Schluß, die Kerker-Szene. Goethe hatte sie zurückbehalten. Aber in dem ersten Fragment stand sie schon, die erschütternde Kerker-Szene. Da hinein, in alles das, was wir die «Gretchen-Tragödie» nennen, hat Goethe die Seite seines Lebens gelegt, die sich ausdrückt in den Worten: Ich bin schuldig geworden! -— Was Goethe ausdrückt im ersten Teil des «Faust», ist das Wort «Persönlichkeit».
Erst der Goethe, der nach Italien reiste, kann einen Teil des Keimes, der in seine Seele gelegt ist, da entfalten. Er findet einen merkwürdigen Weg auf seiner italienischen Reise. Stufe für Stufe ist er zu verfolgen. Wenn er zuletzt an seine weimarischen Freunde schreibt: «So viel ist gewiß, die alten Künstler haben ebenso große Kenntnis der Natur und eben einen so sicheren Begriff von dem, was sich vorstellen läßt und wie es vorgestellt werden muß, gehabt als Homer. Leider ist die Anzahl der Kunstwerke der ersten Klasse gar zu klein. Wenn man aber auch diese sieht, so hat man nichts zu wünschen, als sie recht zu erkennen und dann in Frieden hinzufahren. Diese hohen Kunstwerke sind zugleich als die höchsten Naturwerke von Menschen nach wahren und natürlichen Gesetzen hervorgebracht worden. Alles Willkürliche, Eingebildete fällt zusammen: da ist Notwendigkeit, da ist Gott.» ... «Ich habe eine Vermutung, daß sie (die Schöpfer dieser Kunstwerke) nach eben den Gesetzen verfuhren, nach welchen die Natur verfährt und denen ich auf der Spur bin» — da zeigt er, daß er nicht bloß der Goethe ist, der von einer abstrakten Sehnsucht erfüllt ist, sondern daß er bereit ist, in hingebungsvoller Art, Schritt für Schritt, das Dasein zu erforschen, daß er in entsagungsvoller Weise auf dem Wege ist, wo sich ihm die Lebensrätsel enthüllen.
Es ist nicht zu verwundern, wenn die Menschen zu nichts kommen können in bezug auf das große geistige Ziel der Menschheit, das sie nur aus einem abstrakten Streben heraus erreichen wollen; die gleich an die höchsten Probleme des Lebens herangehen; die nicht die Neigung haben, die einzelnen Pflanzen, die einzelnen Tiere zu vergleichen, Knochen mit Knochen zu vergleichen; die nicht Schritt für Schritt gefaßt durch die Welt gehen, um in den Einzelheiten den Geist zu finden: bei all denen wird die abstrakte Sehnsucht auch zu nichts führen. Sehen wir uns Goethe an, wie er auf der italienischen Reise Schritt für Schritt dazu kommt, die Urpflanze zu finden, wie er Steine sammelt, wie er sich in emsiger Forscherarbeit dazu vorbereitet hat, wie er nicht gleich sucht, wie «eins ins andere strebt», sondern wie er sich sagt: Willst du einmal eine Ahnung bekommen, wie «eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt, wie Himmelskräfte auf- und niedersteigen und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen», dann sieh einmal, wie ein Wirbel des Rückenmarks sich an den andern heranreiht, ein Knochen sich an den andern heranlegt, eine Kraft der andern die Hand reicht; suche im Kleinsten das Bild des Größten! — Und Goethe wurde schon durch die italienische Reise ein emsiger Student, der alles im einzelnen beobachtete, der im Kleinsten das Größte suchte und sich sagte: wenn der Künstler im Sinne der Griechen verfährt, nämlich «nach den Gesetzen, nach welchen die Natur selbst verfährt», dann liegt in seinen Werken das Göttliche, das in der Natur selbst zu finden ist. - Für Goethe ist die Kunst «eine Manifestation geheimer Naturgesetze». Was der Künstler schafft, sind Naturwerke auf einer höheren Stufe der Vollkommenheit. Kunst ist Fortsetzung und menschlicher Abschluß der Natur. Denn «indem der Mensch auf den Gipfel der Natur gestellt ist, so sieht er sich wieder als eine ganze Natur an, die in sich abermals einen Gipfel hervorzubringen hat. Dazu steigert er sich, indem er sich mit allen Vollkommenheiten und Tugenden durchdringt, Wahl, Ordnung, Harmonie und Bedeutung aufruft und sich endlich bis zur Produktion des Kunstwerkes erhebt.»
Man kann sagen, in scharfen Konturen, in abgeklärten inneren Seelenerlebnissen trat alles in der «Italienischen Reise» vor Goethe hin. Da nahm er dann seinen «Faust» wieder auf, und da sehen wir, wie er versucht, die einzelstehenden Glieder zu verbinden. Wir sehen aber auch, wie er sich jetzt objektiv vertieft in das, was Faust werden könnte innerhalb der nordischen Natur. Ihm trat ja besonders in Italien vor die Seele, wie anders eine Gestalt ist, die sich an Stätten klassischer Bildung erhoben hat. Da sagt er, es sei doch merkwürdig, wie wenig man in Rom höre von Gespenstergeschichten, wie sie im Norden vorkommen. Und wir sehen, wie er dann in der Villa Borghese die «Hexenküche» schreibt, wie einer, der sich schon von dem Ganzen losgelöst hat, aber doch wie einer, der sich wieder erinnert an das, was ihm einstmals der Erdgeist war.
Damals, als er vom Erdgeist zuerst gedichtet hatte, konnte er ihn nur so darstellen, daß sich Faust wegwendet wie ein «furchtsam weggekrümmter Wurm». Aber auch solche Tatsache, daß man sich wegwendet, selbst wenn man es noch nicht begreifen kann, es bleibt doch in der Seele, es wirkt doch weiter. In Goethe hat es weiter gewirkt. Nur die Menschen, die ungeduldig sind und nicht warten können, bis die Keime nach Jahrzehnten aufgehen, nur diese finden sich nicht zurecht. Und jetzt, als Goethe in Italien ist, da weiß er, daß auch ein solches Wegkrümmen vor dem «schrecklichen Gesicht» in der Seele seine Wirkung hat. Jetzt entstehen jene Worte:
Erhabner Geist, du gabst mir, gabst mir alles,
Warum ich bat. Du hast mir nicht umsonst
Dein Angesicht im Feuer zugewendet.
Gabst mir die herrliche Natur zum Königreich,
Kraft, sie zu fühlen, zu genießen. Nicht
Kalt staunenden Besuch erlaubst du nur,
Vergönnest mir, in ihre tiefe Brust
Wie in den Busen eines Freunds zu schauen.
Du führst die Reihe der Lebendigen
Vor mir vorbei und lehrst mich meine Brüder
Im stillen Busch, in Luft und Wasser kennen.
