The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Goethe Celebration

[ 1 ] For those who, within modern intellectual life, like to reminisce about the leading figures of recent times, the night of August 27 to 28 is an important night of remembrance. August 27 is the birthday of the greatest thinker of modern times, and August 28 is the birthday of the most universal, most comprehensive spirit. And so, on this night, our thoughts are touched by memories of the great philosopher Hegel, whose birthday is on August 27, and of Goethe, the universal spirit, whose birthday is on August 28. And then, when our thoughts turn back to these two individuals, many things come to mind that are connected with these thoughts, and the uniqueness of these two great individuals of modern times appears before our soul, and we then look back with pleasure, comparing them with what we otherwise know from spiritual life, on these two representatives of humanity, Hegel and Goethe. And many things that could be said in yesterday's lecture may be linked to these two names.

[ 2 ] Hegel appears as the one among modern minds who brought the experience of the inner self to its highest flowering. He appears as the one who can lead people today into the etheric heights, into the light-filled regions of thought, and for those who can allow themselves to be inspired by Hegel's crystal-clear trains of thought floating in the etheric heights, another spiritual current that has prevailed in humanity also becomes understandable. For Hegel can only be compared if we allow our feelings to wander through the turning points of time, to that Eastern flowering of the spirit which, through pure thought, has led us deepest into human spiritual life: to the Vedanta philosophy. In a certain sense, he is the one who, within our Western world, has renewed the Luciferic element originating in India, yet in a different form. Those who can immerse themselves in the Vedanta work of the Orient will revere in it the highest flowering of that thinking which, with unspeakable devotion and the finest chiseling of every single thought that man can grasp, composes a world system of thought. We see synthetic, composite thinking in its highest form in Vedanta philosophy. And Hegel renews this pure thought, this thinking that is completely free of sensuality, in such a way that thinking itself becomes an organism in which one thought grows out of another. That is why it is so difficult to understand even the slightest thing about the ethereal heights of Hegel's thinking without preparation. Those who immerse themselves in Hegel feel, on the one hand, the heights to which he carries them, where a fresh air of thought blows, and, on the other hand, the purity that pervades all these thoughts. This is how we have expressed, as it were, the Luciferic principle in Hegel.

[ 3 ] On the other hand, in Goethe we have the universal spirit, whose gaze is spread over the great carpet of the outer world, but which looks everywhere into the deeper spiritual foundations, so that for Goethe the spirit that rules behind the phenomena blows out of every plant, every animal, and all human and artistic manifestations, enabling him awaken and enliven the spirit in modern intellectual life from the side of the external world. Thus, Goethe stands before us as the spiritual substance and Hegel as the spiritual form, and we find ourselves best integrated into this modern intellectual life when we try to embrace the great spirit and soul of Goethe through the instrument of Hegel. Such thoughts become lively when one lets the night of August 27 to 28, Hegel's birthday and Goethe's birthday, pass before one's soul with the right memories. That is why we wanted to invite you today to commemorate these two great minds of modern intellectual life, and we will commemorate them by first reciting here some of Goethe's short cosmic poems, which lead us to certain heights of intellectual life, and then a longer poem by Goethe, which shows how he sought and, in a certain way, found his way into intellectual life. This will be followed by a reflection on the nature of Goethe's spirit from a certain perspective, with which we will conclude our celebration today.

Marie von Sivers will now recite the following poems:

“One and All,” “Legacy”
“Limits of Humanity,” “The Divine”
“Song of the Spirits over the Waters,” ”Mahomet's Song”

