Richard Wagner in the Light of Anthroposophy
GA 92
28 March 1905, Berlin
Lecture I
Myths are stories containing great truths, which great initiates have related to men. The Trojan War, for instance, is the narrative of the battle waged between the third and the fourth sub-race of the fifth root-race. The representative of the former is Laocoon, priest of an ancient priest-kingdom, who was at the same time a king.1Laocoon's struggle with the Serpent, the symbol of cunning. The representative of the latter is Odysseus, the personification of cunning and of the force of thinking which developed within the fourth subrace.
We find that initiates lead the course of evolution also in the North. In Wales we come across a brotherhood of initiates of the pagan period, a priesthood and knighthood culminating in King Arthur and his Round Table. They are faced by the brotherhood of the Holy Grail and its knights, working on behalf of the spreading of Christianity. Art and the development of politics are all connected with great initiates belonging to these two brotherhoods, representing a pagan and a Christian civilisation. The influence of the Holy Grail gradually begins to increase toward the end of the thirteenth century. This is a special turning-point in the civilisation of Europe: cities begin to be founded. The ancient rural civilisation, based on the possession of landed property, is replaced by a city-civilisation, a bourgeois civilisation. This implies a radical change in the whole life and thinking of men.
It is therefore not devoid of meaning if just at the time of the meister-singers' contest on the Wartburg a legend from Bavaria should have come to the fore—the legend of Lohengrin. What was the significance of this legend during the Middle Ages?
At the present time we no longer have the slightest idea of how a medieval soul was constituted; it was particularly receptive for spiritual currents flowing below the surface of things. We find to-day that the Lohengrin legend specially emphasizes the Catholic standpoint. But this element which may disturb us today should make us consider the fact that during the Middle Ages this legend could only have influenced men if clothed in something which was really able to stir human souls. This garment had to be supplied by the ardent religious feeling of that period, so that the legend contained something of what lived within the human hearts. What was the significance of the legend?
An initiation—the initiation of a disciple who advances to the degree of a Teacher.
Such a disciple must first of all become a man who has no country and no home; that is to say, he fulfils his duties just like other men, but he must strive to look beyond his own Self and develop his higher Ego.
What are the characteristics of a disciple?
He must overcome everything that is personal and develop the God within him.
He must be free from every doubt. The things pertaining to the spiritual world stand before his soul as true facts.
He must also be free from every superstition since he himself is able to control everything he can no longer fall a prey to illusions.
Upon a still higher stage the key of knowledge will be delivered to him. He is then said to have acquired the power of speech and becomes a messenger of the super-sensible world. The depths of the spiritual world are then revealed to him. This is the second stage.
The third stage is reached when he says “I” to every being in the world, just as he says “I” to himself. At this stage he has risen to the capacity of encompassing the universe. In mysticism a disciple who has reached the third stage is designated as a Swan, he is then a mediator between the Teacher and human beings.
The Swan-Knight therefore appears to us as an emissary of the great White Brotherhood. Thus Lohengrin is the messenger of the Holy Grail. A new impulse, a new influence was destined to enter human civilisation. You already know that in mysticism the human soul, or human consciousness, always appears as a woman. Also in this legend of Lohengrin the new form of consciousness, the civilisation of the middle classes, the progress made by the human soul, appears in the vestige of a woman. The new civilisation which had arisen was looked upon as a new and higher stage of consciousness. Elsa of Brabant personifies the medieval soul. Lohengrin, the great initiate, the Swan of the third degree of discipleship, brings with him a new civilisation inspired by the community of the Holy Grail. He must not be asked any questions, for it is a profanation and a misunderstanding to place questions to an initiate concerning things which must remain occult.
The influence of great initiates always brings about the promotion to new stages of consciousness. As an example illustrating how these initiates work, I will remind you of Jacob Böhme. You already know that Jacob Böhme proclaimed great, profound truths. Whence did he obtain his wisdom? He relates that when he was still an apprentice, he was one day sitting alone in his master's shop. A stranger entered and asked for a pair of shoes. Jacob, however, was not allowed to sell shoes during his master's absence. The stranger spoke a few words with him and then he went away. After a while, however, he called the boy Böhme out of the shop and told him: “Jacob, now you are still small and humble, but one day you will be quite another person, and the world will marvel at you!” What is implied in this?
It is an initiation, the description of a moment of initiation. At first, the boy does not realize what has happened to him, but he has received an impulse.
Also in the legend of Lohengrin we come across such a moment of initiation. These legends are important indications, which can only be understood by those who possess an Insight into the connections of things.