Und wenn der Sturm im Walde braust und knarrt,
Die Riesenfichte stürzend Nachbaräste
Und Nachbarstämme quetschend niederstreift
Und ihrem Fall dumpf hohl der Hügel donnert,
Dann führst du mich zur sichern Höhle, zeigst
Mich dann mir selbst, und meiner eigenen Brust
Geheime, tiefe Wunder öffnen sich.
Vor Goethe steht die Möglichkeit der Menschenseele, sich durch ihre eigene Entwickelung zu einem geistigen Universum zu erweitern. Durch ein hingebungsvolles, gelassen resigniertes Suchen hat Goethe die Früchte jetzt vor seiner Seele, die damals keimend sich einschlichen, als er dem Erdgeist entgegentrat. Was es für ein Ruck vorwärts war, bis diese Früchte in der Seele gereift waren, das zeigt uns insbesondere dieser Monolog in «Wald und Höhle»; er zeigt uns, daß die Keime, die damals in ihn gelegt waren, doch nicht vergeblich gelegt waren. Wie eine Mahnung zur Geduld, zum Warten, bis solche Keime in der Seele reifen, tritt uns das Fragment des «Faust» entgegen, das 1790 mit diesen Stellen erschienen ist. Und nun sehen wir, wie Goethe nach und nach den Weg findet, nachdem er geführt worden ist zur «sichern Höhle», wo des eigenen Herzens geheime tiefe Wunder sich geöffnet haben. Da gewinnt er den Überblick, nicht mehr bloß beim eigenen Leid zu bleiben; da gewinnt er die Möglichkeit, sich über die eigenen Schmerzen zu erheben, in den Makrokosmos hinaus den ahnenden Blick zu senden, die Kämpfe der guten und der bösen Geister zu schauen und den Menschen auf dem Schauplatz ihrer Kämpfe zu sehen. Und im «Faust» des Jahres 1808 schickt er voraus den «Prolog im Himmel»:
Die Sonne tönt nach alter Weise
In Brudersphären Wertgesang,
Und ihre vorgeschriebne Reise
Vollendet sie mit Donnergang.
Wir sehen dann, wie sich die makrokosmischen Mächte, die Kräfte der großen Welt bekämpfen. Wir sehen jetzt aus Erlebnissen der Seele Goethes heraus ein merk würdiges Licht fallen auf die beiden Drachen, die einstmals Goethe in seiner Jugend entgegentraten.
Deshalb ist dieser «Faust» ein solches Weltengedicht, weil er so viele Mahnungen enthält, weil er uns sagt — es ist ein goldenes Wort: Warte im Vertrauen auf die Entfaltung deiner inneren Kräfte, und wenn es noch so lange warten heißt! — Wie eine solche Mahnung klingen auch die Worte, die als «Zueignung» vor dem «Faust» stehen, da, wo Goethe zurückblickt zu jenen «schwankenden Gestalten, die früh sich einst dem trüben Blick gezeigt», die aber jetzt von Klarheit durchflossen sind. Jetzt, nachdem er so lange hat warten müssen, sind diejenigen Freunde, die damals so lebendigen Anteil genommen haben, als er ihnen zuerst den «Faust» in der ersten Gestalt entgegenbrachte, schon gestorben. Und die andern, die nicht gestorben waren, von denen mußte er sich sagen, daß sie weit, weit weg sind. Goethe hat warten müssen in der Entfaltung der Keime, die damals in ihm gelegen haben, so daß jetzt die ergreifenden Worte zu uns klingen:
Mein Leid ertönt der unbekannten Menge,
Ihr Beifall selbst macht meinem Herzen bang,
Und was sich sonst an meinem Lied erfreuet,
Wenn es noch lebt, irrt in der Welt zerstreuet.
Nicht mehr denen gilt es, die in der Jugend mit ihm gefühlt haben, Er hat warten müssen, wie es die zwei letzten Zeilen dieser Zueignung so schön ausdrücken: Was mir einst wirklich war, es entschwand zur Unwirklichkeit; was aber davon mir geblieben ist und was der äußeren Anschauung als Unwirklichkeit erschien, jetzt ist es mir Wahrheit, jetzt kann ich es erst in die Formen gießen, in denen es als Wahrheit erscheint.
So sehen wir, wie uns gerade dieses Gedicht, auch wenn man es nur äußerlich betrachtet, wie wir es heute taten, in die Tiefen der Menschenseele hineinführt. «Faust» war begonnen in dieser Art von Fortsetzungen, die immer nur Teile zwischen die andern schoben. Da konnte Goethe nicht das zeigen, was er in seiner Seele inzwischen erlebt hatte. Daß Goethe im «Faust» auch seine tiefsten Seelenerlebnisse zum Ausdruck brachte, dazu führte noch etwas anderes.
Zu den ersten Partien des «Faust», die Goethe xeschrieben hat, gehört auch die Helena-Szene. Aber wir sehen, daß sie nicht einmal 1808 in den «Faust» hineingekommen ist. Warum nicht? Weil sie so, wie Goethe den «Faust» damals fertig hatte, sich nicht hineingestalten ließ. Was Goethe mit der Helena sagen wollte, war der Ausdruck einer so tiefen Ahnung der tiefsten Rätsel des Daseins, daß der ganze erste Teil nicht ausreichte, um es da hineinzustellen. Erst im hohen Alter war Goethe imstande, nunmehr das, was seine eigentliche innere Lebensarbeit war, auch wirklich zu gestalten.
So sehen wir, wie sich ihm der Blick eröffnet hat bis zu den makrokosmischen Welten, wie er sie ausdrückt im «Prolog im Himmel». Wir wollen aber auch noch sehen, wie Goethe den Weg darzustellen weiß, die Stufen der Seelenerlebnisse, die den Menschen führen von den ersten Stufen bis hinauf zum imaginativen Anschauen, wo die Seele, indem sie immer tiefer und tiefer eindringt, die Tore der geistigen Welt sprengt, die Mephistopheles verschließen will. Auch diese inneren Erlebnisse stellt Goethe dar. Weil er dies, was die Seele in geistiger, geheimwissenschaftlicher Schulung erleben kann, realistisch im zweiten Teil des «Faust» darstellt, sehen wir darin die tiefsten Daseinsrätsel, das, was uns geradezu, wenn es erkannt wird, als eine abendländische Verkündigung der Geisteswissenschaft im grandiosen Stil entgegentritt. Man ist versucht, eine solche Dichtung wie etwa die «Bhagavad Gita» neben den zweiten Teil des «Faust» zu stellen. Große, gewaltige Weistümer sprechen aus solchen morgenländischen Schriften. Da ist es, als wenn die Götter selber zu den Menschen sprechen und jene Weisheit zum Ausdruck bringen wollten, aus der sie die Welt gestaltet haben. Gewiß, so ist es. Nun aber, blicken wir auf den zweiten Teil des «Faust», so sehen wir das an den Menschen selbst herangebracht. Wir sehen die strebende Menschenseele, die sich aus der äußeren sinnlichen Anschauung zur Höhe des geistigen Schauens hinauferhebt, sehen, wie sich die Seele zur wahren Hellsichtigkeit hinaufarbeitet, da, wo Faust in die geistige Welt hineintritt und ihn der geistige Chorus umgibt:
Tönend wird für Geistesohren
Schon der neue Tag geboren.