[ 4 ] We will now hear those verses by Goethe which sprang from the highest source of the spirit when Goethe was about thirty-five years old. Those of you who have heard me speak often will begin to understand the spiritual significance of the thirty-fifth year in the normal human life. I have often pointed out the great significance that the age of thirty-five had for Dante in relation to the conception of his great epic poem. What Goethe wanted to express in the verses he entitled “The Secrets” had matured in his soul during this important period of his life. If we want to convey to our souls what it was that moved Goethe's heart when he wrote the verses “The Secrets,” we cannot describe it better than to say that Goethe, at the age of thirty-five, had established the symbol of the spiritual scientific worldview. For there is no better program of spiritual science than Goethe's poem “The Secrets.” Later, in 1816, Goethe was asked what the various images in his poem “The Secrets” meant. He gave a not very detailed explanation after so many years in response to an external request, but even in this explanation we find something like a program for our worldview. We can say that at the time when Goethe was inspired to write the poem “The Secrets,” what we now call anthroposophy was alive and warm in his soul. And in this poem, the spiritual-scientific call is sent out into the world so grandly, so powerfully, and from such deep foundations that even for such a great mind, for such a great soul as Goethe's body contained, this poem had to remain a fragment. It was, so to speak, the soul that lived in it that was too great to be given a poetic body. So what we have in “The Secrets” is a fragment. With a certain inner joy, we immerse ourselves in this fragment, sensing in it a modern spiritual life. Let us now let the verses pass before us and then add a few words about the peculiarity of Goethe's spirit and Goethe's soul, so that through our final reflection we may find the way to approach the light that shines in the meaningful narrative that Goethe gave us in his fragment “Secrets” in the thirty-fifth year of his life.

This is followed by a recitation of the poem “The Secrets” by Marie von Sivers.

[ 5 ] Anyone who allows this poem by Goethe to sink in cannot fail to recognize that it has been inspired by higher worlds. And anyone who has even the slightest inkling of how the life of the higher worlds has expressed itself to human beings in meaningful symbols throughout the ages will recognize in the symbols presented here the eternal symbols of the great spiritual proclamations and revelations made to humanity from epoch to epoch. And then the soul that wants to work its way through Goethe's spirit will also sense an important revelation for our more recent stages of development.

[ 6 ] When a significant individuality strives for existence through one of its incarnations, the whole nature and type of this individuality is announced in many ways. We must not forget that the spiritual is the creative force of the outer physical, of the outer body, and that the soul, which enters a present incarnation from previous incarnations with a certain state of maturity, prepares itself through this and that for the outer physical body, so that it becomes a suitable instrument for its mission of individuality, which has come up from another incarnation. And so, in individual personalities, the external destinies of life from earliest childhood become something like symbols of what emerges from the individuality to shape the external physical life and external life in general, so that it becomes an instrument for the meaningful spiritual individuality. Therefore, wherever the essence of Goethe's soul is to be touched, we must always remember the childhood event that has already been mentioned many times to most of you, which took place when he was seven years old. Even as a seven-year-old boy, he was in many ways dissatisfied with what people could tell him about the nature of the spiritual and divine. The seven-year-old boy already had a different connection to the divine-spiritual world than his entire environment, and he also needed a different expression for his soul, which had developed from a previous incarnation. One day he took a music stand from his father, placed minerals and plants on it, and saw in them, with a childlike, intuitive soul, symbols for the outer sensory world, symbols behind which he sensed the spiritual world. And behind all this, with his intuitive soul, he already wanted to grasp the weaving and working of the spiritual behind the veil of the sensory world. So the young seven-year-old boy placed a small incense burner on top of the music stand, waited for the rising morning sun, took a magnifying glass, gathered the rays of the rising morning sun, and the gathered rays fell on the incense burner, so that it was ignited by the fire of the rays of the rising sun. And when the old man recounted this childhood experience, he could not describe it in any other words than to say that, as a seven-year-old child, he had wanted to light a fire at the very source of nature, of creative nature, in order to offer a sacrifice to the great God who reigns spiritually behind the veil of the senses. That was Goethe's worship when he was a seven-year-old child. What crept into his physical being grew and grew, wanting to go further and further and deeper and deeper into the spirituality that is veiled behind the outer veil of the senses. And so we see how, after his arrival in Weimar, Goethe uttered those meaningful words that have been preserved for us in his “Prosa-Hymnus an die Natur” (Prose Hymn to Nature) and which seek with such holy fervor to grasp that which passes through the outer veil of the senses as spiritual life and with which the soul can unite when it is prepared for such worship as was practiced by the seven-year-old boy: “Nature! We are surrounded and enveloped by her.... She has brought me here, she will also lead me out... She will not hate her work... Everything is her fault, everything is her merit!”