The Lohengrin legend (as explained, it is connected with the legend of the meister-singers) has a decidedly Catholic character. Richard Wagner used it for his Lohengrin poem. This reveals Richard Wagner's high inner calling.
Wagner used another ancient legend-theme in his Ring of the Nibelungs. These ancient Germanic legends set forth the destiny of the Aryan tribe. We must seek the origin of the Ring legends in a period which followed the great Atlantean flood, when the surviving peoples began to migrate over Europe and Asia. These legends are a reminiscence of the great initiate Wotan, the god of the Aesir. Wotan is an initiate of the Atlantean period, and all the other Aryan gods are only great initiates.
We can clearly distinguish three stages in Wagner's treatment of the Siegfried legend.
The first stage is a description of modern civilisation. In Richard Wagner's eyes modern men have become mere day-labourers of civilisation. He sees the great difference between modern human beings and those of the Middle Ages. Modern achievements are in part produced by machines, whereas during the civilisation of the Middle Ages everything was still an expression of the soul. The house, the village, the city, and everything it contained, was full of significance and men rejoiced in it. What do our storehouses, warehouses and cities mean to us to-day? In the medieval period the house was the expression of an artistic idea; the whole street-picture, with the market and the church in the middle, was the expression of the soul.
Wagner felt this contrast, and what he wished to achieve through his art was to place before man something which would make him appear complete and perfect at least in one sphere. In his Siegfried he wished to portray a perfectly harmonious human being in contrast to the labourers of industry. Our great men have always felt this: Goethe had the same feeling, and also Hölderlin, who said: “There are labourers in this world, but no men”, and so forth. Every great man has longed after truly great human beings.
A change could not take place in an external form, for the course of evolution cannot be turned backward. A temple was therefore to arise in which art in a complete and perfect form was to raise human beings above the ordinary level of life. The modern period of civilisation needed this temple, just because modern life is so torn and splintered. This was the first idea in Wagner's mind in connection with the Siegfried-poem.
But a second idea rose up before Wagner's soul as he descended into still more profound depths of the soul.
At the beginning of the Middle Ages an ancient legend found its way into German poetry—the legend of the Nibelungs. This kind of legend contained the deepest feelings of the folk-soul. Only those who really study the folk-soul can conceive what lived at that time within the heart of the German nation. These legends were the expression of deep inner truths, of great truths; for instance, the legends of Charlemagne. These tales were not related as they are related today, they were not connected with the historical Charlemagne, for people possessed a deeper insight into the historical connections. The Frankish kings took on the aspect of ancient Aryan ancestors; the Nibelungs were priest-kings who ruled over their kingdoms and provided at the same time the spiritual impulses. These legends were the reminiscence of a great time which had past. In this light Charlemagne's coronation in Rome was looked upon as something special. The Nibelungs were consecrated priest and kings during a remote past of the Aryan sub-race, and their memory was handed down in the legends of the German emperors. Wagner's attention was attracted by these legends and a character appeared to him which seemed to represent the contrast between the modern period of material possession and the medieval period which was still connected with the ancient spiritual culture. Wagner occupied himself with the legend of Barbarossa. Also in Barbarossa we find a great initiate. We are told of his journeys to the Orient; from there he brings back from the holy initiates a higher wisdom—knowledge, or the Holy Grail.
According to the myth of the 12th and 13th century the emperor is under a spell and dwells in the interior of a mountain; his ravens are the messengers informing him of what takes place in the world. The ravens are an ancient symbol of the Mysteries; in the Persian Mystery-language they symbolize the lowest stage of initiation. Hence they are the messengers of the higher initiates. What was this initiate (Barbarossa) supposed to bring? Richard Wagner wished to set forth how an ancient period is replaced by a new one, with its changed conditions of property. What once existed has withdrawn like Barbarossa. The influence of the initiates becomes crystallized for Wagner in Barbarossa.
This thought transpires in the Nibelungs. Taken at first from a more external aspect, but now upon a deeper foundation, it becomes the expression of the profound views of the Middle Ages, setting forth the dawn of a new civilisation. Once more Wagner seeks a still more profound description of this thought. Guided by an infinitely deep and intuitive comprehension of the Germanic sagas, he finally chooses the figure of Wotan, instead of Barbarossa. These sagas describe the setting of the Atlantean period and the rise of the fifth root-race out of the fourth. This is, at the same time, the development of the intellect. The human intellect, or self-consciousness, did not exist among the Atlanteans. They lived in a kind of clairvoyant condition. We find the first traces of a combining intellect in the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, the primordial Semitic race, and this intellect continued to develop within the fifth root-race. Self-consciousness arises in this way. The Atlantean did not say “I” to himself as forcefully as a human being belonging to the Aryan race. After the fall of Atlantis this ancient civilisation was brought over into the new one; the Europeans are a surviving branch of Atlantis. A contrast now arises between the Germanic spiritual civilisation and the initiates who work in an occult way and inspire the intellect in its external form.