Felsentore knarren rasselnd,
Phöbus Räder rollen prasselnd,
Welch Getöse bringt das Licht!
Es trommetet, es posaunet,
Auge blinzt und Ohr erstaunet,
Unerhörtes hört sich nicht.
bis zu der Stelle, wo Faust äußerlich erblindet, so daß die äußere Welt als seine Wahrnehmung versinkt, und er sich doch sagen muß: «Allein im Innern leuchtet helles Licht!», bis zu jener Stelle, wo die Seele sich hinaufarbeitet zu den Sphären des Weltendaseins, wo die geistigen Welten in ihrer Reinheit zu treffen sind, wo die Weltenrätsel sich der Seele enthüllen. Das ist ein Weg, den wir als einen esoterischen bezeichnen müssen.
Wie man aus dem äußeren in das innere Leben der Goetheschen Weltenrätsel dringt, das werden wir morgen sehen. Morgen werden wir sehen, aus welchen Tiefen heraus Goethe das Wort gesprochen hat, das ihm endlich Gewißheit gab über alle Sehnsuchten, über alle Leiden und Schmerzen seines Lebens- und Erkenntnisstrebens:
Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
Den können wir erlösen;
Und hat an ihm die Liebe gar
Von oben Teil genommen,
Begegnet ihm die selige Schar
Mit herzlichem Willkommen.
Wie Goethe diese Daseinsrätsel löst und zeigt, wie das, was in der Seele lebt, hinaufsteigen kann zu seiner wahren Heimat, das soll uns die morgige Betrachtung zeigen. Antwort soll sie uns geben auf das, was Goethe als seine Daseinsrätsel hinstellt, und worüber er uns am Ende des zweiten Teiles des «Faust» so hoffnungsvoll Antwort gibt:
Gerettet ist das edle Glied
Der Geisterwelt vom Bösen:
Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
Den können wir erlösen.
Damit sagt er uns: Faust kann gerettet werden! Und nicht siegen sollen die Geister, die den Menschen hineinbringen in das bloß Materielle und damit in die Vernichtung.
The Mysteries in Goethe's “Faust” Exoteric
It was in August 1831 that Goethe sealed a package and handed it to his loyal secretary Eckermann, making a testamentary disposition for the publication of the sealed treasure. For this package contained, in a comprehensive sense, Goethe's entire life's work. It contained the second part of Goethe's Faust, which was to be published only after Goethe's death. Goethe himself was aware that he had poured the contents of his rich, wide-ranging life, which delved into the depths of human existence, into this work; and just how significant this moment was for him can be seen from the words he spoke at that time. He said: Now I have actually completed my life's work; what I continue to do, and whether I do anything at all, is irrelevant!
When one allows such a fact to sink into one's soul, one says to oneself: In a more beautiful and harmonious way, it is actually not easy to make a human life fruitful for the rest of humanity, and, what is essential, to make it consciously fruitful. And it is deeply moving when one follows Goethe's life from this point on—it lasted less than a year—and lets such a fact sink in, such as the fact that he visited Ilmenau once more and reread those beautiful verses he had written on September 7, 1783, in his youth, so to speak:
Above all peaks
There is peace,
In all the treetops
You can feel
Hardly a breath of wind;
The birds are silent in the forest.
Just wait, soon
You too will rest.
One might well say: even if these verses may have expressed a momentary mood in his youth, they took on a new meaning in the overall picture of Goethe's life when he reread them in his twilight years, moved to tears.
Goethe's “Faust” is truly a literary and intellectual testament of the highest order to humanity. What Goethe completed in 1831, after working energetically on this second part of “Faust” since 1824, had begun in Goethe's earliest youth. For we see how, from the beginning of the 1770s, Goethe felt in his soul what could be called the Faustian mood, and how he then began to write down the first parts of his Faust in 1774. And at the important moments of his life, he always returned to this poem of his entire existence.
It strikes us as strange: he brings the first parts of Faust with him to Weimar, as he enters the big world in his own way. They did not appear there, of course, but thanks to a copy of the Faust that he brought with him, preserved by a Weimar court lady, Fräulein von Göchhausen, we still have today the form of Faust as it was in the poem when Goethe arrived in Weimar. We are familiar with the form in which Faust was first published in 1790, and then with the version that appeared in 1808 in the first complete edition of Goethe's works. Everything we have about Faust, including that significant document that Goethe left behind as his testament, shows us the different stages of Goethe's development. For it is infinitely interesting to observe how, in their entire inner essence, these four stages of Goethe's Faust creation appear to us in different ways, how they signify an ascent of Goethe's entire life's endeavor.
What Goethe brought with him to Weimar was a literary work of a very personal nature, into which he poured the moods, the stages of recognition and also of despair at recognition that had accompanied him during his time in Frankfurt, in Strasbourg and also in his early days in Weimar. a work by a man who ardently strives for knowledge, ardently strives to empathize with life, who has gone through everything that a sincere and honest seeker can experience in terms of despair and has poured it into this work. All of this is contained in the first version of Faust. And when Faust appeared as a fragment in 1790, it had been reworked and refined by a Goethe who, following a deep longing in his soul, had clarified his entire striving and inner life by observing Italian nature and Italian works of art. The personal work of a man tossed about by the storms of life has become the work of a man who has attained a certain degree of serenity and now has a perspective on life that stands before his soul in a very definite way.
Then came the time of Goethe's connection with Schiller, the time when Goethe learned to recognize and experience within himself a world that had long been latent in him, a world that can be said to be experienced by those whose spiritual eyes have been opened to see the spiritual environment. Now the personality of Faust becomes for him a being placed between two worlds: between the world of the spiritual, to which man aspires through his purification, through his ennoblement, and the world that pulls him down. Faust becomes a being placed between the world of good and the world of evil. Whereas before in Faust we saw the struggling personality life of the individual, we now see before our soul a great battle between the forces of good and evil for the human being, who is placed in the world battle as the most worthy object for which the good and evil beings in the world fight. And while at the very beginning of Faust we are presented with a human being who despairs of knowledge, we now encounter a human being who is placed between heaven and hell, and with this the poem is essentially raised to a higher level of existence. It is as if millennia of human development resonate in the form in which Faust appears to us in 1808. We are reminded of the most magnificent dramatic portrayal of human life that ancient times produced, the Book of Job – how the evil spirit roams among mankind and then approaches God, and God says to him: You have been wandering on earth; have you paid attention to my servant Job? What we hear there resounds again in the poetry that confronts us in Faust. In the “Prologue in Heaven,” God converses with Mephistopheles, the emissary of evil spirits:
“Do you know Faust?” — “The doctor?” — “My servant!”