[ 7 ] You will find great, powerful words in this prose hymn to nature, words that show how the same soul has grown, becoming ever more mature. But for such an individual, it is not only what he placed on the altar in the seventh year of his life as the great symbols of nature that becomes a symbol, but everything he experiences in life from day to day, from hour to hour. Thus, when we follow Goethe's life closely, we see how, as a young student in Leipzig, he immersed himself in the science of nature, already seeking spiritual creation behind everything. But it was also at that time that something passed by his soul which, in the highest sense of the word, was capable of inspiring this soul, which was so prepared to wander far and wide in order to find God, to sense God in its depths. At the end of his studies in Leipzig, Goethe was confronted with death. He was close to death due to serious illness, and this experience meant an infinite deepening of his being at that time. And then he returned to his hometown, Frankfurt. There we see him busy with the writings of medieval esotericism, that medieval esotericism which is regarded as insane by today's intellectual life, but from which Goethe perceived a deeper spiritual life, so that he felt inspired to engage in practical esoteric exercises himself. At that time, the first ray of what can truly be called inspiration was planted in Goethe's soul.

[ 8 ] There are inspirations that have such an effect that the soul immediately reflects the result of the inspiration back to the inspirer. But there are also inspirations that have such an effect that the person who is inspired is hardly aware that the seed of inspiration has sunk into his soul. For this seed must lie dormant within, unconsciously, for years, decades, perhaps even centuries, waiting until it can bring forth its fruits, which can then overcome the instrument of the physical body to such an extent and use it to such an extent that a manifestation and revelation of higher life can then shine forth from such a personality. Something of this kind was the inspiration that came to Goethe from a mysterious source in Frankfurt. But we see immediately how this inspiration works in Goethe's mind, how he approaches everything in such a way that a secret light shines into his soul from all the events of life. Countless experiences had a profound effect on Goethe, and it would take many hours to tell you everything that affected Goethe's innermost being during his subsequent stay in Strasbourg. Just as powerful as what I can mention in this short time were many other things that time does not allow me to highlight today. Let me recount just one event that had an effect on Goethe in Strasbourg and sank into the hidden seed of inspiration: it was his encounter with another personality of that time who was struggling with a deep longing for what we today call anthroposophical thinking. This personality was Herder, whom Goethe met in Strasbourg. Herder was the one who had immersed himself in the course of human development, who had wanted to know the various rays into which the sun of spiritual life is divided as it sends its light into humanity. Hered's mind was permeated by Eastern and Western religious systems, and he was convinced that a common divine element must run through all these religious ways of thinking and philosophies of humanity. From such ideas sprang what Herder elaborated in his book “Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” in which he allows the spiritual life of humanity to pass before his eyes in order to show how religions develop and how a spiritual-divine lives in everything, developing ever further and further from the imperfect to the perfect. But then Herder also wanted to extract from what his spirit perceived that which results in feelings and inner experiences for the soul. Herder later wrote, as an emotional response to his observations, but at the same time as a call to humanity: “This is what you shall become if you carry within you the attitude that arises when you see the spirits that live in the religions of humanity united in peace.” Thus he wrote his “Letters for the Advancement of Humanity.” Oh, the word “humanity” was then, in the circle that formed around Goethe and Herder, a word that did not have the abstract meaning it acquired in the nineteenth century. The word “humanity” encompassed a full meaning, a deep life, and when one uttered the word “humanity,” humanitas, the soul was moved by the highest and most beautiful hopes for the future of humanity.

