The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. The Mysteries in Goethe’s “Faust”: Esoteric

[ 1 ] In one of the versions Goethe intended for his *Faust*, in the second part, at the end of the third act, Mephistopheles—who had worn the mask of Phorkyas in that act—was to step forward onto the proscenium, drop the mask, step down from his buskins, and deliver a sort of epilogue. As the stage direction—which has now lost its meaning—tells us, the intention was for this epilogue to hint at how Faust’s final appearance should be interpreted. The words that Mephistopheles was to speak there, as it were, in the role of a commentator, do not appear in *Faust*; however, they have been preserved on a sheet of paper in Goethe’s estate. In a somewhat humorous manner, Goethe seeks here, through the words of Mephistopheles, to indicate how the audience should actually approach his *Faust*.

[ 2 ] These words are remarkable, and in a certain sense, today’s reflection should be guided by their spirit. They tie in with the story of Euphorion, who was born in a supernatural manner, and who, immediately after his birth, leaps and bounds and utters “a graceful word.” And so these words tie in as follows:

Enough—you see him, though it’s far worse
Than on the British stage, where a small child
Gradually grows into a hero.
Here it’s even more amazing: no sooner is he conceived than he’s born,
He’s already leaping, dancing, and fencing! Many criticize this,
While others think it’s not quite so straightforward
And that there’s something more to it than meets the eye.
One senses mysteries, perhaps even
mystifications, Indian and also
Egyptian elements, and whoever can really piece it all together,
brew it up, move back and forth etymologically
with a desire to explore—that is the right man.
We say it too, and our deepest meaning will
be a faithful disciple of modern symbolism.

[ 3 ] Thus, any such explanation based on ancient tradition is, one might say, flatly rejected. On the other hand, an explanation drawn from the depths of spiritual life is precisely what is called for. That is why Mephistopheles also says: “We say it too, and our innermost being will be a truer disciple of the newer symbolism.”

[ 4 ] Anyone who delves into the second part of *Faust* will know that Goethe makes abundant use of neologisms in this work, and that we must therefore not take offense at what appears to contradict grammar. This sentence explicitly states that anyone who understands *Faust* correctly in Goethe’s sense will also see that there is something deeper underlying it. But at the same time, it rejects everything based on scholarly study and anything that might lead to a purely symbolic or similar interpretation. It is required that the interpretation of *Faust* be undertaken by those faithful disciples who are familiar with a spiritual experience that we might call the experience in the sense of modern spiritual science. One who comments on *Faust* in Goethe’s spirit should be “of our deep sense” and “a faithful disciple of modern symbolism.” Thus, this should be drawn from immediate spiritual life, and Goethe probably reveals here that he has incorporated something that enabled him not to adhere to old symbols, but to forge new, independent symbols out of immediate spiritual life. If one wishes to compare the first part of *Faust* with the second part in terms of the depiction of the spiritual world, one may well say that the first part largely represents what has been learned—that which can penetrate from the outside to one who has intuitions about the spiritual world but who seeks to immerse himself in it through all manner of reading and various mental exercises. The first part of *Faust* contains what has been learned about the supersensible world.

[ 5 ] The second part contains experiences—genuine experiences—and anyone who understands it knows that it can only stem from a person who has come to know the reality of the spiritual, supersensory worlds that lie beyond the physical world. Truly, Goethe has, so to speak, remained faithful to the thread of his narrative, even though much in the second part seems so unlike the first. What he learned there, he experienced in the second part; he beheld it. He was immersed in the spiritual, in the supersensible worlds. He also alludes to this sufficiently in what he has Faust say in the first part: “I see from my intuition that it is true what the sage says:

The spirit world is not closed off;
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Come, bathe, disciple, undaunted
Your earthly breast in the morning glow!

[ 6 ] Goethe can point this out where he himself is able to convey—what is seen by the one who “bathes his earthly breast in the morning glow,” waiting for the rising sun of the spirit. Throughout the entire first part—as may well have emerged from yesterday’s explanations—we do indeed find a vigorous striving by the student Faust toward this dawn, but we also find it clearly and unambiguously indicated that the path has not been traversed in a satisfactory manner anywhere.

[ 7 ] How, then, does the second part begin? Has the sage’s instruction to “bathe the earthly breast in the dawn’s glow” been fulfilled in any sense? We find Faust “reclining on a flower-strewn lawn, weary, restless, seeking sleep,” surrounded by beings from the spiritual world. We find that he is detached from all sensory perception, enveloped in sleep. Beings of the spiritual world are engaged with his spirit, which has been lifted out of the physical world. We are given a magnificent and powerful glimpse of the path Faust’s soul takes to grow into the spiritual world. And then we are shown how Faust’s soul truly grows into that world itself—the world that is hinted at as the spiritual world in the “Prologue in Heaven” in the first part. Speaking from deep experience, Goethe expresses what has always been taught to students in the Pythagorean schools: that a mysterious music of the worlds resounds to meet those who enter the spiritual world.

