Spiritual Scientific Notes on Goethe's Faust, Vol. II
GA 273
2 November 1917, Dornach
4. Faust and the “Mothers”
My dear friends,
What I am going to speak about this evening I should like to link on to the scenes we have just witnessed. And what can be said in this regard will fit in well with the whole course of our present considerations.
Now I have often spoken here before about the importance of the ‘Mothers scene’ in the second part of Goethe's “Faust”; this scene, however, is of such a nature that one can repeatedly return to it because through its significant content, apart from the aesthetic value of the way in which it is introduced into the poem, it really contains a kind of culminating point of all that is spiritual in present day life. And if this ‘Mothers scene’ is allowed to work upon us, we shall well be able to say that it contains a very great deal of all that Goethe is wishing to indicate. It comes indeed out of Goethe's immediate soul experiences just as on the other it throws light on the significant, deep knowledge that we are obliged to recognise in him if we are to have any notion at all of what is meant by this scene where Faust is offered by Mephistopeles the possibility of descending to the Mothers. If we notice how, on Faust's reappearing and coming forth from the Mothers, the Astrologer refers to him as ‘priest’, and that Faust henceforward refers to himself as ‘priest’, we have to realise that there is something of deep import in this conversion of what Faust has been before into the priest. He has descended to the Mothers: he has gone through some kind of transformation. Leaving aside what one otherwise knows of the matter and what has been said by us in the course of years, we need reflect only upon how the Greek poets, in speaking of the Mysteries, refer to those who were initiated as having learnt to know the three world-Mothers—Rhea, Demeter and Proserpina. These three Mothers, their being, what they essentially are—all this was said to be learnt through direct perception by those initiated into the Mysteries in Greece.
When we dwell upon the significant manner in which Goethe speaks in this scene, and also upon what takes place in the next, we shall no longer be in any doubt that in reality Faust has been led into regions, into kingdoms, that Goethe thought to be like that kingdom of the Mothers into which the initiate into the Greek Mysteries was led. By this we are shown how full of import Goethe's meaning is.
And now remind yourselves of how the moment Mephistopheles mentions the word ‘Mothers’ Faust shudders, saying what is so full of meaning: “Mothers, Mothers! How strange that sounds!” And this is all introduced by Mephistopheles' words “It is with reluctance that I disclose the higher mystery.” Thus it is really a matter here of something hidden, a mystery, that Goethe, in this half secret way, found necessary to impart to the world in connection with the development of his Faust.
We must now ask, and are able to do so on the basis of what we have been considering during these past years, what is supposed to happen to Faust in the moment that this higher mystery is unveiled before him? Into what world is he led? The world, into which he is led, the world he now enters, is the spiritual world immediately bordering on our physical one.
Please remember clearly how I have already said that the crossing of the threshold into this world beyond the border must be approached in thought with great caution. As I said, this is because between the world that we observe with our senses and understand with our intellect, and that world from which the -physical one arises, there is a borderland as it were, a sphere where one may easily fall into deception and illusion when not sufficiently developed and prepared. It might be said that only in the world comprehended by the senses are there definite forms, definite outlines and boundaries. These do not exist in the world that is on other side of the border. This is something that it is very difficult to get the modern materialistic intellect to grasp—that in the moment that the threshold is passed everything is in constant movement, and the world of the senses rises out of all this continual movement like petrified forms.
It is into this world so penetrated by movement—the imaginative world—that Faust is now transplanted; transplanted, however, by an external cause end not by gradual painstaking meditation. The cause comes from without. It is Mephistopheles, the force of evil working into the physical, who takes him over to the other world.
And now there is something to which we must be very much alive to if we are not to develop errornous opinions in this sphere. We, in anthroposophical circles, are seeking knowledge of the spiritual world. And everything said in the book “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,” and other books of that nature, about the exercises for gaining admittance into those worlds, goes no farther than the means by which this knowledge may be obtained. And here, as far as the present time and necessity are concerned in the giving out of these things to the world, it goes without saying that a halt must be made. Anyone wishing to advance beyond this, will come to the sphere that can be called the sphere of action in the supersensible world. This must be left to each individual. When he has once found the security of knowledge, he himself must undertake the action. But in what is meant to proceed between Faust and Mephistopheles this is not the case. Faust has actually to produce the departed Paris and Helen; therefore he does not only have to look into the spiritual world, he does not have to be an initiate only, but a magician, and must accomplish magical actions. It very clearly shown here in the way this scene is handled by Goethe how deeply familiar he was with certain hidden things in the human soul. The state of Faust's consciousness has to be changed. But at the same time he has to be given power to act out of supersensible impulses.
In his connection with Faust, Mephistopheles, in his capacity as an ahrimanic force, belongs to our world of the senses, but as a supersensible being. He has been transplanted. He has no power over the worlds into which Faust is now to be transplanted. They really do not exist for him. Faust has to pass over into a different state of consciousness that perceives, beneath the foundation of our world of the senses, the never-ceasing weaving and living, surging and becoming, from which our sense-world is drawn. And Faust is to become acquainted with the forces that are there below.
The ‘Mothers’ is a name not without significance for entering this world. Think of the connection of the word ‘Mothers’ with everything that is growing, becoming. In the attributes of the mother is the union of what is physical and material with what is not. Picture to yourselves the coming into physical existence of the human creature, his incarnation. You must picture a certain process that takes place through the interworking of the cosmos with the mother-principle, before the union of the male and female is consummated. The man who is about to become physical prepares himself beforehand in the female element. And we must now make a picture of this preparation that is confined to what goes on up to the moment when impregnation takes place—all therefore that takes place before impregnation. One has a quite wrong and materialistically biased notion if one imagines that there lie already formed in the woman all the forces that lead to the physical human embryo. That is not so. A working of the cosmic forces of the spheres takes place; into the woman work cosmic forces. The human embryo is always a result of cosmic activity. What is described in materialistic natural science as the germ-cell is in a certain measure produced out of the mother alone, but it is a counterpart of the great cosmic germ-cell.
Let us hold this picture in mind—this becoming of the human germ-cell before impregnation, and let us ask ourselves what the Greeks looked for in their three mothers, Rhea, Demeter and Proserpina. In these three Mothers they saw a picture of those forces that, working down out of the cosmos, prepare the human cell. These forces however do not come from the part of the cosmos that belongs to the physical but to the supersensible. The Mothers Demeter, Rhea and Proserpina belong to the supersensible world. No wonder then that Faust has the feeling that an unknown kingdom is making its presence felt when the word ‘Mothers’ is spoken.
Now think, my dear friends, what Faust really has to experience. If it were purely a matter of imaginative knowledge he would only need to be led into the normal state of meditation but, as has been said, he has to accomplish magical actions. For that it is necessary that the ordinary understanding, the ordinary intellect, with which men perceives the world of the senses, should cease to function. This intellect begins with incarnation into a physical body and ends with physical death. And it is this intellect in Faust that must be damped-down, clouded. He has to recognise that his intellect should cease to work. He must be taken up with his soul into a different region. This naturally should be understood as a significant factor in Faust is development.
Now how does the matter appear from Mephistopheles' point of view? We must understand that there is danger in the fact that it is Mephistopheles who has to transform Faust's state of consciousness. And it gives the former himself a sense of uneasiness; in a certain way it becomes dangerous for him also. What then are the possibilities? They are twofold. Faust may acquire the new state of consciousness, learn to know the other world from which he can draw upon miraculous forces, and go to and fro from one world to the other, thus emancipating himself from Mephistopheles for he would then learn to know a world where the latter had no place. With that he would, become free from Mephistopheles. The other possibility would be that all might go very badly and Faust's intellect become clouded. Mephistopheles really puts himself in a very awkward situation. However, he has to do something. He has to give Faust the possibility of fulfilling his promise. He hopes that in some way or another the matter may arrange itself, for he wants neither of the alternatives. He does not want Faust to grow away from him nor does he wish him to be completely paralysed.
I ask you to think over this and then to remember that it is all this that Goethe wants to indicate. In this scene of Faust he wishes to point out to the world that there is a spiritual kingdom, and that here he is showing the way in which man can relate himself to it. This is how things are connected.
Since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch the knowledge of these things has to a great extent been lost. I have told you that Goethe applied the knowledge he had personally received through great spiritual vision. The whole connection with the Mothers had entered into Goethe's soul when he read Plutarch. For Plutarch, the Roman story-teller whom Goethe read, speaks of the Mothers; and the following particular scene in Plutarch seems to have made a deep impression on Goethe. The Romans were at war with Carthage. Nicias is in favour of the Romans and wishes to seize the town of Engyon from the Carthaginians; he is therefore to be given over to the Carthaginians. So he feigns madness and runs through the streets crying “The Mothers—the Mothers are pursuing me!” From this you may see that in the time of which Plutarch writes this relation of the Mothers is brought into connection not with the normal understanding of the senses, but with a condition of man when this normal understanding is not present. It is beyond all doubt that what Goethe read in Plutarch stirred him to bring to expression in his “Faust” this idea of the Mothers.