The dwarfs of Nifelheim are the bearers of the Ego consciousness. Richard Wagner makes Wotan, the ancient Atlantean initiate, oppose Alberich, the bearer of egoism, who belongs to the dwarf-race of the Nibelungs and is an initiate of the Aryan period. When similar new impulses arise something entirely new is born. The bearer of intellectual wisdom is gold. Gold is deeply significant in mysticism, for gold is light, and out-streaming light becomes wisdom. Alberich brings the gold, the wisdom which has become hardened, out of the waters of the Rhine. Water always symbolizes the soul-element, the astral element. The Ego, gold, wisdom, come forth out of the soul. The Rhine is the soul of the new root-race out of which arises the understanding, the Ego consciousness.
Alberich takes possession of the gold, he captures it from the Daughters of the Rhine, the female element characterising the original state of consciousness.
This connection lived in the profound depths of Wagner's soul. He deeply felt what was connected with the rise of the new root-race, of the Ego-consciousness, and he characterised it profoundly in the first E flat major chords of Rhinegold. This streams and weaves musically throughout Wagner's Rhinegold. Wagner's themes were poems originating from ancient myths. In these legends lived something which, filled with force and life, is able to permeate the soul with a spiritual rhythm. What we experience and what we ourselves are, this comes to life and resounds through us in these ancient sagas.
Erster Vortrag
Mythen sind von den großen Eingeweihten den Menschen mitgeteilte Erzählungen, hinter denen große Wahrheiten stecken. Der Trojanische Krieg zum Beispiel stellt den Kampf der dritten mit der vierten Unterrasse der fünften Wurzelrasse dar. Jene hat als Repräsentanten den Laokoon, den Priester aus dem alten Priesterstaat, der zugleich König war, diese den Odysseus, die personifizierte Schlauheit, die in dieser Epoche zur Entwicklung kommende Denkkraft. Auch im Norden finden wir die Entwicklung durch solche Eingeweihte geleitet. In Wales bestand eine Vereinigung von Eingeweihten der heidnischen Zeit, der Priesterherrschaft, als deren höchste Blüte König Artus und seine Tafelrunde erscheint. Ihr gegenüber stand der Bund des heiligen Gral und seine Ritterschaft, die für die Verkündigung des Christentums arbeitete.
Die Kunst, die politische Entwicklung, alles hängt zusammen mit den großen Eingeweihten dieser zwei Vereinigungen, dem Ausdruck heidnischer und christlicher Kultur. Dieser Einfluß der Gralsgemeinschaft wird um die Wende zum 13. Jahrhundert immer größer. Jene Zeit der Städtegründung bedeutet einen besonderen Wendepunkt in der europäischen Kultur: Die alte Bauernkultur, die auf dem Grundbesitz beruht, wird abgelöst von der bürgerlichen Städtekultur. Das war eine einschneidende Veränderung des ganzen Lebens und Denkens. Nicht ohne Bedeutung ist es daher, wenn wir damals, zur Zeit des Sängerkrieges auf der Wartburg, eine Sage heraufkommen sehen, die Sage von Lohengrin. Was wollte diese Sage im Mittelalter bedeuten?
Heute hat man keine Ahnung von der mittelalterlichen Volksseele. Sie war besonders empfänglich für die geistigen Strömungen, die unter der Oberfläche der Dinge vor sich gingen. Man findet heute, daß die Lohengrin-Sage stark den katholischen Standpunkt hervortreten läßt. Aber man muß bei dem, was uns heute daran stört, bedenken, daß damals die Sage nur wirken konnte, wenn man sie einhüllte in das Gewand dessen, was damals die Seelen wirklich bewegte. Die inbrünstige Frömmigkeit mußte der Sage die Einkleidung geben, damit sie etwas von dem hatte, was im Volke lebte. Was sollte also die Sage bedeuten? Eine Initiation, die Einweihung eines Chela zum Arhat, eines Schülers zum Meister. Ein solcher Chela wird zunächst ein heimatloser Mensch, das heißt, er versieht seine Pflichten wie jeder andere, aber er muß sich bemühen, über sein Selbst hinauszublicken und sein höheres Ich heranzubilden. Was sind nun die Eigenschaften der Einweihungsstufen eines Chela?