[ 9 ] All this had a very special effect on Goethe's soul, which carried within it the seed of inspiration. For Goethe, by virtue of what he was, stood in a very special relationship to all his contemporaries, indeed to his entire age. There was something in him that could not be found in anyone else. This became particularly apparent later, when the unique and wonderful friendship between Schiller and Goethe blossomed; this was at a time when Schiller was being carried up to the highest heights of human feeling in a somewhat different way than Herder had been during Goethe's time in Strasbourg. But we need only sketchily delve into Schiller's thoughts and reflections to ask ourselves: How does what we find in Schiller work in Goethe's mind? Then we gradually begin to sense something of the uniqueness of Goethe's soul. At the very time when his friendship with Goethe was developing, Schiller was wrestling with the question that can be formulated as follows: How does man attain the highest development of freedom? How is it possible for man to develop his inner soul forces harmoniously so that he can rise above himself from his innermost being and develop a higher self, a higher human being—as Schiller says—in the ordinary human being? Schiller answered this question, if we briefly consider his excellent work, “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man,” by saying that when man thinks, places himself in his environment in a rational and intelligent manner, then a compulsion reigns in his inner life, the compulsion of logic. Man is led from thought to thought; he is a slave to logical rules; he is not free. But when man turns his gaze outward to the world of the senses, the sensory events act upon him as streams of stimuli; he has no power over them, he is not free; he is a slave to the world of the senses. Thus, man is placed between two worlds. He cannot be free. When humans become more and more entangled in the sensory world with their passions, drives, and desires, they descend, and the spiritual withdraws from them. When man loses himself in logical necessity, he descends into abstractness, and the spiritual withdraws from him as well. He then perhaps becomes a dutiful person who slavishly submits to a categorical imperative; but he becomes the slave of this categorical imperative. But there is one thing, says Schiller, and that is when the soul of man unfolds itself as we see the spirit at work in the work of beauty, in the work of art. When we have a work of art before us, we have something sensual before us, says Schiller, but through this the spirit shines and glows, having created a form for itself, and we then have something sensual and at the same time something spiritual; we do not succumb to the sensual, for it is purified and ennobled by the spirit shining through it. We do not succumb to the abstract spirit of logic. The spiritual comes to us in such a way that it descends. The person who develops their soul in this way comes to do what they should not because it is commanded as a duty, but because they love what is their duty. And the spirit that develops in this way does not need to flee from sensuality; it does not need to say: Passions and instincts are rejected. For they are purified, cleansed, they are the expression of the spirit. This is the beautiful soul that Schiller had in mind, which achieves freedom because it leads the spirit down into sensuality, spiritualizes the sensual, which rises from sensuality to the spirit, spiritualizes the spirit. Oh, it was a significant time when the soul of European spiritual life thus immersed itself in the great ideals of humanity. That was what lived in Schiller's soul when he walked alongside Goethe, bound to him in close friendship.