We also find mention in Plutarch of how the world has a triangular form. Now naturally these words ‘the world has a triangular form’ must not be taken in a heavy literal sense, for the spatial is but a symbol of what has neither time nor space. Since we live in space, spatial images must be used for what is nevertheless beyond image, time or space.
Thus Plutarch gives the picture of a triangular world. This the whole world (see diagram). According to Plutarch in the centre of this triangle that is the world, the field of truth is found. Now out of this whole world Plutarch differentiates 183 worlds. 183 worlds, so he says, are in the whole circumference; they move around, and in the middle is this resting field of truth. This resting field of truth Plutarch describes as being separated by time from the surrounding 183 worlds—sixty on each of the three sides of the triangle and one at each angle makes 183. When, therefore, you take this imagination of Plutarch's, you have a world considered as consisting of three parts and in the cloud formation around it the 183 worlds welling and surging. That is at the same time the imagination for the “Mothers.” The number 183 is given by Plutarch.
Thus Plutarch, who in a certain sense held sway over the mystery wisdom, quoted the remarkable number 183. Let us now reckon how many worlds we get if we make a correct calculation up to the time of Plutarch's world. We must do so in the following way:
| First the entire world happenings | 1 |
| This divides itself up for us so that we have as complete world-evolutions Saturn, Sun and Moon | 3 |
But each of these worlds, Saturn, Sun and Moon, are again divided in the same way as our Earth. We divide our Earth into: The Polaric Period, And each of these seven periods [ages] we again divide into the seven epochs. Our present, the first post Post-Atlantean Period is divided into: Indian, the old Persian, the Egyptian, the Greco-Latin, the present epoch and two to follow. If we take this for Saturn, Sun and Moon, we have the successive worlds built up in the following way: 3 times 7 periods x 7 epochs (49 epochs) |
49 49 49 |
After these three successive worlds we still have to add the Earth that has not yet completed its development. The Polaric 7, Hyperborean 7, Lemurian 7(21), the Atlantean 7 |
28 | = |
| 179 | |
We have now completed Atlantis. Plutarch lived in the fourth epoch, of Post-Atlantis, so we must add |
4 |
| = | |
| The number of epochs of the world evolution | 183 |
You see how when we apply our own way of reckoning and correctly calculate the separate divisions and the whole world, as they have made their evolutions up to the time of the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch when Plutarch lived, we can truthfully say that we get 183 worlds.
Moreover, when we take our Earth upon which we are still evolving, and about which we cannot speak as of something completed, and when we look from this Earth to Saturn, Sun and Moon, there we find the “Mothers” that figure in another form in the Greek Mysteries under names Proserpina, Demeter and Rhea. For all the forces that are in Saturn, Sun and Moon are still working—working on into our own time. And those forces that are physical are but the shadow, the image, of what is spiritual. Everything physical is a mere picture of the spiritual.
Consider this. If you do not take simply its outward, gross physical body, but its forces, its impulses, the Moon with its forces is at the same time in the Earth. The being of the Moon belongs to the being of the Earth. If you only want a realistic picture, you need to imagine it thus. Here is the Earth (see diagram); here you have a shaft connected with the Moon, and the Moon is turned round on it The shaft, however, has no physical existence. And all that is Moon-impulse is not only here in the Moon but this sphere penetrates the Earth.
We now ask whether these forces thus related to the Moon have a real existence anywhere. The Greeks looked upon them as mysterious, as very full of mystery. And our modern destiny is connected with the fact that these forces no longer retain their character as mysteries but have been made available for all. If we only concentrate on this one thing, on these forces that are connected with the Moon—then we have one of the Mothers. What is this one Mother? We shall best approach the answer to this question in the following way.
In order to have a picture let us take any river—say the Rhine. What is the actual Rhine? On reflection—I have already spoken of this here—no one is really able to say what the Rhine is. It is called the Rhine. But what actually is it when we look into the matter? Is it the water? But in the next moment that has flowed away water has water has taken its place. It flows into the North Sea and other water and follows it, and that goes on continuously. Then what is the Rhine? Is the Rhine the trough, the bed? But no one believes that, for were the water not there no one would think of the bed as the Rhine. When you use the word ‘Rhine’ you are not referring to anything really there but to something in a constant state of metamorphosis—which, however, in certain sense does not change. If we picture this diagrammatically (see diagram) and assume that this is the Rhine and this the water that flows into it—well, now, this water is always evaporating and descending again.
If you consider that all rivers belong to one another, you will have to take into your calculations that the water evaporates and then falls again. To a certain extent the water that flows from its source down to its mouth always comes over again from the same reservoir in its rising and flowing down. The water completes its circulation here. But this water is divided up an extended over the surroundings; naturally you cannot follow the course of each drop. All the water that belongs to the earth, however, must be considered as a whole. The question of rejuvenating water does not come into consideration here, This is what happens where the water is concerned.
Something the same happens with the air, and in yet another case. If you have a telegraph station here and here another, you know that it is only a wire that connects them. The other connection is set up by means of the whole earth, the current goes down into the earth. Here is the place where it is earthed. The whole goes through the earth.
Now if you make a picture of these two things you have the water, the running water that spreads itself out and sets itself in circulation; and if on the other hand you imagine the electricity spreading itself out down in the earth, then you have two things at different poles—two opposed realities. I am only indicating here, for you can piece it together yourselves out of any elementary book on physics. But we are led to the conclusion that in electricity you have under the earth the opposite of what goes on above the earth in the circulation of the water.
What is there under the earth ruling as the being of electricity is Moon-impulse that has been left behind. It definitely does not belong to the earth. It is impulse remaining over from the Moon and was spoken of as such by the Greeks. And the Greeks still had knowledge of the relation between this force, distributed throughout the whole earth, and the reproductive forces. And there is this relation with the forces of growth and of increase. This was one of the ‘Mothers.’
Now you can imagine that all these premonitions of mighty connections did not arise before Faust merely as theories, but he felt himself obliged to seek out—to enter right into these impulses. Knowledge of this force was first of all given to those being initiated into the Greek Mysteries, this force together with the two other Mothers. The Greeks held all that was connected with electricity in secret in the Mysteries. And herein is where lies the decadence of the future of the earth—of which I have already spoken from another point of view—that these forces will be made public. One of these forces has already become so during the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—electricity. The others will be known about in the decadence of the sixth and seventh epochs.
All this, even in the decadent new secret societies, is still among the things about which their conservative members will not speak. Goethe quite rightly judged it fit to give out knowledge of these things in the only way possible for him in that age. At the same time, however, you have one of the passages from which you can see how the great poet Goethe did not simply write as other poets write, but that each word of his bore its special impress and had its appointed place.
Take for example the relation of the Mothers to electricity. Goethe belongs to those who treat of such things out of a thoroughly expert knowledge.
“Do you now see what one possesses in it?
The key will ferret out the proper place.
Follow it up, it leads you to the Mothers.”
And Faust:
“To the ‘Mothers’. That strikes me always like a shock!”
as if he had received an electric shock. This is written with intention—not haphazardly. In this scene nothing in connection with the matter in question is haphazard.
Mephistopheles gives Faust a picture of what he is to find as the impulses of the 183 worlds. This picture works in Faust's soul as it should work, for Faust has gone through many things that bring him near the spiritual worlds. On that account these things already affect him.
This is what I wanted chiefly to dwell upon, my dear friends, hew Goethe is wishing to set forth the most significant matters in this 'Mothers' scene. And by all this you can see from what worlds—what worlds of different consciousness—Faust has to bring Paris and Helen. Because Goethe is dealing with something of such supreme significance, what is spoken in this scene is actually different from what it appears at first sight. What Faust brings with him from these worlds—what I have already referred to—is recognised by the others who have assembled for a kind of drama. What makes them see it? It is half suggested: but by whom? By the Astrologer; and for that he has been chosen as astrologer. His words possess suggestive power. This is clearly expressed. These astrologers had an inherent art of influencing through suggestion, not the best kind of suggestion but an ahrimanic one. What then is our Astrologer actually doing as he stands among these courtiers, who really are not pictured as being particularly bright,—what is he doing? He is putting into them by suggestion what is necessary for all that has arisen as a special world through Faust's changed consciousness to become present in their minds. Remember what I showed you, what I once said to you, that nowadays it can be actually proved that spoken words produce a trembling in certain substances. You will surely find it in one or another of the lectures I have previously given here. I have wanted to remark upon this to show you how today the real nature of the conjuration scene can be demonstrated by experiment. Out of the smoke of the incense and the appropriate accompanying word is really developed what Faust brings for his consciousness out of quite another world. But this must be brought to the minds of the courtiers and made fully clear to them through the suggestive power of the Astrologer. What then does he do? He insinuates. He has the task of insinuating all this into the courtiers' ears. But insinuation is devil's rhetoric. So that through the words ‘insinuation is devil's rhetoric’ the devilish nature of the astrologer's art is brought home to us. That is the one meaning of the sentence. The other is connected with what actually happens on the stage. The devil sits in the prompter's box making his insinuations from there.