Thus, in what Goethe has presented in order to show his entire Faust enigma in the right light, we hear an echo of what we encounter in the Book of Job: Do you know my servant Job?
Then Goethe's rich life continues, delving deeper into human existence, something the world today has very little inkling of. And after expressing in various ways in this or that work what he had experienced in his soul, he then, looking back on his entire life, takes it up again in 1824 and now describes Faust's passage through the great world, but in such a way that the second part now becomes entirely a character study of inner human soul development.
Looking at the first part, we must say: what is described there by an aspiring soul is infinitely true to life and realistic. Everything we encounter in the first part, especially in the sections written first, is of a deep, deep natural truth, but some of what is expressed there still sounds to us like a kind of theory, as if someone were talking about things that he has not yet fully experienced in his own soul.
And now the second part: here everything is the innermost experience of one's own soul. There are the highest experiences of a spiritual nature, through which man ascends the stages of existence, penetrates the physical world and enters where the human soul unites with the spirituality of the world, merges with it and sustains itself with the world, in which it finds space and light and that which gives it freedom, dignity, and independence. All this is contained as the most personal, innermost experience in this second part of Goethe's “Faust.”
The time will come when Goethe's “Faust” will be viewed quite differently than it is today, when people will better understand what Goethe meant when he said to Eckermann on January 29, 1827: “But everything is sensual and, when conceived for the theater, will be easily understood by everyone. And that is all I wanted. If only the audience enjoys the performance, the initiated will not fail to grasp the higher meaning...”
While the first part still seems theoretical to us in some respects, not fully developed in terms of real life, the second part is one of the most realistic, one of the most deeply realistic works in world literature. For everything in the second part of Faust has been experienced, not with physical eyes and physical ears, but with spiritual eyes and spiritual ears. This is also the reason why this second part has been so little understood. People have seen symbols and allegories in what, for the spiritual researcher, for those who can experience it in the spiritual worlds, is something much truer and more real than what the outer physical eyes see and the outer physical ears hear. Truly, much can be expected from such a work, and considering some of what lies within this work will be the task of today's and tomorrow's lectures. Today we will focus more on the external side, and tomorrow we will show how Goethe's Faust poem is, in the true sense of the word, a picture of an inner, esoteric worldview of life and the world. Step by step, we will try to penetrate the inner world and look behind the curtain behind which Goethe lived the deepest secrets of his life.
Goethe already had a Faustian mood when he was a student in Leipzig. We know that during his time in Leipzig he faced death due to an illness. Much of what can move the human soul passed through Goethe's soul at that time. But many other things had also taken place within him. He had become acquainted with the way in which external science views life. In Leipzig, he had paid little attention to his actual field of study; he had turned his attention to many other sciences, especially natural science. Goethe never lost his firm belief that it is precisely through natural science that one can see into the deeper mysteries of existence, but during his time in Leipzig in particular, he was repeatedly confronted with what external science had to say and offer, and he despaired. In many respects, it was a jumble of concepts, a fragmented observation of nature. Nowhere could he find what he had sought as a boy when, at the age of seven, he took a music stand, placed minerals from his father's collection, plants, and other geological products on it, took a small incense cone and a magnifying glass, and waited for morning to come. And when the first rays of the morning sun came in, he took the magnifying glass and let the sun's rays fall on the incense cone, and in this way, on the altar he had offered to the “great god of nature,” he kindled a fire that was to come from the origins and sources of existence itself. But how far removed these sources of existence must have been from what Goethe encountered in philosophy, natural science, and the various branches of knowledge at the university! How far removed were these “sources of all life” from all such pursuits!
Now Goethe came to Frankfurt, came together with thoughtful people who, above all, through a developed spiritual life, possessed something of the confluence of the human inner life with the spirituality weaving and living through the world, people who felt in the fullest sense what Goethe expresses in the words: “The self expands into a spiritual universe.” Even then, in Frankfurt, he was overcome by the mood: beyond the mere pursuit of concepts! Beyond the mere material of sensory observation! There must be a way to the sources of existence! – And he came into contact with what could be called alchemical, mystical, and theosophical literature. He also conducted practical alchemical experiments himself. He himself recounts how he came across a work in which many at that time were seeking similar paths: Wellings' “Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum,” a work that was then regarded as a way to recognize the sources of existence. He gradually became acquainted with Paracelsus, Basilius Valentinus, and above all with a work that, in its very nature, must have made a deep impression on all seekers: the Aurea Catena Homeri. This was a representation of nature as the medieval mystics believed they saw it. What Goethe encountered in these mystical, alchemical, and theosophical works must have made the same impression on him as it would make today on someone with similar aspirations who, for example, picks up books by Eliphas Levy or similarly minded authors. Yes, these things must have made an even more confusing impression on Goethe at that time, because the presentation of the various writings dealing with magic, theosophy, and so on was such that, although secrets were hidden behind the outer symbols, they were actually no longer understood by those who had written these books.
Because it was impossible to express its immediate greatness and significance, what was once a real, ancient wisdom that lived in human souls was clothed in an external, insubstantial garb, in all kinds of physical and chemical formulas. For those who saw only what was written in the books, they gave the impression of being utter nonsense, and at that time there was hardly any way to uncover the secrets and penetrate their meaning. But one must not overlook the fact that Goethe, out of the depth of his quest for knowledge, was a prescient spirit. And so, when he opened the Aurea Catena Homeri and saw the very first page, it must have struck him as strange when he saw a symbol that had a profound effect on his soul: two intertwined triangles, with the signs of the planets beautifully drawn at the corners, a flying dragon winding around them in a circle, and below, a strangely solidified dragon, solidifying within itself - and when he then read the words that were to be found on the first page, how the fleeting dragon symbolizes the current that always instills in the solid dragon those forces that flow down from the universe, or how heaven and earth are connected, in other words, as it says there: “How the spiritual powers of heaven pour into the center of the earth.”
Such mysterious signs and words must have had a profound effect on Goethe. Those, for example, that represented the entire history of the world, as they said, “from chaos to what is called the universal quintessence.” — a remarkable transition in strangely interlocking signs from chaotic matter, which is still undifferentiated, through the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, up to man and those perspectives toward which man is evolving, in ever greater refinement.
But it was not easy to penetrate the deeper meaning. And so Goethe left Frankfurt at that time in a mood that can be described as follows: I have found nothing! What natural scientists can give me are dry, sober concepts, something from which all real life-giving water has been squeezed out. Now I have wandered around here among many of the things that have been preserved for us from times that claimed to look into the secrets of life. But the path, the path is despairing! - Such was indeed sometimes the mood of Goethe's soul. He was certainly not inclined to engage with what so wonderfully and mysteriously affected him in these old books through facile speculation and facile philosophizing, through wild symbolism and sensuality. They looked at him with their secrets like something he could not find his way to. For those who know Goethe's soul, the seed was already there at that time, the seed to truly penetrate the mysteries of existence, but it was only to unfold later. And so Goethe felt as if he had been pushed away, as if he were unworthy of entering into the mysteries of existence.