[ 10 ] How did this affect Goethe? This is characteristic of Goethe's soul: Goethe was attracted to Schiller's idea to the highest degree; he was completely filled with it. But something else stood before his soul. He said to himself: This is merely an idea, this is an ideal of thought. Life is infinitely richer, especially when viewed from a spiritual perspective. As a thought pursued in a straight line, this idea was correct to him, a highest ideal; but it was too poor to express the whole realm of the human soul, which ascends to the heights of spiritual life, to true liberation. What did the thought become in Goethe's soul? It became what we encounter after the original seed of inspiration had matured further in Goethe. Based on Schiller's thoughts just mentioned, Goethe wrote his “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” in which we can sense a secret revelation of what Goethe's soul was striving for. Here we have not just two or three names for the soul forces, but a large, powerful tableau of twenty symbolic real figures, led by the four kings: the golden, silver, bronze, and mixed kings; here we have the beautiful lily, the stream, and so on. Then, in this “Fairy Tale of the Beautiful Lily and the Green Snake,” you can find a completely esoteric description of how the soul forces expressed by these figures must relate to each other in the developing soul, how they must work together in spherical harmony in order to bring about the blossoming of the human soul. That is the secret of this fairy tale: that we understand how everything that is described to us about the relationship between the characters expresses the relationship between the harmonizing soul forces that lead human beings up to the blossoming of spiritual life. What Schiller also perceived as a problem was reflected infinitely richly in Goethe's soul. Therefore, we should not be surprised that in the mid-1880s, when Goethe was about thirty-five years old, Herder's more philosophical striving, which had made a great impression on him, did not unfold in abstractions, but in a rich tableau of the soul. Even earlier, before the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” was written, Goethe had shown in the “Secrets” the path that the soul must follow in order to ascend to spiritual heights, and he showed it as it emerged from the inspiration he had received from mysterious sources in Frankfurt. That is why he calls the mysterious personality who is the thirteenth of the twelve leaders Humanus. But at the same time, this Humanus was something much deeper to him than what today's abstract thinker imagines when he hears this word. Humanus is a name he uses for the original human being, for the great, comprehensive human nature that strives in all directions to connect the forces to the heights of soul life. Oh, Goethe knew that the soul life is something rich. Today you heard two sentences that Goethe uttered, and which should be deeply engraved in the souls of those who seek abstract harmonies everywhere. One of the poems that has just been recited ends, speaking of the inner essence of things, with the words:

Only in appearance do moments stand still.
The eternal continues to stir within all;
For everything must dissolve into nothingness,
If it is to persist in being.

[ 11 ] An expression of a cosmic mystery, an expression as the human mind presents it to the soul! The next poem begins after the last line of the preceding poem: For everything must crumble into nothingness if it wishes to persist in being:

No being can dissolve into nothing!
The eternal stirs on in all,
May you be happy in being.

[ 12 ] Anyone who wants to judge everything according to the point of view just described, whether there is a contradiction here or there, should first of all bear in mind that Goethe, when he wanted to raise himself to the highest heights of cosmic events, had to write two sentences that say exactly the opposite of each other. Why? Because the life that stands behind appearances is great and extensive, and because our external means of expression are limited, and because, if we want to embrace the rich life, we must describe and consider it from one side and then from the other. We must look carefully to see how that which wants to persist in being must dissolve. On the other hand, we must also be able to acknowledge that there is something within spiritual life of which we must say: it can remain happy in being and persisting. — The world is infinitely deeper and richer than people usually believe. That is why Goethe, when he felt the need to describe things not merely in abstract words, then in the middle of his life, in the thirty-fifth year of his incarnation at that time, came to the thought: Yes, indeed, the most diverse religions are spread throughout the world; they live here and there, and they are called upon to bring forth within themselves the blossoms of spiritual existence. Goethe let the thought pass through his soul: When we look at one religion or another, there is a point in each where it rises above itself and leads to a point hidden behind all religions. — Goethe represents the different religions in the twelve personalities who gather in the mysterious monastery on which the Rosicrucian cross can be seen, indicating what the Rosicrucian cross has as its task, namely to unite the different religions after they have risen above themselves and pointed to the great unity of spiritual life, which is represented by the Thirteenth, who is the leader and has risen to such perfection that he is described in the most beautiful words, that he is described to us from the outset at the moment when he is touched by death. The poem describes the moment when the Thirteenth is awaiting death, when he is to go to the spiritual world, suggesting that what radiates from the worldviews united in love that extend beyond the globe truly reigns over these Twelve. That was the thought that stood before Goethe's soul. He wanted to express this thought in an appropriate way. He said to himself: This must happen in a story that takes place around Good Friday, around that day which must be the eternal symbol of the great spiritual truth that spiritual life overcomes death everywhere. The Secrets would have been a Good Friday poem if Goethe had been able to find the form for what stood so brilliantly before his soul at that time. And if we want to sense something of the necessity of these thoughts, we may well recall on this occasion that much later, on another Good Friday, another man, looking out from Lake Zurich at the nature just beginning to sprout, had the thought of what could be linked to Good Friday. For it was on a Good Friday that Richard Wagner felt the idea for his “Parsifal” welling up within him.