Here you have a very prototype of a sentence signifying two different things. You have the purely scenic significance of the devil himself sitting, insinuation from the prompter's box, and the reality of this—the Astrologer insinuating to the Court. In the way he does this it is a devilish art. Thus, if you go to work in the right way, you will find many sentences here with double meaning. Goethe employs this ambiguity because he wishes to represent something that actually happened but did not do so purely in a course-grained, material fashion. It can be performed thus, but its reality has nothing to do with the physical. Goethe, however, wanted to portray something that actually happened and was moreover an impulse in modern history and played a part there. He did not intend that something of this kind was simply to be performed, he meant to show that these impulses had already flowed into modern history, were already there, were working. He wanted to represent a reality, and to say that, in what has been developing since the sixteenth century, the devil has definitely played a part. If you take this scene seriously you will got the two sides of the matter, and you will realise how Goethe knew that spiritual beings were playing into historic processes. And at the end you come to what I have so often indicated, namely, that Faust is not yet sufficiently developed to bring the matter to a conclusion, that he has not derived the possibility of entering other worlds from the right source but from the power of Mephistopheles. All this is what forms the last part of the scene.
I shall add more to this tomorrow and bring our considerations further. But you have seen enough to know that in what Goethe wishes to say much of what we have been studying lately receives new light.
Faust und die Mütter
nach einer szenischen Darstellung aus «Faust» II: «Finstere Galerie». «Am Kaiserhof»
Die Betrachtungen des heutigen Abends möchte ich anknüpfen an die Szenen, die wir eben gesehen haben. Es wird sich uns dasjenige, was in Anknüpfung an diese Szenen gesagt werden kann, recht gut einfügen in den Lauf unserer gegenwärtigen Betrachtungen.
Ich habe nun schon öfter hier über die bedeutungsvolle «Mütter»Szene im zweiten Teil von Goethes «Faust» gesprochen. Allein diese Szene ist eine solche, auf die man immer wieder und wiederum aus dem Grunde zurückkommen kann, weil sie durch ihren bedeutungsvollen Inhalt, abgesehen von dem ästhetischen Wert, durch den sie sich in die Dichtung einfügt, eine Art Höhepunkt neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens wirklich in sich schließt, Man wird leicht sagen können, wenn man diese «Mütter»-Szene auf sich wirken läßt, daß sie eine ganze Summe von Andeutungen, die Goethe machen wollte, in sich schließt. Sie ist ebenso herausgeholt aus Goethes unmittelbaren seelischen Erlebnissen, wie sie auf der andern Seite Licht wirft auf bedeutungsvolle, tiefe Erkenntnisse, die man einfach bei Goethe anerkennen muß, wenn man nur einigermaßen versteht, was diese Szene bedeutet, in der Faust durch Mephistopheles die Möglichkeit geboten wird, in das Reich der Mütter hinunterzusteigen. Fassen wir einmal ins Auge, daß der Astrologe, als Faust wieder erscheint, wieder heraufkommt von den Müttern, von Faust als Priester spricht, daß Faust sich selbst als Priester nunmehr bezeichnet. Wir müssen dann in dieser Umwandlung desjenigen, was Faust vorher war, zum Priester, etwas Bedeutungsvolles sehen. Er ist hinuntergestiegen zu den Müttern. Eine Umwandlung ist mit ihm vorgegangen. Man braucht nur zu bedenken, ganz abgesehen von dem übrigen, was man über die Sache weiß, was wir im Lauf der Jahre über die Sache zu sagen hatten, wie die griechischen Dichter, indem sie von den Mysterien sprechen, andeuten, daß derjenige, der in die Mysterien eingeweiht wird, kennenlernt die drei Weltmütter: Rhea, Demeter und Proserpina. Die drei Mütter, ihre Wesenheit, dasjenige, was sie eigentlich sind, sollte durch unmittelbare Anschauung derjenige kennenlernen, der in Griechenland in die Mysterien eingeweiht wurde.
Wenn man die bedeutungsvolle Art ins Auge faßt, wie Goethe in dieser «Mütter» -Szene spricht, und wenn man das ins Auge faßt, was er vorgehen läßt in der nächsten Szene, dann wird man nicht mehr in Abrede stellen können, daß Faust in der Tat in Regionen, in Reiche geführt wird, die Goethe sich gleich gedacht hat den Reichen der Mütter, in die der griechische Mysterieneingeweihte geführt wurde. Damit ist aber schon angedeutet, daß Bedeutungsvollstes von Goethe gemeint ist.
Nun vergegenwärtigen Sie sich: in dem Augenblicke, wo Mephistopheles das Wort «Mütter» erwähnt, schaudert es Faust. Und dann spricht Faust die bedeutungsvollen Worte:
Die Mütter! Mütter! - ’s klingt so wunderlich!
Eingeleitet wird das Ganze damit, daß Mephistopheles sagt:
Ungern entdeck’ ich höheres Geheimnis.
Also um ein Geheimnis, um ein Mysterium handelt es sich wirklich, um etwas, was Goethe gewissermaßen in dieser halb und halb verborgenen Art für nötig fand, im Zusammenhange mit seiner Faust-Entwickelung der Welt mitzuteilen.
Wir müssen uns fragen und wir können es auf Grundlage der Betrathtungen, die wir im Laufe der Jahre angestellt haben: Was soll denn eigentlich in diesem Augenblicke, wo höheres Geheimnis vor Faust enthüllt werden soll, mit Faust geschehen? In welche Welt wird er eigentlich geführt? - Die Welt, in die er geführt wird, in die er eintreten soll, sie ist die Welt, die unmittelbar als geistige Welt angrenzt an unsere physische Welt.
Nun erinnern Sie sich wohl, daß ich gerade im Laufe dieser Betrachtungen gesagt habe, daß das Überschreiten der Schwelle zu dieser unmittelbar angrenzenden Welt schon gar vorsichtig aus dem Grunde ins Auge gefaßt werden muß, weil zwischen unserer Welt, die wir durch die Sinne betrachten und durch den Verstand begreifen, und jener Welt, aus der sich unsere sinnliche Welt heraus erhebt, gewissermaßen als Grenzland ein solches Gebiet ist, in dem man sehr leicht, wenn man nicht in genügender Reife und in genügender Vorbereitung in dieses eintritt, der Täuschung, der Illusion verfällt. Man möchte sagen: Feste Formen, feste Konturen, Grenzen gibt es eigentlich nur in der Welt, die wir durch unsere Sinne sehen. In der Welt, die angrenzt an diese Welt unserer Sinne als übersinnliche, gibt es solche feste Formen, solche feste Grenzen nicht. — Das ist gerade das, was dem materialistischen Verstande der Gegenwart so schwer beizubringen ist, daß in dem Augenblicke, wo man die Schwelle übertritt, alles in Bewegung ist, daß diese Welt, die unseren Sinnen gegeben ist, nur wie Erstarrungsformen sich heraushebt aus einer durch und durch bewegten Welt.
In diese durch und durch bewegte Welt, die wir die imaginative Welt nennen, soll nun Faust versetzt werden. Aber durch einen äußeren Anlaß soll er in diese Welt versetzt werden, nicht nach und nach in sorgfältiger meditativer Art, sondern durch einen äußeren Anlaß soll er versetzt werden. Mephistopheles, also die Kraft des Bösen, die in die physische Welt hereinwirkt, soll ihn in diese Welt versetzen.
Nun muß man etwas sehr scharf ins Auge fassen, wenn man auf diesem Gebiete nicht mißverständlichen Auffassungen sich hingeben will. Sehen Sie, wir auf anthroposophischem Gebiete suchen Erkenntnisse der geistigen Welt. Auch dasjenige, was in dem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» oder in ähnlichen Büchern gesagt ist von der Praxis, um in die geistige Welt einzudringen, geht nicht weiter als bis dahin, wo vermittelt wird, Erkenntnisse dieser Welt zu gewinnen. Hier muß selbstverständlich, soweit es sich handelt um die heutige Zeit und um die Notwendigkeit, heute diese Dinge der Welt zu übergeben, Halt gemacht werden. Würde man weitergehen, so würde das Gebiet beginnen, welches man bezeichnen kann als dasjenige des Handelns in der übersinnlichen Welt. Das muß gewissermaßen jedem selbst überlassen werden. Wenn er die Sicherheit der Erkenntnis findet, dann muß ihm das Handeln selbst überlassen werden. Aber bei dem, was sich abspielen soll zwischen Faust und Mephistopheles, ist es nicht so. Faust soll wirklich die Abgeschiedenen, Paris und Helena, heraufbringen, er soll also nicht nur in die geistige Welt hineinschauen, er soll gewissermaßen nicht nur ein Eingeweihter, er soll ein Magier werden, beziehungsweise er soll magische Handlungen vollziehen. Ja, hier zeigt es sich an der ganzen Art und Weise, wie Goethe die Szene behandelt, daß er gründlich vertraut war mit gewissen Geheimnissen der menschlichen Seele. Der Bewußtseinszustand des Faust soll umgeändert werden. Aber zu gleicher Zeit soll Faust die Kraft übergeben werden, aus übersinnlichen Impulsen heraus zu handeln.