Now he came to Strasbourg. There he met people who interested him from one side or the other. He got to know Jung-Stilling, who had a deeply mystical, “psychic” disposition, who, through the development of peculiar powers otherwise dormant in the human soul, had gained deep insights into the hidden sides of existence. In Strasbourg, he met Herder, who had gone through similar moods and who, in times of despair, had often come to completely reject life. In Herder, Goethe met a man who suffered from weariness of existence and who said something like the following: I have studied a great deal and have discovered many things about the connection between human activity and human striving on earth. — But he could not say to himself: I have never had a single moment when my longing for the sources of life has been satisfied! He was sick of it, and so he was inclined to deny everything possible with harsh criticism. Nevertheless, it was Herder who drew Goethe's attention to many depths of the mysteries of existence. Goethe met a truly Faustian man in Herder. And Goethe later met the side of the negator that does not come out of mockery and scorn in his friend Merck. Even Goethe's mother, whom we know rejected all moralizing and criticism of people, said of Merck: Yes, this Merck can never really leave Mephistopheles at home; one is already accustomed to that in him. Goethe came to know in Merck a denier of much that is desirable in life.
In contrast to all these impressions that Goethe received from the people of Strasbourg, it was nature that revealed to him many of the mysteries of existence. At the same time, we must think of Goethe as a man with a penetrating, sharp mind, not as an impractical person. Goethe became a lawyer, as is well known. He only practiced this profession for a short time. But anyone familiar with Goethe's work as a lawyer or later as a minister in Weimar knows that he had an eminently practical mind. As a lawyer, he knew little more than the law books he had memorized, but he was a man who could quickly assess the situation before him. Such a person also knows how to draw the lines of life with sharp contours. Thus, Goethe appears to us with the ability, on the one hand, to have the sharpest concepts about the world and, on the other hand, to feel in the deepest way the suffering of an unsatisfied thirst for knowledge. He appears to us as someone who sought the deepest things and was rejected by them. And then there was something else.
Goethe experienced a mood that can be described as follows: he knew what it meant to feel guilty! He felt guilty towards the simple country girl Friederike in Sesenheim, in whom he had awakened so many hopes and feelings, and whom he then had to leave. All of this intersected in the strangest way in Goethe's soul, and out of all these moods, a poetic figure took shape, based on his observation of the character who could have encountered him at every turn at that time: the character of Faust, that remarkable personality who lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, that Faust who then became the subject of numerous folk plays and puppet shows, who also attained literary significance through Christopher Marlowe, and who at that time actually became a living problem for many poets, such as Lessing, for example, and also for Goethe. How did it come about that Goethe linked his own suffering and his own moods to this figure of Faust?
Faust, it is said, lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, a time when many things were decided for history. If one compares this period with the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when people led a life of knowledge, one finds these times very different. In the twelfth century, it was possible for those minds that penetrated what the times offered them to reconcile this with what they could find in their own souls. When they raised their spiritual gaze to what reigned in the divine heights as the creative force of the world, and when they formed concepts about it, it was possible for them to connect with what they knew from external natural science. What the souls learned there was like a series of steps: at the bottom, on the lowest step, what one learns as a physicist; on the next step, what one learns about the higher mysteries of existence, about the hidden side of existence that the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear were able to reach; and again, on the highest steps, the steps of divine existence were recognized in lofty, fine, crystal-clear concepts, which were, however, full of life and effective on the soul, and everything was connected.
Even if today we look down on the spirits of that time with a shrug of the shoulders, it is a path that suffers no interruption anywhere. If, for example, one takes the path of knowledge of Albertus Magnus, which begins at the lowest level of nature and ends in the contemplation of God — these are not concepts that are dry and sober, but concepts that warm the soul and illuminate the heart. That was gone in the days when Faust lived. There were the concepts coined by a theologian about the stages of divine existence, which were also abstract, that is, mentally abstracted, but dry and sober. They were concepts that could be studied, into which reason and intellect could immerse themselves. But nowhere did reason find the possibility of connecting these concepts to the living existence around us, nor anywhere the possibility of making the soul light and the heart warm. And then it came to pass that science, which had been mysticism, magic, theosophy, and which dealt with things that could be perceived with spiritual eyes and spiritual ears, was in complete decline, primarily because printing had brought much of what had previously been hidden in manuscripts into the public domain, where it was taken up by minds that did not understand it and saw in it nothing more than something they had to imitate. All sorts of humbug and nonsense were thus carried on in the laboratories. What should have been experienced in a spiritual way, for which what was written in the books were only external formulas, but which had a deep meaning, was taken literally. All kinds of things were done with formulas and in retorts, and the result was that at that time, what is called ‘theosophy, magic, occultism’ came dangerously close to what is called fraud and charlatanism.
It is true that, in a certain sense, the ascent into the spiritual worlds is fraught with danger, and that those whose aspirations are not pure, whose intellect and reason are not refined, who cannot arrive at pure, non-sensual concepts in their thinking, can easily stumble and fall into this abyss. And so it could happen that those who still knew something or studied the writings of the mystics with ardent effort did not find the way, or, because they could not find it, fell prey to fraud and charlatanism. But the opposite could also happen: that amid many misunderstandings among the people, this striving was denounced as sorcery, that Tritheim von Sponheim, Agrippa von Nettesheim, and many others who honestly and sincerely researched spiritual forces in nature were portrayed as black magicians and swindlers, as people who had strayed from the good path laid out by the old religion.
The life of Faust in the sixteenth century fell into this period, a time that in many ways saw the twilight of an old intellectual movement, but which was also the dawn of a completely new era, an era that produced such stars as Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Copernicus, and so on. Some periods are called times of transition. But of all times, none deserves this name more than the time of Faust.
From all we know, the character of Faust was one who deeply felt the inadequacy of the studies of the spiritual world at that time. Faust had also studied theology, turned away from it, and now sought the sources of existence in the last remnants of medieval magic and the like. And because the figure of Faust is best understood as oscillating between the honest pursuit of knowledge and the boundaries that cross over into charlatanism, it is also better if we leave him in this light and do not even attempt to grasp him with sharp contours. For even the intellectual current itself did not grasp him as he really was; rather, all the striving that existed among the people themselves was now perceived as the outer garment of this figure of Faust of the sixteenth century. Thus he appears to us in legendary form or in drama as a man who had fallen away from the old traditions of religion, from theology, who had surrendered himself to a pursuit—as was believed from an increasingly narrow-minded view—that could never lead to anything good in life. The entire worldview of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries is expressed in the words written about Faust in the folk book: He placed the Holy Scriptures “behind the door and under the bench — no longer wanted to be called a theologian, became a man of the world, called himself a D. Medicinae.”