[ 13 ] When we allow such things to affect our souls, we sense something of the necessity that reigns in everything that confronts us in the outer world of the senses. Goethe wanted to create such poetry. It is not always the fault of those who can only bring it to the stage of a fragment. Sometimes it is also the fault of the times, which do not yet provide the means to bring this or that to fruition. But now we understand why Goethe presents us with a man in his brother Markus who has developed within himself a mood that has been purified of everything in the external earthly world that can contaminate our soul. That is why Goethe calls the man who had come so far as to purify his soul of everything that can contaminate it from the earth a soul that looked as if it came from another earth. So Brother Markus wanders along to experience things of which Goethe himself says in the first two stanzas: What must be said will often appear as if this or that side path has been taken. One should not think that this is a mistake. The poem contains such greatness that one should rather think everywhere that one will only mature to comprehend the infinite depths contained therein, instead of criticizing. At the same time, however, we are reminded that what is at stake here are not experiences that can be grasped with the senses, but can only be fully grasped with a spiritual soul that has transcended itself. Thus our brother Markus, this purified soul, is led before the temple, which expresses its essence by the fact that its symbol is the cross entwined with roses, that symbol to which all those have always looked who, out of the spiritual substance of the West, have developed within themselves that attitude which seeks to lead the various religions of the world to love and peace and to the elevation of the human soul. The most beautiful and greatest program of our worldview therefore lives in this poem.

[ 14 ] Now, it would take a great deal of time if I were to go into the details; but even if I make only a few hints, you will recognize how this poem has been created from the entire Rosicrucian spiritual substance of the West. We are told about the thirteenth, who leads the others, who has in his soul the tendency to lead the individual worldviews beyond themselves to a great unity. We are told what we are also told about the great leaders of humanity, which is nothing other than an expression of great truths. We must see in this not merely symbols, but the expression of great truths, of great realities. A star announces the arrival of the soul of this thirteenth, just as a star always announces the arrival of another being into physical existence. Remember the stories about the birth of Buddha and Jesus, and understand from this the high nature that Goethe wanted to hint at in the mystery of European mysticism with his thirteenth. Something else is said: that this thirteenth was a personality who in his earliest youth overcame the serpents that were coiled around his sister. The serpent has always been the real symbol of that astral life that pulls people down, preventing them from rising to the highest heights. From the serpent in Paradise to all serpent symbols, you will always find among the many good serpent symbols those that must be overcome. Thus, in our Thirteenth, you see the victor over the lower human nature that must be cast off. Even as a boy, he turns to his sister, the sister of the spirit within us, for the spirit within us has its sister in the soul — he turns to the soul and kills the otter of his own soul. In this way, he matures toward the higher life to which he is called; he matures in such a way that his outer life becomes a life of struggles, as they are described; he matures to the point where he takes this outer life upon himself like a cross. Then we are told: This thirteenth leads a band of twelve, and this band sits with him at the love feasts and spiritual celebrations around a table. Above each chair we see a symbol. Above the chair of the thirteenth we see once again the fundamental symbol of all European spiritual life, the Rosicrucians. Above each of the other chairs we see other symbols which show us spiritual life divided into different rays.