Mephisto gehört als solcher, als ahrimanische Kraft, so wie er Faust gegenübersteht, dieser Welt, in der wir mit unseren Sinnen leben, an, aber als übersinnliche Wesenheit. Er ist ja versetzt. Er hat keine Gewalt über die Welten, in die Faust nunmehr hineinversetzt werden soll. Die sind für ihn eigentlich nicht da. In einen andern Bewußtseinszustand soll Faust übergehen, in jenen Bewußtseinszustand, der unter dem Grunde unserer sinnlichen Welt wahrnimmt das Weben und Wesen, das Wogen und Werden, das nie stillesteht und aus dem sich unsere sinnliche Welt heraus erhebt. Und mit den Kräften, die da unten sind, soll Faust bekannt werden.
Die Mütter, das ist eine Bezeichnung, die für den Eintritt in diese Welt nicht ohne Bedeutung ist. Fassen Sie ins Auge den Zusammenhang des Wortes Mütter mit allem Wachsenden, mit allem Werdenden. Im Mütterlichen schließt sich zusammen das Physisch-Sinnliche mit demjenigen, was nicht physisch-sinnlich ist. Stellen Sie sich das Werden des menschlichen Geschöpfes vor, das physische Werden, die Inkarnation. Sie müssen sich einen gewissen Prozeß vorstellen, der sich abspielt durch ein Zusammenwirken zwischen dem Kosmos und dem miütterlichen Prinzip, bevor eine Vereinigung des Weiblichen und des Männlichen geschieht. Der physisch werdende Mensch bereitet sich im weiblichen Wesen vor. Wir fassen jetzt diese Vorbereitung so auf, daß wir sie nur ins Auge fassen bis zu dem Augenblick hin, wo die Befruchtung ist, also vor der Befruchtung. Es ist eine ganz mangelhafte einseitig-materialistische Vorstellung, wenn man glaubt, daß einfach in der Frau all die Kräfte vorgebildet liegen, die zum Menschenkeime, zum physischen Menschenkeime führen. Das ist nicht der Fall, sondern es findet eine Wirkung kosmischer, sphärischer Kräfte statt. In die Frau wirken hinein die Kräfte des Kosmos. Der Menschenkeim ist immer ein Ergebnis kosmischer Wirksamkeiten. Das, was die Naturwissenschaft, was der naturwissenschaftliche Materialismus als Eizelle beschreibt, ist gewissermafßen nur auf dem Mutterboden erzeugt, aber ist ein Abbild, herauserzeugt aus dem großen Weltenei.
Fassen wir also diesen werdenden Menschenkeim vor der Befruchtung ins Auge, und fragen wir uns: Was wollten die Griechen mit ihren drei Müttern, der Rhea, Demeter und Proserpina? Unter diesen drei Müttern stellten sie sich jene Kräfte vor, die aus dem Kosmos hereinwirken und den Menschenkeim vorbereiten, aber aus jenem Teil des Kosmos, der nun nicht sinnlich, sondern übersinnlich ist. Die Mütter, Demeter, Rhea, Proserpina, gehörten der übersinnlichen Welt an. Kein Wunder, daß Faust ahnt: ein unbekanntestes Reich deutet sich ihm an, als das Wort Mütter ausgesprochen wird.
Bedenken Sie, was nun Faust eigentlich erleben soll. Würde es sich bloß um imaginative Erkenntnisse handeln, so würde er nur regelrecht meditativ eingeführt zu werden brauchen, aber, wie gesagt, er soll magische Handlungen vollziehen. Dazu ist notwendig, daß der gewöhnliche Verstand, der gewöhnliche Intellekt, in dem der Mensch die Sinneswelt wahrnimmt, aufhört. Dieser Intellekt beginnt, wenn die Inkarnation im physischen Leibe beginnt, hört auf mit dem physischen Tode. Dieser Intellekt soll abgedämpft, abgetrübt werden. Davor steht Faust also, daß dieser Intellekt seine Wirksamkeit einstellen soll. In eine andere Region soll er mit seiner Seele aufgenommen werden. Das ist natürlich etwas, was bedeutungsvoll in die Entwickelung des Faust eingreifen soll.
Von seiten des Mephisto gesehen -- wie nimmt sich denn da die Sache aus? Nicht wahr, dadurch, daß Mephisto den Faust in diesen andern Bewußtseinszustand versetzen soll, wird die Sache gefährlich. Aber sie wird gewissermaßen auch für Mephisto höchst unbehaglich, sie wird auch für Mephisto in gewissem Sinne gefährlich. Denn, was kann passieren? Entweder Faust kommt hinüber in den andern Bewußtseinszustand, lernt die andere Welt kennen, aus der er höhere Kräfte herauszaubern kann, und er kommt mit seinem vollen Bewußtsein hin und zurück, dann entwächst er dem Mephisto, denn Faust lernt eine Welt erkennen, in der Mephisto nicht zu Hause ist. Damit ist er entwachsen dem Mephisto. Oder aber das gelingt in der denkbar schlechtesten Weise, dann würde Faust in seinem Verstande getrübt werden. Mephisto setzt sich selber wirklich in eine höchst peinliche Situation. Aber er muß etwas tun. Er muß Faust die Möglichkeit geben, sein Versprechen zu erfüllen. Er hofft, daß in irgendeiner Weise sich die Sache applanieren lassen werde, denn er will weder das eine noch das andere. Er will nicht, daß Faust ihm entwächst, noch will er auch, daß Faust ganz und gar paralysiert werde.
Das bitte ich Sie alles zu bedenken und dann ins Auge zu fassen, daß Goethe das alles andeuten wollte, also in dieser Szene des Faust wirklich die Welt hinweisen wollte’darauf: es gibt ein spirituelles Reich, dieses ist die Art und Weise, wie sich der Mensch zu diesem übersinnlichen Reich verhalten kann. So hängen die Dinge zusammen.
Die Erkenntnis von diesen Dingen ist dem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum wohl eigentlich zum großen Teil verlorengegangen. Goethe, sagte ich, verwandte dasjenige, was sich ihm persönlich ergeben hatte, in den großen Augenblicken geistiger Erkenntnis. Persönlich ist Goethe dieses ganze Verhältnis zu den Müttern vor die Seele getreten aus der Lektüre des Plutarch. Plutarch, der griechische Schriftsteller, den Goethe gelesen hat, spricht von den Müttern. Insbesondere eine Szene im Plutarch scheint auf Goethe dem Gemüte nach einen tiefen Eindruck gemacht zu haben: Die Römer sind mit den Karthagern im Kriege. Nikias ist römisch gesinnt, und er will die Stadt Engyion den Karthagern entreißen. Er soll an die Karthager deshalb ausgeliefert werden. Da stellt er sich wahnsinnig und läuft auf den Straßen herum und ruft: Die Mütter, die Mütter verfolgen mich! — Sie sehen daraus, daß in der Zeit, von der Plutarch spricht, man diese Verwandtschaft der Mütter nicht mit dem gewöhnlichen sinnlichen Verstande, sondern mit einem Zustand des Menschen, wo dieser sinnliche Verstand nicht da ist, in Zusammenhang bringt. Zweifellos hat alles dasjenige, was Goethe im Plutarch gelesen hat, ihm die Anregung gegeben, den Ausdruck, die Idee der Mütter einzuführen in den Faust.
In Plutarch wird auch davon gesprochen, daß die Welt eine dreieckige Form habe. Nun muß man natürlich sich die Dinge so vorstellen, daß dieser Ausdruck, die Welt habe dreieckige Form, nicht klotzigräumlich gemeint ist, sondern das Räumliche ist nur ein Sinnbild für Unräumliches und Unzeitliches. Aber da wir im Raume leben, müssen räumliche Bilder für das Überbildliche und Überräumliche und Über zeitliche gebraucht werden.