These words expressed what people thought and felt about Faust. They felt that he was searching within his own breast for the source that led to the depths of life and its origins, that he wanted to free himself from the old traditions in his own way. Even what had been preserved about this figure in folk plays and puppet shows was hardly suitable for conveying much more than Faust's outward appearance. But everything that remained of the Faust tradition had such an effect on Goethe that he was able to entrust to this figure what lived within himself as a striving for life and a thirst for knowledge. And so we see how, in the 1770s, he began to objectify himself in the figure of Faust. He deposited all that was unsatisfactory, all the suffering that arose from an unsatisfied thirst for knowledge, in this Faust figure. When we look at Faust's first monologue, we see in the fullest sense of the word what we characterized at the beginning of today's reflection: we see the man who has devoted himself completely to external science, who is desperate and who is close to completely destroying his life, to shattering his thirst for knowledge. We see how he grasps the old books. Goethe calls it the book of Nostradamus, but anyone who is well versed in the literature of magic, which Goethe also knew at the time, will easily recognize what Goethe meant by the book in which Faust sees the sign of the macrocosm. He has him say about it:
How heavenly powers ascend and descend
And pass the golden buckets to one another!
With wings fragrant with blessings
They penetrate from heaven through the earth,
Harmoniously resounding throughout the universe!
And then what follows these words, like a description of feelings, that he is filled with delight at the sight of this leaf—in all this we recognize what had an effect on Goethe at that time. Such moods and mental images could pour into Goethe's soul, and he could write them down with such truth when he stood before that strange symbol of the two intertwined triangles and the two dragons, the upper spiritual and the lower physical, where the signs of the planets stand at the corners of the intertwined triangles, whose forces interpenetrate each other, so that one really has the golden shining planets before one like golden buckets, between which the forces flow, harmoniously resonating through the universe.
When one considers such things, one has Goethe's soul before one with all its deep and honest thirst for knowledge, and then one almost doubts whether one should put all this into sharp concepts and speculate a lot about it. One would like to place such a fact before the soul, so that a soul that has a feeling for such things can have an infinite amount of it. But anyone who knows how life develops through the ages knows how justified it is to say, in the face of such deep soul struggles: Yes, Goethe was one of those in whose soul the seed was first planted, a seed that could only mature and bear fruit much, much later. We see, as it were, the seeds of what later blossomed so magnificently in “Faust.” And many lessons for life may be drawn from this by those who have a certain urge toward Spiritual Science.
Today, unfortunately, such striving is taken far too superficially. Today, people approach it quickly, and then they are also very quick to finish with it once they have a few concepts in their souls. Only those who can look back on the time twenty or thirty years ago, when a fluidum poured into their soul, when many things accumulated around it, when many things approached them, when years and experiences followed, know what mysteries there are. and only thirty years later is what has poured into his soul ripe enough to receive even an approximate answer. We cannot look deeply enough at Goethe's life from this point of view, and we see how the mood that Goethe himself was able to feel towards the “Aurea Catena Homeri,” the “golden chain of Homer,” lingers; we see it expressed when he bursts out in the words of Faust: "What a spectacle! “ Yes, it is a mighty spectacle when the soul delves into these images without having even the slightest idea of what they are. It is a spectacle. But does it remain a mere inkling?
Then the words necessarily follow: ”But alas! Only a spectacle!" Goethe did not yet understand these profound words at that time; but his soul already sensed that “all that is transitory is only a parable!” And as if in pain, he might have said to himself when he saw the strange figures before him:
No matter how artificial the figures one draws, they are still external symbols!
What a spectacle! But alas! Only a spectacle!
Where do I grasp you, infinite nature?
Every turn of phrase deeply felt: only a spectacle, that which the great world depicts. But he had delved into many of the mysteries of natural science, and he had come to know what that profound experience gives to man when he must say to himself: “You have become guilty!” He had lived through that. So he could hope to feel more when he contemplated the other signs that are more closely connected to immediate human life. This mood is also expressed in Faust. The book is turned over. In place of the sign of the great world comes the sign of the small world, the pentagram and what surrounds it, and before Goethe's soul appears the magic word which, when used correctly, can awaken certain dormant powers. Yes, Goethe did indeed have an inkling that something like this exists, as has been characterized here, that there are dormant powers in the human soul. Goethe knew that by looking at certain symbols and mental images, man can awaken dormant powers within himself, so that he can look into the spiritual world.
He believed that he was touched by what is close to the human soul itself, what is expressed in the symbol of the small world. He has his Faust utter the words through which, in fact, when human beings surrender themselves to deep, inner meditation, certain inner experiences occur. He has his Faust utter these words, and the “earth spirit” appears, the spirit that animates the earth and enables human beings to become and flourish on earth from the general stream of life and the world. Goethe understood wonderfully how to compress into a few words all that is the mystery of the Earth Spirit, this Earth Spirit that relates to the whole earth in much the same way as the individual human soul, the human spirit, relates to the physical body of the human being; that is, so to speak, the ruler of all natural human becoming and flourishing and all historical becoming. It has no visible form, but those who open their spiritual eyes can encounter it and see it, so that they know that such a spirit of the earth exists. Goethe characterizes what it is in such a wonderful way:
In the floods of life, in the storm of deeds
I surge up and down,
Weaving back and forth!
Birth and grave,
An eternal sea,
A changing weaving,
A glowing life,
So I create on the whirring loom of time
And weave the living garment of the deity.
One could delve into every word of this formula and find that what Goethe characterizes is truly experienced by those who, through the development of their soul, ascend to the corresponding stages of existence. But what happens is what you all know: Faust does not feel and cannot feel himself equal to what is revealed there. He does not know the way to the mysterious depths of existence. For him, what lives and weaves “in the floods of life, in the storm of deeds” is a “terrible face.” He cannot bear it. He turns away and must hear the words:
You resemble the spirit you comprehend,
Not me!
Based on ancient traditions, he believed he was “an image of the deity,” and now he has to say to himself: Not even you!
“You resemble the spirit you comprehend.” If only people could feel this saying! That Goethe felt it is shown by the whole situation in the first part of “Faust.” Man can recognize nothing more than what he himself has developed into. “As a man is, so is his God,” Goethe said on another occasion. And it is like a confession by Goethe that he has not yet found the way to the sources of existence, a confession that he makes here at this point in Faust. When we look at this first figure of Faust, we see how Goethe himself has difficulty depicting the connection between his world and the spiritual world to which he aspires. Without any real transition, the first Faust immediately follows with Mephistopheles' encounter with the student. What is Mephistopheles?