Erstens: Das Überwinden des Persönlichen, das Freimachen des Gottes in seinem Innern. Zweitens: Freiheit von jedem Zweifel; jede Skepsis hört auf. Die Dinge des Geistigen stehen vor seiner Seele als Tatsachen. Freiheit auch von jedem Aberglauben, denn da er alles selbst zu prüfen vermag, kann er keiner Täuschung mehr verfallen. Auf einer noch höheren Stufe wird ihm dann der Schlüssel des Wissens ausgeliefert. Man sagt, daß er das Sprechen erhält; er wird ein Bote der übersinnlichen Welt. Die Tiefen der geistigen Welt werden ihm offenbar. Das ist die zweite Stufe der Chelaschaft. Die dritte Stufe ist die, wo der Mensch, wie er im gewöhnlichen Leben zu sich «Ich» sagt, nun zu allen Wesenheiten der Welt «ich» sagen kann, wo er erhoben wird zur Umfassung des Alls. Auf dieser dritten Stufe bezeichnet man in der Mystik den Chela als «Schwan»; er wird zum Vermittler zwischen dem Arhat, dem Lehrer, und den Menschen. So stellt sich uns der Schwanenritter dar als ein Bote der großen Weißen Loge; so ist Lohengrin ein Bote der Gralsgemeinschaft.
Ein neuer Impuls, ein neuer Kultureinschlag sollte eingeleitet werden. Sie wissen, daß die Seele oder das Bewußtsein in der Mystik als etwas Weibliches dargestellt wird. So wird auch hier das Bewußtsein der neuen, der bürgerlichen Kultur vorgestellt als etwas Weibliches. Dieses Hineindringen einer neuen Kultur ist aufgefaßt als ein Höherrücken des Bewußtseins. Dargestellt in Elsa von Brabant ist die mittelalterliche Seele, und Lohengrin, der große Eingeweihte, der Schwan im dritten Grade der Chelaschaft, bringt die neue Kultur herüber aus der Gralsgemeinschaft. Es darf nicht gefragt werden. Es ist eine Profanation und ein Mißverständnis, den Eingeweihten nach dem zu fragen, was Geheimnis bleiben muß.
So geschieht das Aufrücken in neue Bewußtseinszustände immer durch die Einwirkung von großen Eingeweihten. Als ein Beispiel, wie diese Eingeweihten wirken, möchte ich an Jakob Böhme erinnern. Sie wissen, daß Jakob Böhme tiefe Wahrheiten verkündigt hat. Woher hatte er diese Weisheit? Er erzählt, daß er einst als Lehrling allein in dem Laden seines Meisters gelassen wurde. Da kam ein fremder Mann und verlangte ein Paar Schuhe. Der Knabe darf sie ihm in Abwesenheit des Meisters nicht verkaufen; der Fremde redete noch einige Worte zu ihm, entfernte sich dann, rief aber nach einer Weile den jungen Böhme heraus und sagte zu ihm: Jakob, du bist noch klein, aber du wirst einst ein ganz anderer Mensch werden, über den die Welt in Erstaunen ausbrechen wird. — Was bedeutet das? Es handelt sich hier um eine Einweihung; der Moment der Initiation ist dargestellt. Vorläufig erfaßt der Knabe noch nicht, was ihm geschehen ist, aber der Impuls ist gegeben.
So ein Moment stellt sich auch in der Lohengrin-Sage dar. Solche Sagen sind wichtige Hinweise, nur durchschaubar für den, der die Dinge im Zusammenhang sehen kann. Die Lohengrin-Sage erscheint, wie schon erwähnt, in Verbindung mit der Sage vom Sängerkrieg. Richard Wagner benutzte sie zu seiner LohengrinDichtung. Wir sehen daran, wie hoch die innere Berufung Richard Wagners war.
Einen anderen uralten Sagenstoff behandelt Richard Wagner in seinem «Ring des Nibelungen». Es handelt sich um alte germanische Sagen, in denen das Geschick desjenigen Volksstammes lebte, der nach der großen atlantischen Flut als Reste der atlantischen Bevölkerung über Europa und Asien sich verbreitete und die nachatlantische Zeitepoche einleitete. Die Sagen enthalten eine Erinnerung an den großen Eingeweihten Wotan, den Asengott. Wotan ist ein Eingeweihter aus der atlantischen Zeit, wie alle die nordischen Götter nichts anderes sind als alte, große Eingeweihte.