Dreieckig also — so wird in Plutarch geschildert - sei die Welt. (Eine Zeichnung wird entworfen.) Das ist die Gesamtwelt: in der Mitte dieses Weltendreiecks - meinte Plutarch — befindet sich das Feld der Wahrheit. Nun unterscheidet Plutarch gegenüber dieser Gesamtwelt 183 Welten. 183 Welten, sagt er, sind im Umkreise, sie bewegen sich ringsherum, in der Mitte das ruhige Feld der Wahrheit. Dieses ruhige Feld der Wahrheit, abgetrennt durch die Zeit, sagt er, von den 183 Welten, die ringsherum sich drehen: überall an jeder Seite 60, in den Ecken je eine = 183. Wenn also diese Plutarchsche Imagination genommen wird, so haben wir dreigliedrig die Welt gedacht: die Wolkenbildung ringsherum, die 183 Welten wellend und wogend. Das ist zu gleicher Zeit die Imagination für die Mütter. Die Zahl 183 ist von Plutarch angegeben.
Also Plutarch, der in gewissem Sinne die Mysterienweisheiten beherrschte, gibt die merkwürdige Zahl an: 183 Welten. Rechnen wir einmal heraus, wieviel Welten wir kriegen, wenn wir richtig rechnen bis zu der Welt des Plutarch hin. Da müssen wir so rechnen:
| Erst einmal das ganze Weltengeschehen als eine Welt | 1 |
| Dieses Weltengeschehen gliedert sich für uns so, daß wir fertige Weltenbildungen haben: Saturn, Sonne, Mond - Sie wissen — das sind | 3 |
| Aber jede von diesen Welten: Saturn, Sonne, Mond gliedern wir so, wie wir auch das Irdische gliedern. Wir gliedern das Irdische: in die polarische Zeit, in die hyperboräische Zeit, dann haben wir die lemurische Zeit, die atlantische, die nachatlantische und so weiter: 7. In jeder 7 Perioden, denn wir unterscheiden die indische, die urpersische, die chaldäisch-ägyptische, die griechisch-lateinische, die gegenwärtige; zwei andere werden folgen. Wenn wir auf Saturn, Sonne und Mond das 49 nehmen, so haben wir auf jedem aufeinanderfolgende Welten, die sich so fortbilden. | 49 49 49 |
| Dann haben wir, wenn wir zu den drei aufeinanderfolgenden Welten noch die Erde hinzufügen, die nicht eine fertige Bildung darstellt, dann in der Erdenbildung: die polarische Zeit: 7; die hyperboräische: 7; die lemurische Zeit: 7; das sind 21. Die atlantische Zeit: 7 | 28 |
| rechnen wir das einmal zusammen: | 179 |
| Nun sind wir mit der Atlantis fertig. Plutarch lebte im 4. Zeit alter; wir müssen also noch hinzurechnen | 4 |
| 193 |
Sie sehen, wenn wir unsere Rechnung anwenden und richtig rechnen, die einzelnen Glieder und die ganzen Welten, wie sie sich so fortgewälzt haben bis zu der vierten nachatlantischen Periode, in der Plutarch lebte, so konnte man wirklich sagen: diese Rechnung ergibt 183 Welten.
Außerdem aber, wenn wir unsere Erde nehmen, auf der wir uns noch entwickeln, der gegenüber wir also nicht von einem Abschluß sprechen können, und sehen hinauf zu Saturn, Sonne, Mond, haben wir dort die Mütter, die nur die griechischen Mysterien in einer andern Form ausgesprochen haben: Proserpina, Demeter, Rhea. Denn alle die Kräfte, die in Saturn, Sonne und Mond sind, sie wirken ja nach, wirken herein in unsere Zeit. Und dasjenige, was physische Kräfte sind, ist immer nur die Abschattierung, die Abbildung des Spirituellen. Alles Physische ist immer nur das Bild des Spirituellen.
Der Mond, wenn Sie nicht seinen äußeren, klotzigen physischen Leib nehmen, sondern die Kräfte, die Impulse, die in ihm sind: er ist mit seinen Kräften zugleich in der Erde. Die Mondenwesenheit gehört mit zur Erdenwesenheit. Sie brauchen sich nur die Sache folgendermaßen vorzustellen, wenn Sie eine grobe Vorstellung haben wollen. Da ist die Erde (eine Zeichnung wird entworfen), da hat sie einen Stiel, da ist der Mond daran; sie dreht ihn herum auf dem Stiel; der Stiel ist nur nicht physisch. Und alles dasjenige, was Mondenimpulse sind, sind nicht nur auf dem Monde, sondern diese Sphäre durchdringt die Erde.
Sind diese Kräfte irgendwie vorhanden, die mit dem Mond zusammenhängen? Die Griechen haben diese Kräfte als sehr geheimnisvoll betrachtet, als recht geheimnisvoll. Es hängt mit all den Verhängnissen der neueren Zeit zusammen, daß diese Kräfte, ohne daß der Mysteriencharakter gewahrt geblieben ist, offenbar geworden sind. Wenn wir diese Kräfte ins Auge fassen, die mit dem Monde zusammenhängen — wollen wir nur das eine ins Auge fassen -, dann haben wir die eine der Mütter. Was ist diese eine der Mütter? Wir werden uns auf die folgende Weise am besten nähern können dem, was diese eine der Mütter ist.
Nehmen Sie, um ein Bild zu haben, irgendeinen Fluß, sagen wir, den Rhein. Was ist eigentlich der Rhein? Wer nachdenkt - ich habe das schon einmal hier erwähnt -, kann eigentlich nicht sagen: Das ist der Rhein. — Man bezeichnet den Fluß als den Rhein. Aber was ist er real, der Rhein, wenn wir hinübergehen und ihn anschauen? Ist das Wasser der Rhein? Nun, das ist nächstens fort und anderes ist da, das geht in die Nordsee hinein und anderes kommt nach, das ändert sich fortwährend. Was ist der Rhein? Ist der Rhein die Mulde, das Bett? Daran denkt wiederum keiner. Wenn das Wasser nicht darinnen wäre, würde niemand daran denken, daß das der Rhein wäre. Eigentlich, wenn Sie das Wort der Rhein brauchen, brauchen Sie es nicht für etwas, das real da ist, sondern für etwas, das sich fortwährend ändert, aber doch wiederum nicht sich ändert in gewisser Beziehung. Wenn Sie sich die Sache schematisch so vorstellen (es wird gezeichnet), daß wir annehmen, das sei der Rhein, und das sei das in ihm fließende Wasser: nun ja, einmal verdunstet dieses Wasser und kommt wiederum herunter. Wenn Sie alle Flüsse als zusammengehörig betrachten, so müssen Sie doch sich vorstellen: es verdunstet, kommt wieder herunter. In gewisser Beziehung kommt das Wasser, das vom Ursprung zur Mündung hingeht, wiederum aus denselben Reserven des Wassers, das herauf- und hinuntergeht; der Kreislauf des Wassers vollzieht sich da. Nur zersplittert sich, verbreitet sich dieses Wasser in die ganze Umgebung. Natürlich können Sie nicht jedem Tropfen nachlaufen, aber man muß das Wasser, das zur Erde gehört, als eine Einheit betrachten. Die Frage nach juvenilem Wasser kommt hierbei nicht in Betracht. So ist es mit dem Wasser.
Etwas Ähnliches ließe sich auch mit der Luft machen. Aber es läßt sich etwas Ähnliches mit etwas noch anderem machen. Wenn Sie hier eine Telegraphenstation haben und hier (es wird wiederum gezeichnet) die andere Telegraphenstation, so wissen Sie, daß eine Verbindung ist nur durch einen Draht; die andere wird durch die ganze Erde hergestellt, denn der Strom geht in die Erde. Hier: darinnen ist die Erdleitungsplatte. Das Ganze geht durch die Erde durch.
Sie haben, wenn Sie sich diese zwei Dinge vorstellen: das Wasser, das hingeht, sich verbreitert, sich zum Kreislauf veranlagt, und wenn Sie sich vorstellen nach der andern Seite die Elektrizität, die in die Erde hinein sich so verbreitert — Sie haben zwei entgegengesetzte Dinge, ein zweifach entgegengesetzt Wesenhaftes haben Sie. Ich deute das hier nur an. Sie können sich das aus jeder elementaren Physik zusammenstellen. Aber es führt uns dies dahin, gewissermaßen in der Elektrizität das Gegenbild, das unterirdische Gegenbild zu dem zu sehen, was über der Erde vorgeht in dem Kreislauf des Wassers. |
Was da unter der Erde als elektrisches Wesen waltet, das ist nun zurückgebliebener Mondenimpuls. Es gehört eigentlich gar nicht zur Erde. Das ist zurückgebliebener Mondenimpuls und wurde von den Griechen so angesprochen. Die Griechen kannten nämlich noch die Verwandtschaft dieser über die ganze Erde verteilten Kraft mit den Kräften der Fortpflanzung — diese Verwandtschaft gibt es nämlich —, mit den Kräften des Wachsens, Gedeihens. Das war eine der Mütter. Nun können Sie sich denken: all die Ahnungen von diesen großen Zusammenhängen stehen vor Faust nicht nur theoretisch, sondern er soll sich in dieses Gebiet hineinbegeben, soll sich durchdringen mit diesen Impulsen. In den griechischen Mysterien wurde allerdings diese Kraft vor allen Dingen an die Einzuweihenden kundgegeben, diese Kraft neben den andern beiden Müttern. Die Griechen haben alles, was mit der Elektrizität zusammenhängt, mysterienhaft im Geheimen gehalten. Darinnen wird die Dekadenz liegen der Erdenzukunft, von der ich von einem andern Gesichtspunkte aus schon gesprochen habe, daß diese Kräfte nicht mehr heilig, nicht mehr mysterienhaft gehalten werden, sondern herauskommen. Eine ist während der fünften nachatlantischen Zeit herausgekommen: die Elektrizität. Die andern werden im sechsten und siebenten Zeitraum herauskommen bei der Dekadenz.
