The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. Novalis as the Herald of the Christ Impulse to Be Grasped Spiritually

[ 1 ] When we hear in this way the heartfelt sounds of our beloved Novalis, through which he knew how to proclaim so intimately the mission of Christ, we feel a sense of vindication for our spiritual current, for we sense this from a personality whose very nature is deeply intertwined with all the world’s riddles and mysteries; we feel how something like a longing for those spiritual worlds resounds from within him—worlds that modern humanity must seek precisely through the very worldview toward which we strive. It is a wonderful thing to immerse oneself in the heart and soul of a person such as Novalis was. How he emerged from the depths of Western spiritual life, himself deeply rooted in his comprehensive grasp of the longings for the spiritual world. And when we then allow this to work upon us—just as he, in this incarnation, allowed the spiritual worlds to flow into his youthful heart, and how these spiritual worlds were illuminated for him by the Christ impulse, then we feel this as a call to our own souls, our own hearts, to strive with him toward that which shone before him like a sublime light, ceaselessly, toward which he lived his brief existence in this life. And we feel how he was, in this incarnation, one of the prophets of modern times for that which we seek in the spiritual worlds; we also feel how we can best be inspired to this seeking through that enthusiasm that lived in the heart and soul of a Novalis and that came to him from his intimate permeation with the Christ impulse. And we may, precisely at this moment of our striving—as we on the one hand are founding the Anthroposophical Society, which is to encompass all human mysteries, and at the present moment, as we on the other hand also wish to contemplate, in connection with the Christ impulse, the light that shines so brilliantly from the East— we may, at this very moment, connect with that which lived as an expression of the Christ impulse in the soul of Novalis.

[ 2 ] We know that it once resounded in ancient Hebrew times as a great prophecy and as the significant word of Elijah, springing forth from creation. We know that it was the impulse that was present when the cosmic Christ-being descended into the body of Jesus of Nazareth. We know that it was the same impulse that once prophetically foreshadowed what is to be incorporated into the development of humanity. We know that it was the same impulse that conjured up in Raphael’s soul, before human eyes, the infinite mysteries of Christianity. And with longing and a sense of mystery, we turn to the reincarnated soul of Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael in Novalis, and feel with this soul how all its spiritual vibrations are permeated and inflamed by the longing for a new spiritual life among humanity, and then feel the courage and sense that some of that power comes to us, enabling us to live in harmony with this new spiritual life of humanity. Oh, why was he born, this Novalis, into the modern era, to prophetically herald the Christ impulse to be grasped spiritually? For around him, within his spiritual horizon, there was a revival of the great spiritual currents of all humanity. Novalis grew out of the circle in which spiritual life itself was blazing, as a first proclamation of the theosophical-anthroposophical worldview of the West. In the radiance of the Goethe sun, the Schiller sun, this soul, weaving and yearning toward the Christ impulse, matured.

[ 3 ] What kind of spiritual current flowed through Goethe? How does the sun of the spirit express itself through Goethe and shine upon Novalis, Goethe’s young contemporary? From Spinoza’s worldview, Goethe had sought to discern everything that could calm his fiery passions, bring him bliss, and turn his spirit toward the divine. From Spinoza’s comprehensive worldview, Goethe had sought a perspective on the vastness of the worlds and on the spiritual entities that interweave these vastnesses and shine into the human soul, so that this human soul might solve the mysteries of nature and its own by perceiving and recognizing the existence that lives and weaves within all beings and worlds. Goethe strove to rise to purity and insight from what he could glean from Spinoza. Thus he sensed something of that monotheistic worldview in the spiritual sense that already resounds to us and shines forth from the ancient Vedic word; and one can hear them harmonize in the most beautiful way, if one is only willing to listen, Goethe’s ever-renewing cosmic Vedic word with the warm enthusiasm that resounds from Novalis, in the Christ mystery of the world. Light streams toward us from Goethe’s Vedic word; love and warmth flow into the light when we feel Novalis’s Christ-proclaiming words pouring into Goethe’s luminous words. And when we encounter Goethe elsewhere, where Goethe, with full respect for the knowledge of the unity of the world, acknowledges the independence of every soul in the Leibnizian sense, then it is not in Goethe’s words that the Western doctrine of monads—which is an echo of Sankhya philosophy—blows toward us, but in the spirit of his thought. Amid all this—which, like an echo of Sankhya philosophy, was experienced by Weimar and Jena at that time—Novalis matured with his heart turned toward Christ. And one sometimes senses such a spirit, imbued in a modern nuance with the Sankhya mindset—like Fichte in his austerity—one senses how it is tempered into the true spirit of the age when, standing beside him and embracing him in devoted enthusiasm, one thinks of Novalis. On the one hand, one hears Fichte’s remarkable renewal of the ancient Indian saying that the world as it surrounds us is but a dream, and that thinking, as it usually is, is a dream of this dream; but reality is the human soul, which pours out its will as a force into this dream world. Such are Fichte’s renewed Vedanta words. Alongside them, Novalis’s confidence. Oh, he feels this confidence something like this: Yes, physical existence is a dream, thinking a dream of the dream, but from this dream springs forth all that which the human soul feels and perceives as its most precious, and can spiritually accomplish through feeling and perception. And from the dream of life, the soul of Novalis creates, out of the Christ-inspired self, what he calls “magical idealism”—that is, idealism carried by the spirit. And we feel how, more harmoniously than is usually possible in the dream of the world, something unites when we see Novalis’s loving soul standing beside another spiritual hero of his time, listening as Schiller attempts to inspire the world with his idealism, and how Novalis, by portraying Schiller’s ethical idealism, proclaims his magical idealism from the heart that is itself inspired by Christ. How deeply it speaks to our soul, this quality we might call goodness—the innermost, most intimate Western goodness of Novalis—when he once writes enthusiastically about Schiller. Therein is expressed the full goodness of a human soul, the full capacity for love of a human soul, when we allow such a word of Novalis—as Novalis himself spoke it—to take effect upon us, in order to praise Schiller for what Schiller was to him, for what he was to humanity. To express this praise, Novalis says something like the following:

[ 4 ] If those desireless beings we call spirits, in the spiritual realms, can hear such words and such human knowledge as flow from Schiller, then perhaps even these desireless beings, whom we call spirits, may one day be filled with the desire to descend into the human world and be incarnated here, in order to work toward the true development of humanity, which is capable of receiving such knowledge as flows from such a personality. .

[ 5 ] Dear friends! A heart that can revere and love in this way is a model for all those who wish to surrender to this feeling of genuine, true, and devoted reverence and love. Such a heart can also express, in the simplest way, the mysteries of the world and the human soul. That is why many a word that comes from Novalis’s mouth has the value of echoing what, from the threefold human stream toward the spirit, has been allowed to resound so longingly and at times so luminously throughout the ages. Thus he stands before us, this Novalis who barely reached the age of thirty, this reborn Raphael, this reborn John, this reborn Elijah; thus he stands before us, and thus we may revere him ourselves; thus he can be, among many, one of the mediators who teach us the way to find the right heart, the right love, the right enthusiasm, the right devotion, so that we may succeed in allowing that which we wish to bring down from lofty spiritual heights to flow into even the simplest human souls. For whatever one or the other may say about the obscurity of modern spiritual research, it is precisely the simple heart, the simple mind, that will prove this obscurity a lie; for they will understand what is brought down from spiritual heights through that which we seek in our spiritual movement. We must find the path from spiritual heights not only to those who have allowed a certain scholarly spiritual life to take effect upon them in some form; we must seek the path to all longing souls who yearn for truth and for the spirit. And let our guiding principle be the words of Goethe, which in their simplicity need only be grasped deeply enough: “Wisdom is only in truth”—this must be the goal of our striving: to transform the spiritual life we seek and of which we hear that it is bestowed upon us through the grace of the spiritual powers; to shape this spiritual life in such a way that it finds access to all, all yearning souls. This must be our endeavor. In truth, let us work and be earnestly intent on finding the path to all seeking souls, whatever stage of their incarnation they may be at. The mysteries of incarnation are profound, as an incarnation path such as that of Novalis clearly shows us. But he, in particular, can shine before us like a guiding star, shining so brightly that, as we follow him with feeling, we have both the good will to strive with all our effort to rise up to him in knowledge, and, on the other hand, the vital will to reach out with that knowledge to every human heart that is truly seeking the spiritual. Thus may that which Novalis himself so beautifully expresses—and which can also serve as a kind of motto for what we have resolved to do at the starting point of the anthroposophical spiritual movement—shine the way for us.

[ 6 ] Words are no longer mere words; when words of the spirit form the foundation of a worldview, these words become enlightening and heartwarming for both the loftiest and the simplest of souls. That must be our longing. That was also Novalis’s longing. He expresses it in beautiful words, which I would like to quote here with the alteration of a single word at the end, and which are meant to speak to your hearts, my dear friends. I change this word in Novalis, even if perhaps the philistines, who imagine themselves to be free spirits, might then become a little angry. And so let our guiding star, alongside other guiding stars, also be that which lies in Novalis’s beautiful words:

When numbers and figures are no longer
The keys to all creatures,
When those who sing or kiss
Know more than the most learned scholars,
When the world is returned to free life
And back into the world,
When then light and shadow
Join together to form true clarity,
And in fairy tales and poems
One recognizes the eternal stories of the world,
Then, before a secret word
The whole perverse herd mentality flies away.