In der Beschäftigung Wagners mit der Siegfried-Sage können wir drei Stufen deutlich unterscheiden. Auf der ersten Stufe finden wir eine Betrachtung der modernen Kultur. Für Richard Wagner sind die Menschen heute zu Tagelöhnern der Kultur geworden. Er sieht den großen Unterschied zwischen dem Menschen in der neueren Zeit und dem der mittelalterlichen Zeit. Heute ist das, was von den Menschen an Arbeit geleistet wird, zum großen Teil Maschinenarbeit, während in der mittelalterlichen Kultur alle Arbeit Ausdruck der menschlichen Seele war. Das Haus, das Dorf, die Stadt, alles, was in ihnen lebte, war sinnvoll gestaltet; der Mensch hatte seine Freude daran. Was sind uns heute unsere Magazine, unsere Läden, unsere Städte? Welche Beziehung haben sie zu unserer Seele? Damals war das Haus der Ausdruck einer künstlerischen Idee. Das ganze Straßenbild, in der Mitte der Stadt der Markt mit dem Dom, der alles überragte, zu dem alles hintendierte, war ein Ausdruck der Seele. Diesen Gegensatz empfand Wagner. Das wollte er in seiner Kunst erreichen: etwas hinzustellen, was wenigstens auf einem Gebiete den Menschen ganz erscheinen läßt. Einen ganzen, harmonischen Menschen, gegenüber dem Tagelöhner der Industrie, wollte Wagner mit seinem Siegfried darstellen. So haben unsere großen Geister immer empfunden, so empfand Goethe, so Hölderlin, der es so aussprach: Handwerker siehst du, aber keine Menschen, Denker, aber keine Menschen, Priester, aber keine Menschen, Herren und Knechte, Jungen und gesetzte Leute, aber keine Menschen. Nicht äußerlich war eine Umkehr möglich; nicht zurückschrauben läßt sich unsere ganze Entwicklung. Deshalb wollte Wagner, daß ein Kunsttempel erstehen sollte, in dem das Gesamtkunstwerk die Menschen erheben sollte über ihr gewöhnliches Leben. Die neue Zeit gerade brauchte eine solche Stätte der Erhebung, gerade weil das moderne Leben so zersplittert war. Dies war die erste Idee der Siegfried-Dichtung, mit der sich Wagner beschäftigte.
Doch ein zweiter Plan trat ihm vor die Seele, als er sich in noch tiefere Schichten seiner Empfindungen versenkte. Im frühen Mittelalter hat eine alte Sage in die deutsche Dichtung Eingang gefunden: «Die Wibelungen». In solch einer Sage lebte damals das tiefste Empfinden der Volksseele. Nur wer die Volksseele wirklich studiert, kann sich einen Begriff davon machen, was damals im Herzen der Menschen lebte. Solche Sagen waren der Ausdruck tiefinnerlicher, großer Wahrheiten. Zum Beispiel die Sagen von Karl dem Großen. Nicht historisch im heutigen Sinne wurde von dem Kaiser berichtet, man sah tiefer hinein in die alten Zusammenhänge. Das fränkische Königsgeschlecht wurde da zu den alten Ahnen der späteren nachatlantischen Wurzelrasse. Die Wibelungen waren Priesterkönige, die nicht nur ihre Reiche versorgten, sondern zugleich den geistigen Einschlag gaben. Eine Erinnerung waren diese Sagen an eine große Zeit, die verklungen war. In dieser Hinsicht wurde die Krönung Karls des Großen in Rom als etwas besonders Wichtiges angesehen. In uralten Zeiten waren die Wibelungen die geweihten Priesterkönige gewesen; die Erinnerung daran pflanzte sich fort in den deutschen Kaisersagen. Auf diese wurde Wagner hingeführt.
Eine Gestalt besonders schien ihm den Kontrast darzustellen zwischen der neuen Zeit des materiellen Besitzes und der mittelalterlichen Zeit, die noch Zusammenhang hatte mit jener geistigen Kultur. Es war die Barbarossa-Sage, die ihn beschäftigte. Auch in Barbarossa stellt sich uns ein großer Eingeweihter dar. Es wird von seinem Zug nach dem Morgenlande erzählt; von dort soll er die höhere Weisheit, die Erkenntnis, den heiligen Gral zurückholen von den dortigen Eingeweihten. Der Mythos des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts läßt den Kaiser verzaubert im Innern des Berges sitzen; seine Raben bringen ihm Kunde von dem, was in der Welt vorgeht. Die Raben sind ein altes Symbol der Mysterien. In der persischen Mysteriensprache drücken sie die unterste Stufe der Eingeweihten aus; sie sind also die Boten der höheren Eingeweihten. Was sollte dieser Eingeweihte bringen? Richard Wagner wollte darstellen die Ablösung der alten Zeit durch die neue mit ihren Besitzverhältnissen. Was früher lebte, hatte sich zurückgezogen wie Barbarossa. Das Eingreifen der Eingeweihten kristallisierte sich ihm in Barbarossa.