Das alles gehört selbst noch in den dekadenten neueren Geheimgesellschaften zu den Dingen, von denen die konservativen Mitglieder nicht sprechen wollen. Goethe hat es mit Recht angemessen gefunden, in der Art von den Dingen zu künden, in der er dazumal schon künden konnte. Aber zu gleicher Zeit haben Sie hier eine der Stellen bei Goethe, aus der Sie sehen können, daß der große Dichter nicht so dichtet wie viele, die auch dichten, sondern da steht jedes Wort geprägt und festgelegt an seinem Orte. Denken Sie einmal: die Mütter sind also verwandt mit Elektrizität. Goethe gehört zu denen, die diese Dinge wirk lich sachgemäß behandeln:
Merkst du nun bald, was man an ihm besitzt!
Der Schlüssel wird die rechte Stelle wittern,
Folg’ ihm hinab, er führt dich zu den Müttern.
Faust (schaudernd):
Den Müttern! Trifft’s mich immer wie ein Schlag!
Wie wenn er vom elektrischen Schlag getroffen wird. Goethe braucht das Wort Schlag mit voller Absicht, nicht als irgendein zufälliges Wort, wie nichts in dieser Szene bei den Dingen, bei denen es sich um etwas handelt, irgendwie zufällig dasteht.
Das Bild also, das vorbilder dasjenige, was er da finden soll als die Impulse der 183 Welten, das gibt Mephisto dem Faust. Dieses Bild, das wirkt schon in Faustens Seele so, wie es wirken soll, denn Faust hat mancherlei durchgemacht, was ihn in die Nähe der geistigen Welten bringt. Daher wirken diese Dinge schon für ihn.
Das wollte ich heute hauptsächlich auseinandersetzen, daß Goethe Bedeutungsvollstes in dieser «Mütter»-Szene auseinandersetzen will. Daraus sehen Sie aber schon, aus welchen Welten her — aus andern Bewußtseinswelten — Faust die Helena und den Paris zu holen hat. Weil Goethe so Bedeutungsvolles vorführte, deshalb ist auch wirklich die Sprache in diesen Szenen anders, als es auf den ersten Blick hin scheinen könnte. Dasjenige, was nun Faust heraufholt aus dieser Welt, die ich Ihnen angedeutet habe, sehen auch die andern, die sich zu einer Art von Drama versammelt haben. Aber wodurch sehen sie es? Es ist ihnen halb suggeriert. Wer suggeriert? Der Astrolog. Darum ist er auch als Astrolog gewählt. Seine Worte haben suggestive Kraft. Das ist auch deutlich zum Ausdruck gekommen. Diese Astrologen hatten die Kunst des Suggerierens schon in sich aufgenommen; nicht die beste, schon eine solche, die ahrimanisch war. Was tut denn eigentlich unser Astrolog, wenn er da so steht, und dieser Hof, der sich Ihnen, nun ja, als nicht besonders gescheit, wenn ich so sagen darf, vorstellte? Was tut denn eigentlich der Astrolog unter diesem Hofe? Er suggeriert ihnen das, was nötig ist, damit dasjenige, was durch Fausts verändertes Bewußtsein als eine besondere Welt heraufsteigt, den andern gegenwärtig wird. Erinnern Sie sich, was ich Ihnen hier einmal dargestellt, einmal gesagt habe: Man kann heute nachweisen, daß die Worte, die man spricht, ihr Erzittern in gewissen Substanzen zeigen. — Ich habe daran zeigen wollen, daß man heute schon experimentell das Wesen der Beschwörungsszenen klarlegen könne. Aus dem Weihrauchnebel der entsprechenden Worte entwickelt sich wirklich dasjenige, was Faust aus einer ganz andern Welt für sein Bewußtsein herausbringt. Aber für die Hofgesellschaft wird dieses gegenwärtig, wird wirklich gesehen dadurch, daß der Astrolog das Suggestive hinzufügt. Was tut der Astrolog? Er bläst ein, er ist der Einbläser für jedes der Ohren der Hofgesellschaft. Aber: Einbläsereien sind des Teufels Redekunst. Also indem das Wort gesprochen wird:
Einbläsereien sind des Teufels Redekunst,
wird die teuflische Kunst des Astrologen bezeichnet. Das ist die eine Bedeutung dieses Satzes. Die andere ist diese unmittelbar auf die Szene bezügliche: der Teufel sitzt selber im Souffleurkasten drin und bläst ein.
Hier haben Sie das Urbild eines solchen Satzes mit absolutem Doppelsinn. Rein szenisch: der Teufel sitzt selber im Souffleurkasten und bläst ein! Aber in Wirklichkeit: der Astrolog bläst der Hofgesellschaft ein! Und das ist eine teuflische Kunst, so wie er sie übt.
So werden Sie, wenn Sie richtig zu Werke gehen, in sehr vielen dieser Sätze, die hier gesprochen werden, Doppelsinn finden. Goethe gebraucht diesen Doppelsinn, weil er darstellen will etwas, was wirklich geschieht, und doch wiederum nicht in dem Sinne wirklich geschieht, wie das Materiell-Klotzige wirklich geschieht. Aufgeführt werden kann es ja, aber es ist nicht im sinnlichen Sinne wirklich. Aber Goethe wollte etwas darstellen, was nun wirklich in der neueren Geschichte einen Impuls, eine Rolle gespielt hat, was wirklich geschehen ist. Goethe meinte nicht etwa nur, daß da einmal so etwas aufgeführt worden ist, sondern er meinte, in die neuere Geschichte sind schon diese Impulse hineingeflossen, sind darinnen. Das wirkt. Er wollte eine Wirklichkeit darstellen. Er wollte gewissermaßen sagen: In dem, was sich seit dem i6. Jahrhundert heraufentwickelt hat, da hat schon der Teufel mitgespielt. — Und wenn Sie die Szene in diesem Sinne ernst nehmen, so haben Sie wiederum die zweite Seite der Sache, haben Goethes Erkenntnis von dem Mitspielen von übersinnlichen Wesenheiten in den historischen Vorgängen. Und in dem Schluß haben Sie das, was ich öfter schon angedeutet habe, daß Faust noch nicht reif ist, die Sache zu Ende zu führen, daß er nicht in der rechten Weise die Möglichkeit bekommen hat, in die andere Welt hineinzugehen, sondern durch Mephistopheles’ Kraft. Daher kommt dasjenige, was eben den Schluß der Szene bildet.
Doch an diese Dinge will ich dann morgen noch anknüpfen, um unsere Betrachtungen weiterzuführen. Aber Sie sehen, es kann uns gerade dasjenige, was Goethe sagen wollte, manches verdeutlichen, das gar sehr in dem Laufe unserer bisherigen Betrachtungen liegt.
Faust and the Mothers
based on a scene from Faust II: “Dark Gallery.” “At the Imperial Court”
I would like to begin this evening's reflections by referring to the scenes we have just seen. What can be said in connection with these scenes will fit in quite well with the course of our present reflections.
I have often spoken here about the significant “Mothers” scene in the second part of Goethe's “Faust.” This scene alone is one to which one can return again and again because, apart from its aesthetic value, which integrates it into the poem, its meaningful content truly embodies a kind of climax of modern intellectual life. When you let this “Mothers” scene sink in, it is easy to see that it contains a whole range of allusions that Goethe wanted to make. It is drawn from Goethe's immediate spiritual experiences, just as it sheds light on meaningful, profound insights that one simply has to acknowledge in Goethe if one understands even to some extent what this scene means, in which Faust is offered the opportunity by Mephistopheles to descend into the realm of the mothers. Let us consider that when Faust reappears, the astrologer comes back up from the mothers, speaks of Faust as a priest, and that Faust now refers to himself as a priest. We must then see something significant in this transformation of what Faust was before into a priest. He has descended to the mothers. A transformation has taken place within him. One need only consider, quite apart from what else one knows about the matter, what we have had to say about it over the years, how the Greek poets, in speaking of the mysteries, indicate that those who are initiated into the mysteries come to know the three world mothers: Rhea, Demeter, and Proserpina. The three mothers, their essence, what they actually are, should be known through direct observation by those who were initiated into the mysteries in Greece.