[ 15 ] And now I would like to remind you briefly of what was said yesterday about the two streams of humanity. The southern stream is concerned with the cultivation of the inner life, from which the spiritual world was sought in the post-Atlantean period. This stream has to struggle especially with the enemies within its own soul, with the repulsive, hostile astral forces. These forces, which the soul must conquer within itself if it wants to find the spiritual realm that is hidden by the veil of the soul world, were symbolically expressed by the fiery dragon, by the dragon in the fire. And a whole number of worldviews arose from the idea that the soul ascends to the higher world after defeating the dragon, after defeating the beings that burn and rage within and around human beings. Among the northern peoples, we find the penetration through the veil of the outer sensory world. Here, what penetrates into the outer sensory world is at work. Here we see another symbol appear. If human beings want to penetrate through what opposes them in the outer sensory world, they must strongly oppose this sensory world. The way in which human beings must triumph over the outer sensory world if they want to penetrate through it into the spiritual realm is poignantly depicted in the image of the ancient god who sticks his hand and arm into the wolf's jaws and loses them, so that the ancient European god of war, Ziu, is one-handed. This image, which is meant to represent victory over the outer world, appears in many different ways, especially in the form of the esoteric victorious hero sticking his hand into a bear's jaws, and blood spurting out as the excess ego. Blood is the expression of the ego, and here it is the image of excess egoism. The dragon is the symbol of the southern view of the world; the hand stuck into the bear's throat is the symbol of the northern view of the world. Six sat on one side, the representatives of the southern world view, and six on the other side as representatives of the northern world view. On one side, next to the thirteenth, above the chair was the symbol of the dragon glowing in the fire; on the other side, next to the thirteenth, above the chair was the symbol of the one who conquers the outer world, who puts his hand into the bear's mouth so that blood gushes out. Goethe wanted to show each of the chairs in this way. It was a great heroic task to show how, on the one hand, the soul must penetrate through the fleece of the soul life into the realms behind its own soul life, and how, on the other hand, the soul must penetrate through the carpet of the sensory world to the spiritual life outside in the world. That is why you find these images of the carpet and the fleece used here. And so we could go through line by line and find the stages that the human soul must go through until that point where one can speak of the human being who has become victorious by rising above himself. The purified soul of Brother Markus is led into this community; he is led in at the moment when the Twelve unite spiritually and physically in the hour of the Thirteenth's death. Goethe wanted to depict that Markus himself, in his simplicity, should have become the leader of these twelve directions. Goethe had set himself the task of describing this path, as an initiate himself, who was advancing toward the unity of religious life.

[ 16 ] However, this description could only flourish up to the forecourt. There, after Brother Markus has allowed the meaningful impressions to work on his soul, where he finds himself in a quiet sleep, which is a clairvoyant sleep, in the world that is revealed to him through the meaningful symbols, he awakens from this clairvoyant sleep. As he awakens, he hears strange sounds, as if the harmonies of the spheres were trying to sound softly. How the harmonies of the spheres move bodies in a round dance is indicated to us in that the symbolized world forces move as in a round dance according to the strange music. Then the great vision of the future of humanity dawns. There are three members in human nature; we call them the spirit self, the life spirit, and the spirit man, or we call them manas, buddhi, and atma. These are the seeds that lie dormant in our nature; these are the blossoms of youth in the human soul. If we look at them, we can say: they are present today in embryonic form, and they will unfold in each individual through the following stages of earthly existence. We see them today as faint shadows, like the “young men” in our soul who appear when we can look up to where the gaze can see the future of humanity. This future of humanity is before Brother Markus' eyes. He looks into the future in which the soul forces that are today the three young men will develop: Manas, Budhi, Atma. They flit by, but they leave behind in the soul that meaningful feeling which is the seed of spiritual progress. For it is the peculiarity of all spiritual creations of humanity that they leave feelings behind in the soul, and the basic impulse that represents the seed is this: I want to participate in the spiritual development of humanity so that the spirit can flow more and more into all outer bodies, so that it can descend through the instrument of the human being and first enlivens the material, then spiritualizes it and, as far as necessary, redeems it. Goethe also wanted to make his Good Friday poem into such a poem of redemption, depicting the resurrection.

[ 17 ] Let us try to allow the contemplation of this poem to become a seed within us, through which the highest words can continue to speak in our souls! As anthroposophists, become souls who take up this program! Let each of you continue to write what Goethe planted as a seed in the development of humanity, and then the poem that Goethe wanted and had to leave behind will be completed in humanity! And what matters is not who completes this or that, but that the fruits ripen in humanity that lead human beings into the spiritual world.