Dieser Gedanke leuchtet noch durch in den «Nibelungen». Erst äußerlich gefaßt, jetzt auf tieferer Grundlage, wird er der Ausdruck der tiefen Anschauung des Mittelalters, in der sich die Heraufkunft einer neuen Kultur darstellt. Doch noch einmal sucht Wagner eine noch tiefere Erfassung dieses Gedankens; er wählt statt des Barbarossa schließlich die Figur des Wotan, mit unendlich tiefer, intuitiver Erfassung der alten germanischen Göttersagen. Sie stellen dar die Ablösung der atlantischen Kultur, das Hervorgehen der fünften Wurzelrasse aus der vierten. Es ist dies zugleich die Entwicklung des Verstandes. Die Ausbildung des menschlichen Verstandes, des Selbstbewußtseins, war noch nicht bei den Atlantiern vorhanden. Sie lebten in einer Art von Hellsehen. Erst bei der fünften Unterrasse der Atlantier, bei den Ursemiten, bildeten sich die ersten Elemente des kombinierenden Verstandes, der weiterlebte in der fünften Wurzelrasse. Damit kommt das Ich-Bewußtsein herauf. Der Atlantier sagte noch nicht mit derselben Intensität «ich» zu sich selbst wie der Angehörige des folgenden Zeitalters. Herübergebracht wird diese alte Kultur nach dem Untergange der Atlantis; die Europäer sind ein späterer Zweig der Atlantier. Es bildet sich nun ein Gegensatz zwischen der allgemeinen geistigen Kultur und den Eingeweihten, die im Verborgenen wirken und den äußeren Verstand inspirieren.
Die Zwerge des Nifelheim sind die Träger des Ich-Bewußtseins. Als Gegner stellt Richard Wagner einander gegenüber Wotan, den alten atlantischen Eingeweihten, und Alberich, den Träger des Egoismus aus dem Zwergengeschlechte der Nibelungen, den Initiierten des nachatlantischen Zeitalters. Das Gold ist tief bedeutsam, bedeutungsvoll in der Mystik. Das Gold ist das Licht; das Licht, das ausströmt, wird zur Weisheit. Das Gold, die verhärtete Weisheit, holt Alberich aus dem Rheinstrom. Die Wasser sind immer das Seelische, das Astrale. Aus dem Seelischen wird das Ego, das Gold, die Weisheit des Ich geboren. Der Rheinstrom ist die Seele des neuen Zeitalters, in dem der Verstand, das Ich-Bewußtsein aufgeht. Alberich bemächtigt sich des Goldes, er entreißt es den Rheintöchtern, dem weiblichen Element, die den ursprünglichen Bewußtseinszustand charakterisieren.
Tief in Wagners Seele hat dieser Zusammenhang gelebt. Das Heraufholen des Ich-Bewußtseins in diesem neuen Zeitalter ist gewaltig gefühlt, gewaltig dargestellt im Beginn des «Rheingold» in den Akkorden in Es-Dur. Das lebt und webt auch musikalisch durch Wagners Rheingold. Wagner hatte Dichtungen vor sich, die aus den Urmythen stammten. In diesen Sagen lebte etwas, das, mit Kraft und Leben erfüllt, die Seele durchsetzt mit geistigem Rhythmus. Was man selbst lebt und ist, es wird wach, es erklingt und durchdringt den Menschen in diesen alten Sagen.
First Lecture
Myths are stories communicated to humans by the great initiates, behind which lie great truths. The Trojan War, for example, represents the battle between the third and fourth sub-races of the fifth root race. The former is represented by Laocoon, the priest from the ancient priestly state, who was also king, and the latter by Odysseus, the personification of cunning, the power of thought that was developing in that epoch. In the north, too, we find development guided by such initiates. In Wales, there was an association of initiates from the pagan era, the priestly rule, whose highest flowering appears in King Arthur and his Round Table. Opposed to them stood the League of the Holy Grail and its knights, who worked for the proclamation of Christianity.