If one considers the meaningful way in which Goethe speaks in this “mothers” scene, and when one considers what he allows to proceed in the next scene, then one can no longer deny that Faust is indeed led into regions, into realms that Goethe immediately thought of as the realms of the mothers into which the Greek initiate was led. But this already indicates that Goethe means something most significant.
Now remember: at the moment when Mephistopheles mentions the word “mothers,” Faust shudders. And then Faust speaks the meaningful words:
The mothers! Mothers! - It sounds so strange!
The whole thing is introduced by Mephistopheles saying:
I am reluctant to reveal a higher secret.
So it really is a secret, a mystery, something that Goethe felt it necessary to communicate to the world in this half-hidden way in connection with his development of Faust.
We must ask ourselves, and we can do so on the basis of the observations we have made over the years: What is actually supposed to happen to Faust at this moment, when a higher mystery is to be revealed to him? Into which world is he actually being led? The world into which he is being led, into which he is to enter, is the world that immediately adjoins our physical world as a spiritual world.
Now you will remember that I have just said in the course of these reflections that crossing the threshold into this immediately adjacent world must be considered with great caution, because between our world, which we perceive through the senses and comprehend through the intellect, and the world from which our sensory world arises, there is, as it were, a borderland in which one can very easily fall prey to deception and illusion if one enters it without sufficient maturity and preparation. One might say: Fixed forms, fixed contours, boundaries actually only exist in the world that we see through our senses. In the world that borders on this world of our senses as supersensible, there are no such fixed forms, no such fixed boundaries. This is precisely what is so difficult to convey to the materialistic mind of the present day: that the moment one crosses the threshold, everything is in motion, that this world, which is given to our senses, stands out like frozen forms from a thoroughly moving world.
Faust is now to be transported into this thoroughly moving world, which we call the imaginative world. But he is to be transported into this world by an external cause, not gradually in a careful, meditative manner, but by an external cause. Mephistopheles, that is, the force of evil that works in the physical world, is to transport him into this world.
Now, one must take a very close look at something if one does not want to indulge in misunderstandings in this area. You see, we in the anthroposophical field seek knowledge of the spiritual world. Even what is said in the book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” or similar books about the practice of entering the spiritual world does not go beyond teaching how to gain knowledge of this world. Here, of course, we must stop, as far as the present time and the necessity of handing these things over to the world today are concerned. To go further would be to enter the realm of what might be called action in the supersensible world. This must, in a sense, be left to each individual. Once he has found the certainty of knowledge, the action itself must be left to him. But this is not the case with what is to take place between Faust and Mephistopheles. Faust is to actually bring forth the departed, Paris and Helen; he is not only to look into the spiritual world, he is not only to become an initiate, so to speak, he is to become a magician, or rather, he is to perform magical acts. Yes, the whole way Goethe treats the scene shows that he was thoroughly familiar with certain secrets of the human soul. Faust's state of consciousness is to be changed. But at the same time, Faust is to be given the power to act on extrasensory impulses.
As such, as an Ahrimanic force, Mephisto, as he stands opposite Faust, belongs to this world in which we live with our senses, but as a supersensible being. He is, after all, displaced. He has no power over the worlds into which Faust is now to be transported. They do not actually exist for him. Faust is to pass into another state of consciousness, into that state of consciousness which perceives beneath the foundation of our sensory world the weaving and being, the surging and becoming, which never stands still and from which our sensory world arises. And Faust is to become acquainted with the forces that are down there.
The Mothers is a designation that is not without significance for entry into this world. Consider the connection between the word Mothers and everything that grows, everything that becomes. In the maternal, the physical-sensual is united with that which is not physical-sensual. Imagine the becoming of the human being, the physical becoming, the incarnation. You must imagine a certain process that takes place through the interaction between the cosmos and the maternal principle before a union of the feminine and the masculine occurs. The physically developing human being prepares itself in the female being. We now understand this preparation in such a way that we only consider it up to the moment of fertilization, that is, before fertilization. It is a completely inadequate, one-sided materialistic idea to believe that all the forces that lead to the human germ, to the physical human germ, are simply preformed in the woman. This is not the case; rather, cosmic, spherical forces are at work. The forces of the cosmos act within the woman. The human germ is always the result of cosmic activities. What natural science, what scientific materialism describes as the egg cell is, in a sense, only produced in the mother's soil, but is an image produced from the great world egg.
Let us therefore consider this developing human germ before fertilization and ask ourselves: What did the Greeks mean by their three mothers, Rhea, Demeter, and Proserpina? In these three mothers, they imagined the forces that come from the cosmos and prepare the human germ, but from that part of the cosmos that is not sensory, but supersensory. The mothers, Demeter, Rhea, and Proserpina, belonged to the supersensory world. No wonder Faust senses that an unknown realm is revealed to him when the word “mothers” is uttered.
Consider what Faust is actually supposed to experience. If it were merely a matter of imaginative insights, he would only need to be introduced in a meditative way, but, as I said, he is supposed to perform magical acts. For this to happen, it is necessary for the ordinary mind, the ordinary intellect in which human beings perceive the sensory world, to cease. This intellect begins when incarnation in the physical body begins and ceases with physical death. This intellect must be dampened, dulled. Faust is thus faced with the prospect of this intellect ceasing to function. He is to be taken up with his soul into another region. This is, of course, something that will have a significant impact on Faust's development.
Seen from Mephisto's point of view — how does the matter appear? It is true that Mephisto's task of transporting Faust into this other state of consciousness makes the matter dangerous. But it also becomes extremely uncomfortable for Mephisto, and in a certain sense dangerous for him too. For what can happen? Either Faust enters the other state of consciousness, gets to know the other world from which he can conjure up higher powers, and returns with his full consciousness, in which case he outgrows Mephisto, because Faust learns to recognize a world in which Mephisto is not at home. Thus he outgrows Mephisto. Or it could go terribly wrong, clouding Faust's mind. Mephisto really puts himself in a highly embarrassing situation. But he has to do something. He has to give Faust the opportunity to fulfill his promise. He hopes that somehow the matter will be smoothed over, because he wants neither one thing nor the other. He does not want Faust to outgrow him, nor does he want Faust to be completely paralyzed.
I ask you to consider all this and then bear in mind that Goethe wanted to hint at all this, that is, in this scene of Faust he really wanted to point out to the world: there is a spiritual realm, and this is the way in which man can relate to this supersensible realm. This is how things are connected.
The knowledge of these things has largely been lost in the fifth post-Atlantean period. Goethe, I said, used what had happened to him personally in the great moments of spiritual insight. Personally, Goethe's whole relationship to mothers came to his soul from reading Plutarch. Plutarch, the Greek writer whom Goethe read, speaks of mothers. One scene in Plutarch in particular seems to have made a deep impression on Goethe's mind: The Romans are at war with the Carthaginians. Nicias is pro-Roman and wants to wrest the city of Engyion from the Carthaginians. He is therefore to be handed over to the Carthaginians. So he pretends to be mad and runs around the streets shouting: The mothers, the mothers are pursuing me! — You can see from this that in the time Plutarch speaks of, this kinship of mothers was not associated with ordinary sensual understanding, but with a state of man in which this sensual understanding is not present. Undoubtedly, everything Goethe read in Plutarch inspired him to introduce the expression, the idea of mothers, into Faust.
Plutarch also speaks of the world having a triangular shape. Now, of course, one must imagine that this expression, that the world has a triangular shape, is not meant in a clumsy, spatial sense, but that the spatial is only a symbol for the non-spatial and non-temporal. But since we live in space, spatial images must be used for the super-spatial, super-temporal, and super-temporal.
Triangular, then — as described in Plutarch — is the world. (A drawing is sketched.) This is the entire world: in the center of this world triangle, Plutarch believed, lies the field of truth. Plutarch distinguishes 183 worlds from this entire world. 183 worlds, he says, are in orbit, moving around, with the calm field of truth in the center. This tranquil field of truth, he says, is separated by time from the 183 worlds that revolve around it: 60 on each side, one in each corner = 183. So if we take Plutarch's imagination, we have conceived of the world as threefold: the cloud formation around it, the 183 worlds undulating and surging. This is also the imagination for the mothers. The number 183 is given by Plutarch.