Those who know the way into the spiritual worlds know that Mephistopheles really exists as one of the two tempters whom man encounters when he enters the spiritual realm when they seek the path into the spiritual world. There are two forces or powers that human beings encounter. One force is what we call the Luciferic force, which affects human beings more inwardly, in the center of their soul, and drives their passions, instincts, desires, and so on down a degree into the personal, into the base. Everything that affects the human being himself, that affects the human being in his innermost being, is Luciferic. But because the human being has once been seized by this Luciferic principle in his development through the world, he has been delivered to another principle. If human beings had never been seized by this Luciferic principle, then the outside world would never confront them in a merely material form; then the outside world would confront human beings in such a way that human beings could say from the outset that everything outside is an expression, a physiognomy of the spirit. Human beings would see the spirit behind everything material and sensual. But because everything material has been condensed by the influence of the Luciferic force, what deceives man in the external world with the illusion of external materiality has also mixed itself into the external view; it is what shows man the external world in the form of Maya or illusion, as if it were not the external physiognomic expression of the spirit.
Zarathustra was the first to recognize the full depth of this force that shows humans the external world in a false form. Under the name “Ahriman,” Zarathustra first portrayed the figure that opposes the God of Light. Zarathustra calls this opponent of the god of light Ahriman, and for all those who followed Zarathustra's culture, Ahriman then became that deceptive form which, in contrast to everything else that man would otherwise see in transparent spiritual clarity, is permeated with smoke and fog to create illusion. If one wanted to express it particularly harshly, this figure, who corrupted man by forcing him into the shackles of matter and lying to him about the true nature of the material world, was called Mephistopheles. This is how this figure was called in Hebrew, where “mephiz” means the corrupter and “topel” means the liar. And this figure then crossed over into the West, into the medieval figure of Mephistopheles. In the Faust books, we see Faust confronted with this power, which is also called the “old serpent.”
Goethe became acquainted with this Mephistopheles. The later Faust tradition was then no longer able to distinguish properly between the figures of Lucifer and Mephistopheles. In the times that followed the sixteenth century, people no longer had a clear mental image of these figures. People no longer knew how Lucifer and Ahriman differed; everything flowed together into the figure of the devil or Satan. So they both flowed together without distinction, and because people knew nothing at all about the spiritual world, they did not make any particular distinction. Goethe, however, contrasted all this with Mephistopheles, who is conveyed through the outer senses, through the human intellect, which is accustomed to using a physical brain as an instrument, as a view of the outer world. The human being who appeals only to this capacity of the ordinary intellect was, as it were, like another self of the human being striving upward into the spiritual world.
Thus, for Goethe, everything that appealed to the mere intellect, as in Merck or Herder, was wonderfully represented in the figure of Mephistopheles, who does not believe in a world of good or consider it meaningful and important. In Goethe himself, there was this second self that could doubt the spiritual world, and Goethe sometimes felt caught in the conflict that we might call the Mephistophelean power. He felt caught between this evil power that stirred in his soul and his soul's truly honest striving for spiritual heights. Goethe felt these two forces in his soul. Goethe did not yet know how to relate to the spiritual world. He was still far removed from the experience that we then encounter in such a magnificent way in the second part of Faust.
The inner man striving for spiritual heights, who is captivated by an illusion in what Mephistopheles leads people to believe, is opposed in the second part of Faust, in the scene of the “Walk to the Mothers,” Mephistopheles, the representative of everything that can be found through the intellect bound to material, external science. He stands there with the keys. Certainly, this science is good; it leads to the gate of the spiritual world. But Mephistopheles cannot enter, and he describes what Faust must enter as “nothingness.” What Mephistopheles says here echoes in a classically grandiose way what the materialistic spirit of people today also throws in the face of those who, out of Spiritual Science, strive to explore the fundamental principles of existence. They say to him: You are a dreamer and a fantasist! We will not engage with what you, dreamer, tell us about the spiritual foundations of things. That is not for us! — And the spiritual scientist may quite rightly reply, as Faust replies to Mephistopheles: “In your nothingness I hope to find the universe!”
But Goethe, in the experience of his youth, when he “first burst out with Faust,” is still far from such clarity of soul. He does not yet know how he should actually have Mephistopheles approach Faust. In Urfaust, Mephistopheles is present as Goethe experienced him as a downward-pulling force, mockingly indulging himself in the student scene. It was only later that Goethe found the mediation in which Mephistopheles gradually approaches Faust in his changing guises.
Then we see where Faust is dragged down by Mephistopheles in the scene in “Auerbach's Cellar,” where he plunges into the vortex of sensuality, beginning the path that leads Faust to guilt. The fragment published in 1790 did not yet contain the conclusion, the dungeon scene. Goethe had kept it back. But it was already there in the first fragment, the harrowing dungeon scene. Into this, into everything we call the “Gretchen tragedy,” Goethe placed the side of his life that is expressed in the words: I have become guilty! — What Goethe expresses in the first part of “Faust” is the word “personality.”
Only Goethe, who traveled to Italy, can unfold part of the seed that is planted in his soul. He finds a strange path on his Italian journey. It can be traced step by step. When he finally writes to his friends in Weimar: "This much is certain: the ancient artists had just as much knowledge of nature and just as sure a concept of what can be imagined and how it must be imagined as Homer. Unfortunately, the number of first-class works of art is far too small. But when one sees them, one has nothing left to wish for but to recognize them properly and then depart in peace. These great works of art were created by humans according to true and natural laws, just as the greatest works of nature were created. Everything arbitrary and conceited falls away: there is necessity, there is God." ... “I have a suspicion that they (the creators of these works of art) proceeded according to the very laws that nature proceeds according to and which I am tracing” — here he shows that he is not merely the Goethe who is filled with an abstract longing, but that he is ready, in a devoted manner, step by step, to explore existence, that he is on the path, in a self-denying manner, where the mysteries of life are revealed to him.
It is not surprising that people cannot achieve anything in relation to the great spiritual goal of humanity, which they want to achieve only out of an abstract striving; who approach the highest problems of life immediately; who do not have the inclination to compare individual plants, individual animals, to compare bones with bones; who do not go through the world step by step, calmly, in order to find the spirit in the details: for all of them, abstract longing will also lead to nothing. Let us look at Goethe, how he gradually comes to find the primordial plant on his Italian journey, how he collects stones, how he has prepared himself for this in diligent research work, how he does not search immediately, how “one thing strives into another,” but how he says to himself: If you want to get an idea of how “one thing works and lives in another, how heavenly forces ascend and descend and pass the golden buckets to one another,” then look at how one vertebra of the spinal cord joins to another, one bone lies next to another, one force reaches out to another; seek the image of the greatest in the smallest! — And Goethe, already through his Italian journey, became a diligent student who observed everything in detail, who sought the greatest in the smallest and said to himself: if the artist proceeds in the sense of the Greeks, namely “according to the laws by which nature itself proceeds,” then the divine, which is to be found in nature itself, lies in his works. For Goethe, art is “a manifestation of secret laws of nature.” What the artist creates are works of nature on a higher level of perfection. Art is the continuation and human completion of nature. For "since man is placed at the summit of nature, he sees himself again as a whole nature, which must once more produce a summit within itself. To this end, he elevates himself by imbuing himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art."