Art, political development, everything is connected with the great initiates of these two associations, the expression of pagan and Christian culture. The influence of the Grail community grew ever greater at the turn of the 13th century. That period of city founding marked a special turning point in European culture: the old peasant culture based on land ownership was replaced by bourgeois urban culture. This was a radical change in the whole way of life and thinking. It is therefore not without significance that at that time, at the time of the singers' contest at Wartburg Castle, we see the emergence of a legend, the legend of Lohengrin. What did this legend mean in the Middle Ages?
Today, we have no idea of the medieval folk soul. It was particularly receptive to the spiritual currents that were going on beneath the surface of things. Today, we find that the Lohengrin legend strongly emphasizes the Catholic point of view. But we must remember that what disturbs us today was only effective at that time because it was cloaked in the garb of what really moved people's souls. The fervent piety had to give the legend its clothing so that it had something of what lived in the people. So what was the legend supposed to mean? An initiation, the initiation of a chela into an arhat, of a disciple into a master. Such a chela first becomes a homeless person, that is, he performs his duties like everyone else, but he must strive to look beyond himself and develop his higher self. What are the characteristics of the stages of initiation of a chela?
Firstly: overcoming the personal, freeing the God within. Secondly: freedom from all doubt; all skepticism ceases. Spiritual things stand before his soul as facts. Freedom also from all superstition, for since he is able to test everything himself, he can no longer fall prey to deception. At an even higher stage, the key to knowledge is then handed over to him. It is said that he receives the gift of speech; he becomes a messenger of the supernatural world. The depths of the spiritual world are revealed to him. This is the second stage of chelaship. The third stage is where the person, who in ordinary life says “I” to himself, can now say “I” to all beings in the world, where he is elevated to encompass the whole universe. At this third stage, mysticism refers to the chela as a “swan”; he becomes a mediator between the arhat, the teacher, and human beings. Thus, the swan knight appears to us as a messenger of the great White Lodge; thus, Lohengrin is a messenger of the Grail community.
A new impulse, a new cultural impact was to be initiated. You know that in mysticism the soul or consciousness is represented as something feminine. Here, too, the consciousness of the new, bourgeois culture is presented as something feminine. This penetration of a new culture is understood as an elevation of consciousness. Elsa von Brabant represents the medieval soul, and Lohengrin, the great initiate, the swan in the third degree of chelaship, brings the new culture over from the Grail community. It must not be asked. It is a profanation and a misunderstanding to ask the initiate about what must remain a secret.
Thus, the advancement to new states of consciousness always happens through the influence of great initiates. As an example of how these initiates work, I would like to remind you of Jakob Böhme. You know that Jakob Böhme proclaimed profound truths. Where did he get this wisdom? He tells us that he was once left alone as an apprentice in his master's shop. A stranger came in and asked for a pair of shoes. The boy was not allowed to sell them to him in his master's absence; the stranger spoke a few words to him, then left, but after a while he called the young Böhme out and said to him: “Jakob, you are still small, but one day you will become a completely different person, and the world will be amazed.” What does that mean? This is an initiation; the moment of initiation is depicted. For the time being, the boy does not yet understand what has happened to him, but the impulse has been given.
Such a moment is also depicted in the Lohengrin legend. Such legends are important clues, but they can only be understood by those who can see things in context. The Lohengrin legend appears, as already mentioned, in connection with the legend of the Singers' War. Richard Wagner used it for his Lohengrin poem. We can see from this how high Richard Wagner's inner calling was.
Richard Wagner deals with another ancient legend in his “Ring of the Nibelung.” These are old Germanic legends in which the fate of the tribe that spread across Europe and Asia after the great Atlantean flood as remnants of the Atlantean population and ushered in the post-Atlantean era lived on. The legends contain a memory of the great initiate Wotan, the Aesir god. Wotan is an initiate from the Atlantean era, just as all the Norse gods are nothing more than ancient, great initiates.
In Wagner's preoccupation with the Siegfried saga, we can clearly distinguish three stages. In the first stage, we find a consideration of modern culture. For Richard Wagner, people today have become day laborers of culture. He sees a great difference between people in modern times and those in medieval times. Today, most of the work done by people is machine work, whereas in medieval culture all work was an expression of the human soul. The house, the village, the city, everything that lived in them was meaningfully designed; people took pleasure in it. What are our magazines, our shops, our cities to us today? What relationship do they have to our soul? In those days, the house was the expression of an artistic idea. The entire street scene, with the market in the center of the city and the cathedral towering above everything, to which everything pointed, was an expression of the soul. Wagner felt this contrast. This is what he wanted to achieve in his art: to create something that, at least in one area, allowed people to appear whole. With his Siegfried, Wagner wanted to portray a whole, harmonious human being in contrast to the industrial day laborer. This is how our great minds have always felt, how Goethe felt, how Hölderlin felt, who put it this way: You see craftsmen, but no human beings; thinkers, but no human beings; priests, but no human beings; masters and servants, young people and old people, but no human beings. No reversal was possible externally; our entire development cannot be scaled back. That is why Wagner wanted a temple of art to be created in which the total work of art would elevate people above their ordinary lives. The new era needed such a place of elevation precisely because modern life was so fragmented. This was the first idea behind the Siegfried poem that Wagner worked on.