So Plutarch, who in a certain sense mastered the mysteries of wisdom, gives the remarkable number: 183 worlds. Let us calculate how many worlds we get if we calculate correctly up to the world of Plutarch. We have to calculate as follows:
| First of all, the whole world event as one world | 1 |
| For us, these world events are structured in such a way that we have complete worlds: Saturn, Sun, Moon – you know – these are | 3 |
| But we structure each of these worlds: Saturn, Sun, Moon, in the same way that we structure the earthly world. We structure the earthly world: into the Polar epoch, the Hyperborean epoch, then we have the Lemurian epoch, the Atlantean epoch, the post-Atlantean epoch, and so on: 7. In each of the seven periods, for we distinguish between the Indian, the ancient Persian, the Chaldean-Egyptian, the Greek-Latin, and the present periods; two others will follow. If we take the 49 on Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, we have successive worlds on each that develop in this way. | 49 49 49 |
| Then, if we add the Earth, which is not a finished formation, to the three successive worlds, we have in the Earth's formation: the Polar period: 7; the Hyperborean: 7; the Lemurian period: 7; that makes 21. The Atlantean period: 7 | 28 |
| Let's add that up: | 179 |
| Now we are done with Atlantis. Plutarch lived in the 4th age; so we still have to add | 4 |
| 193 |
You see, if we apply our calculation and calculate correctly, the individual links and the whole worlds, as they have rolled on until the fourth post-Atlantean period in which Plutarch lived, then we could really say: this calculation results in 183 worlds.
Furthermore, if we take our Earth, on which we are still developing, and therefore cannot speak of a conclusion, and look up to Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, we have there the mothers who have only expressed the Greek mysteries in a different form: Proserpina, Demeter, Rhea. For all the forces that are in Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon continue to work, to influence our time. And what are physical forces are always only the shadow, the reflection of the spiritual. Everything physical is always only the image of the spiritual.
The moon, if you take not its outer, clumsy physical body, but the forces, the impulses that are within it: it is at the same time in the earth with its forces. The moon being belongs to the earth being. If you want to have a rough idea, just imagine it like this. There is the Earth (a drawing is sketched), it has a stem, and the moon is attached to it; it rotates it on the stem; the stem is just not physical. And all that is lunar impulses is not only on the moon, but this sphere permeates the Earth.
Are these forces connected with the moon somehow present? The Greeks regarded these forces as very mysterious, as quite mysterious. It is connected with all the vicissitudes of modern times that these forces have become apparent without their mysterious character being preserved. If we consider these forces connected with the moon — let us consider only this one — then we have one of the mothers. What is this one of the mothers? We can best approach what this one of the mothers is in the following way.
To get an idea, take any river, say the Rhine. What actually is the Rhine? Anyone who thinks about it — I have already mentioned this here before — cannot really say: That is the Rhine. — We refer to the river as the Rhine. But what is it really, the Rhine, when we cross it and look at it? Is the water the Rhine? Well, that will soon be gone and something else will be there, flowing into the North Sea, and something else will come along, constantly changing. What is the Rhine? Is the Rhine the hollow, the bed? Again, no one thinks of that. If the water were not in it, no one would think that it was the Rhine. Actually, when you use the word “Rhine,” you don't use it for something that is really there, but for something that is constantly changing, yet in a certain sense does not change. If you imagine the situation schematically (it is drawn) that we assume this is the Rhine and this is the water flowing in it: well, this water evaporates and comes back down again. If you consider all rivers as belonging together, you have to imagine: it evaporates, it comes back down. In a certain sense, the water that flows from the source to the mouth comes from the same reserves of water that flows up and down; the water cycle takes place there. Only this water is fragmented and spreads throughout the entire environment. Of course, you cannot follow every drop, but you have to consider the water that belongs to the earth as a single entity. The question of juvenile water does not come into play here. That is how it is with water.
Something similar could also be done with air. But something similar can be done with something else. If you have a telegraph station here and here (again, it is drawn) the other telegraph station, you know that one connection is only through a wire; the other is made through the whole earth, because the current goes into the earth. Here: inside is the earth grounding plate. The whole thing goes through the earth.
If you imagine these two things: the water that flows, widens, and circulates, and if you imagine on the other side the electricity that widens into the earth in this way—you have two opposite things, you have two opposite essences. I am only hinting at this here. You can piece this together from any elementary physics. But this leads us to see in electricity, as it were, the counter-image, the underground counter-image to what is happening above the earth in the cycle of water.
What reigns underground as an electrical entity is now a residual lunar impulse. It does not actually belong to the earth. It is a residual lunar impulse and was referred to as such by the Greeks. The Greeks were still aware of the relationship between this force, which is distributed throughout the earth, and the forces of reproduction — for this relationship does exist — and the forces of growth and prosperity. That was one of the mothers. Now you can imagine: all the premonitions of these great connections are not only theoretical for Faust, but he is supposed to enter this realm, to permeate himself with these impulses. In the Greek mysteries, however, this force was revealed above all to the initiates, this force alongside the other two mothers. The Greeks kept everything related to electricity mysterious and secret. This is where the decadence of the earth's future lies, which I have already spoken about from another point of view, that these forces are no longer kept sacred, no longer kept mysterious, but come out. One came out during the fifth post-Atlantean period: electricity. The others will come out in the sixth and seventh periods during the decadence.
Even in the decadent modern secret societies, all this belongs to the things that conservative members do not want to talk about. Goethe rightly found it appropriate to proclaim these things in the way he was able to proclaim them at that time. But at the same time, here you have one of Goethe's passages from which you can see that the great poet does not write poetry like many others who also write poetry, but that every word is coined and fixed in its place. Just think: mothers are related to electricity. Goethe is one of those who treat these things in a truly appropriate manner:
Do you now soon realize what one possesses in him!
The key will sense the right place,
Follow it down, it will lead you to the mothers.
Faust (shuddering):
The mothers! It always hits me like a blow!
As if he were struck by an electric shock. Goethe uses the word “blow” deliberately, not as some random word, just as nothing in this scene is random when it comes to things that are about something.
So the image that represents what he is supposed to find there as the impulses of the 183 worlds is given to Faust by Mephisto. This image already has the desired effect on Faust's soul, because Faust has gone through many things that bring him close to the spiritual worlds. Therefore, these things already have an effect on him.
What I wanted to discuss today is that Goethe wants to discuss the most significant aspects of this “Mothers” scene. From this, you can already see from which worlds — from other worlds of consciousness — Faust has to bring Helena and Paris. Because Goethe presented something so significant, the language in these scenes is actually different than it might seem at first glance. What Faust now brings up from this world, which I have indicated to you, is also seen by the others who have gathered for a kind of drama. But how do they see it? It is half suggested to them. Who suggests it? The astrologer. That is why he is chosen as an astrologer. His words have suggestive power. This is also clearly expressed. These astrologers had already absorbed the art of suggestion; not the best kind, but one that was Ahrimanic. What is our astrologer actually doing when he stands there, and this court, which presented itself to you, well, as not particularly intelligent, if I may say so? What is the astrologer actually doing under this court? He suggests to them what is necessary so that what arises as a special world through Faust's altered consciousness becomes present to the others. Remember what I once described to you here, once said to you: Today it can be proven that the words one speaks show their vibration in certain substances. — I wanted to show that today it is already possible to experimentally clarify the nature of the incantation scenes. From the incense mist of the corresponding words, what Faust brings out of a completely different world for his consciousness really develops. But for the court society, this becomes present, becomes really seen, through the astrologer adding the suggestive element. What does the astrologer do? He blows, he is the whisperer into each of the ears of the court society. But: whispering is the devil's rhetoric. So when the word is spoken:
Whispering is the devil's rhetoric,
the devilish art of the astrologer is described. That is one meaning of this sentence. The other is directly related to the scene: the devil himself sits in the prompter's box and whispers.
Here you have the archetype of such a sentence with an absolute double meaning. Purely scenically: the devil himself sits in the prompter's box and whispers! But in reality: the astrologer whispers to the court society! And that is a devilish art, as he practices it.
So, if you go about it the right way, you will find double meanings in many of the sentences spoken here. Goethe uses this double meaning because he wants to depict something that really happens, and yet does not really happen in the same sense as something material and clumsy really happens. It can be performed, but it is not real in the sensual sense. But Goethe wanted to depict something that really did play a role, that really did happen in recent history. Goethe did not mean that something like this had once been performed, but rather that these impulses had already flowed into recent history, that they were already there. That has an effect. He wanted to depict reality. He wanted to say, in a sense: in what has developed since the 16th century, the devil has already played a part. — And if you take the scene seriously in this sense, you have the other side of the matter, Goethe's insight into the involvement of supernatural beings in historical events. And in the conclusion, you have what I have often hinted at, that Faust is not yet ready to bring the matter to a conclusion, that he has not been given the opportunity to enter the other world in the right way, but through Mephistopheles' power. That is where the conclusion of the scene comes from.
But I will return to these things tomorrow to continue our reflections. As you can see, what Goethe wanted to say can clarify many things that are very much in line with our reflections so far.