It can be said that everything in Goethe's “Italian Journey” appeared before him in sharp contours and serene inner spiritual experiences. He then resumed work on his “Faust,” and we see how he attempts to connect the individual parts. But we also see how he now objectively delves into what Faust could become within Nordic nature. In Italy in particular, it struck him how different a figure is who has risen in places of classical education. He says that it is strange how little one hears in Rome about ghost stories, as they occur in the north. And we see how he then writes “The Witch's Kitchen” in the Villa Borghese, like someone who has already detached himself from the whole, but still like someone who remembers what the Earth Spirit once was to him.
Back when he first wrote about the Earth Spirit, he could only portray it in such a way that Faust turns away like a “fearfully curled worm.” But even the fact that one turns away, even if one cannot yet comprehend it, remains in the soul and continues to have an effect. It continued to have an effect on Goethe. Only those who are impatient and cannot wait for the seeds to sprout after decades, only they cannot find their way. And now, when Goethe is in Italy, he knows that even such turning away from the “terrible face” has an effect on the soul. Now those words arise:
Sublime spirit, you gave me, gave me everything,
Why I asked. You did not turn your face to me in vain
In the fire.
You gave me the glorious kingdom of nature,
The power to feel it, to enjoy it. Not
You only allow cold, astonished visitors,
You grant me to look into its deep bosom
As into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the ranks of the living
Past me and teach me to know my brothers
In the silent bush, in air and water.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce falls, crushing neighboring branches
And neighboring trunks
And its fall thunders hollowly through the hills,
Then you lead me to a safe cave, show
Me then to myself, and in my own breast
Secret, deep wonders open up.
Goethe sees the possibility of the human soul expanding into a spiritual universe through its own development. Through a devoted, calmly resigned search, Goethe now has before his soul the fruits that were germinating when he encountered the Earth Spirit. What a leap forward it was until these fruits had ripened in his soul is shown to us in particular by this monologue in “Forest and Cave”; it shows us that the seeds that were planted in him at that time were not planted in vain. The fragment of Faust that appeared in 1790 with these passages confronts us like a reminder to be patient, to wait until such seeds ripen in the soul. And now we see how Goethe gradually finds his way after being led to the “safe cave” where the secret, deep wonders of his own heart have opened up. There he gains an overview, no longer remaining merely with his own suffering; there he gains the ability to rise above his own pain, to send his prescient gaze out into the macrocosm, to see the struggles of the good and evil spirits and to see human beings on the stage of their struggles. And in the “Faust” of 1808, he sends forth the “Prologue in Heaven”:
We then see how the macrocosmic powers, the forces of the great world, fight each other. We now see, from Goethe's experiences of the soul, a remarkable light falling on the two dragons that once confronted Goethe in his youth.The sun resounds in the old way
In brotherly spheres, singing of value,
And completes its prescribed journey
With a thunderous roar.
This is why “Faust” is such a world poem, because it contains so many warnings, because it tells us — it is a golden word: Wait in confidence for the unfolding of your inner powers, even if it means waiting a long time! — The words that appear as a “dedication” before Faust also sound like such a warning, where Goethe looks back on those “unsteady figures that once appeared early on to his clouded gaze,” but which are now filled with clarity. Now, after he has had to wait so long, those friends who took such a lively interest when he first presented them with Faust in its initial form have already died. And the others, who had not died, he had to tell himself that they were far, far away. Goethe had to wait for the seeds that lay within him at that time to unfold, so that now the moving words resound to us:
My sorrow resounds to the unknown crowd,
Their applause itself makes my heart tremble,
And whatever else delights in my song,
If it still lives, wanders scattered throughout the world.
It no longer applies to those who felt with him in their youth. He had to wait, as the last two lines of this dedication so beautifully express: What was once real to me has vanished into unreality; but what remains and what appeared to the external view as unreality is now truth to me, now I can cast it into forms in which it appears as truth.
So we see how this poem, even when viewed only superficially, as we did today, leads us into the depths of the human soul. “Faust” began in this kind of serial form, which always inserted parts between the others. Goethe could not show what he had experienced in his soul in the meantime. Something else led to Goethe also expressing his deepest soul experiences in Faust.
The Helena scene is one of the first parts of Faust that Goethe wrote. But we see that it did not even make it into Faust in 1808. Why not? Because, as Goethe had finished Faust at that time, it could not be incorporated into it. What Goethe wanted to say with Helena was the expression of such a deep intuition of the deepest mysteries of existence that the entire first part was not sufficient to include it. Only in his old age was Goethe able to truly shape what was his actual inner life's work.
Thus we see how his view opened up to the macrocosmic worlds, as he expresses it in the “Prologue in Heaven.” But we also want to see how Goethe knows how to depict the path, the stages of soul experiences that lead human beings from the first stages up to imaginative contemplation, where the soul, penetrating deeper and deeper, bursts open the gates of the spiritual world that Mephistopheles wants to close. Goethe also depicts these inner experiences. Because he realistically depicts what the soul can experience in spiritual, esoteric training in the second part of Faust, we see in it the deepest mysteries of existence, which, when recognized, appear to us as a Western proclamation of Spiritual Science in a grandiose style. One is tempted to place a work of poetry such as the Bhagavad Gita alongside the second part of Faust. Great, powerful truths speak from such Eastern writings. It is as if the gods themselves were speaking to human beings and wanted to express the wisdom from which they created the world. Certainly, that is how it is. But now, when we look at the second part of Faust, we see this brought to human beings themselves. We see the striving human soul rising from external sensory perception to the heights of spiritual vision, we see how the soul works its way up to true clairvoyance, where Faust enters the spiritual world and is surrounded by the spiritual chorus:
Resounding for spiritual ears
The new day is already born.
Rock gates creak and rattle,
Phoebus' wheels roll with a clatter,
What a din the light brings!
Trumpets sound, trombones blare,
Eyes blink and ears marvel,
The unheard is not heard.
up to the point where Faust becomes blind, so that the outer world sinks into his perception, and yet he must say to himself: “Only within does bright light shine!” to the point where the soul works its way up to the spheres of worldly existence, where the spiritual worlds can be encountered in their purity, where the mysteries of the world are revealed to the soul. This is a path that we must describe as esoteric.
Tomorrow we will see how to penetrate from the outer to the inner life of Goethe's mysteries of the world. Tomorrow we will see from what depths Goethe spoke the words that finally gave him certainty about all the longings, all the sufferings and pains of his life and his quest for knowledge:
Whoever strives with effort,
We can redeem;
And if love from above
Has taken part in him,
The blessed host will meet him
With a heartfelt welcome.
How Goethe solves these riddles of existence and shows how that which lives in the soul can ascend to its true home will be revealed in tomorrow's reflection. It will provide us with an answer to what Goethe presents as his riddles of existence, and to which he gives us such a hopeful answer at the end of the second part of “Faust”:
Saved is the noble member
Of the spirit world from evil:
Whoever strives and endeavors,
We can redeem them.
In this way, he tells us: Faust can be saved! And the spirits that lead people into mere materialism and thus into destruction shall not prevail.