But a second plan came to him when he delved even deeper into his feelings. In the early Middle Ages, an old legend found its way into German poetry: “Die Wibelungen” (The Wibelungs). Such legends reflected the deepest feelings of the people at that time. Only those who truly study the soul of the people can understand what lived in the hearts of the people back then. Such legends were the expression of deep, great truths. For example, the legends of Charlemagne. The emperor was not reported on in the historical sense of today; people looked deeper into the ancient connections. The Frankish royal family became the ancient ancestors of the later post-Atlantean root race. The Wibelungs were priest-kings who not only provided for their empires, but also gave them their spiritual impetus. These legends were a reminder of a great time that had passed. In this respect, the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome was seen as something particularly important. In ancient times, the Wibelungs had been the consecrated priest-kings; the memory of this was perpetuated in the German imperial legends. Wagner was led to these.
One figure in particular seemed to him to represent the contrast between the new age of material possessions and the medieval era, which still had connections to that spiritual culture. It was the legend of Barbarossa that preoccupied him. In Barbarossa, too, we encounter a great initiate. We are told of his journey to the Orient, from where he is to bring back higher wisdom, knowledge, and the Holy Grail from the initiates there. The myth of the 12th and 13th centuries has the emperor sitting enchanted inside the mountain; his ravens bring him news of what is happening in the world. Ravens are an ancient symbol of mystery. In the Persian language of mystery, they express the lowest level of the initiates; they are therefore the messengers of the higher initiates. What was this initiate supposed to bring? Richard Wagner wanted to depict the replacement of the old era by the new with its new ownership structures. What had lived before had withdrawn like Barbarossa. The intervention of the initiates crystallized for him in Barbarossa.
This idea still shines through in the “Nibelungen.” First conceived in an external form, now on a deeper basis, it becomes the expression of the profound view of the Middle Ages, in which the advent of a new culture is represented. But once again Wagner seeks an even deeper understanding of this idea; instead of Barbarossa, he finally chooses the figure of Wotan, with his infinitely deep, intuitive understanding of the ancient Germanic myths of the gods. They represent the replacement of the Atlantean culture, the emergence of the fifth root race from the fourth. This is at the same time the development of the intellect. The development of the human intellect, of self-consciousness, did not yet exist among the Atlanteans. They lived in a kind of clairvoyance. It was not until the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, the Proto-Semites, that the first elements of the combinatory intellect emerged, which lived on in the fifth root race. With this, self-consciousness arose. The Atlanteans did not yet say “I” to themselves with the same intensity as the members of the following age. This ancient culture was brought over after the downfall of Atlantis; the Europeans are a later branch of the Atlanteans. A contrast now arises between the general spiritual culture and the initiates who work in secret and inspire the outer mind.
The dwarves of Nibelheim are the bearers of ego-consciousness. Richard Wagner contrasts Wotan, the old Atlantean initiate, with Alberich, the bearer of egoism from the dwarf race of the Nibelungs, the initiates of the post-Atlantean age. Gold is deeply significant and meaningful in mysticism. Gold is light; the light that emanates from it becomes wisdom. Alberich retrieves gold, hardened wisdom, from the Rhine. Water always represents the soul, the astral. From the soul comes the ego, the gold, the wisdom of the I. The Rhine is the soul of the new age in which the intellect, the ego-consciousness, emerges. Alberich seizes the gold, snatching it from the Rhine maidens, the feminine element that characterizes the original state of consciousness.
This connection lived deep in Wagner's soul. The emergence of ego-consciousness in this new age is felt powerfully, powerfully portrayed at the beginning of “Das Rheingold” in the chords in E-flat major. This also lives and weaves musically through Wagner's Rheingold. Wagner had poems before him that came from the primordial myths. Something lived in these legends that, filled with power and life, permeated the soul with spiritual rhythm. What one lives and is oneself awakens, resounds, and permeates human beings in these ancient legends.