The sun resounds in the ancient way
A contest of song in the spheres of the brotherhood,
And its prescribed journey
It completes with a thunderous roar.

[ 8 ] This is how it must sound when the worlds of spiritual life are described accurately. What is said here about the music of the spheres is not a poetic image or a metaphor, but a truth; and Goethe remains true to this truth, for Faust himself, now removed from physical existence, grows into the world from which this music resounds, like an initiate. Hence, in the scene where Faust is transported into the spiritual world at the beginning of the second part, it is written:

With a resounding sound to the ears of the spirit
The new day is already dawning.
Rock gates creak and rattle,
Phoebus’s wheels roll with a crackling sound;
What a din the light brings!
It drums, it trumpets,
The eye blinks and the ear is astonished,
The unheard cannot be heard.

[ 9 ] Let those who believe they can understand a poem only if they can say that such things from the poet should be accepted as images he creates in poetic freedom—let them refuse to call these things realistic. The physical sun does not make a sound! It is the spiritual sun, which lies behind the physical one, from which those who immerse themselves in the spiritual world hear sounds—though these are spiritual sounds, not physical ones. And here, too, we hear once again how the sounds of millennia resonate together. Anyone capable of tracing the course of the human spirit through the millennia is involuntarily reminded, upon encountering the passage about the “resounding sun,” of great words spoken millennia ago—words spoken by one who, through his initiation, knew that what appears to us as the physical sun is the expression of the sun spirit and the sun soul, just as the physical human body is the expression of the human spirit and the human soul; and who, having looked up to the spiritual Sun and called it the great Solar Aura, Ahura Mazdao, reminds us of Zarathustra, who, having beheld the Sun in this way, when the world appeared to him as so imbued with spirit, spoke these great, mighty words:

[ 10 ] I will speak! Listen to me, you who yearn for this from afar, and you who yearn for it from near! Pay close attention to everything, for He will be revealed! No longer shall the false teacher corrupt the world—he who has professed false faith with his tongue. I will speak of what is highest in the world, of what He has taught me, the Great One, Ahura Mazdao. Whoever refuses to hear His words as I speak them will suffer misfortune when the cycle of the earth is fulfilled!

[ 11 ] Before the spiritual sun rises in the soul, the disciple must bathe in the dawn that precedes it. Therefore, the sage says: “Arise, disciple, and bathe your earthly breast undaunted in the dawn!”

[ 12 ] Is that what the student Faust does?

[ 13 ] After the spiritual beings had surrounded him and engaged with him while his soul was temporarily separated from his body, he awoke a changed man. His soul had returned to his body, so that, bathed in the morning glow, he sensed the rising sun of the spirit:

The pulse of life beats fresh and alive,
Gently welcoming the ethereal twilight;
You, Earth, remained steadfast this night as well
And breathe, refreshed anew, at my feet,
Already beginning to surround me with delight,
You stir and inspire a resolute determination,
To ever strive toward the highest existence. —
In the twilight, the world already lies revealed,
The forest resounds with a thousand voices of life,
From valley to valley, a streak of mist is poured forth;
Sky-clear light descends into the depths,
And twigs and branches, freshly revitalized, have sprung forth
From the fragrant abyss where they lay submerged;
Color upon color, too, emerges from the depths,
Where flowers and leaves drip with dew,
A paradise unfolds all around me.

[ 14 ] Faust now feels himself awakened in the world into which he was transported during his rapture, and he bathes his earthly breast in the morning glow. But this is only the beginning of the journey. He feels himself standing at the gate of initiation. Therefore, he cannot yet bear what appears when the spiritual eye is directly exposed to the spiritual sun:

But now, for those eternal reasons,
A flood of flames breaks forth; we stand in awe;
We sought to kindle life’s torch,
A sea of fire engulfs us—what a fire!

[ 15 ] Therefore, he initially perceives the spiritual world, but—as we shall see shortly—as a parable.

So may the sun remain at my back!
The waterfall, roaring through the rocky reef,
I gaze upon it with growing delight.
From cascade to cascade it now rolls in thousands,
Then pouring out into thousands upon thousands of streams,
Foam upon foam whizzing high into the air.
Yet how magnificent, springing from this tempest,
Is the ever-changing arch of the rainbow,
Now clearly defined, now dissolving into the air,
Spreading fragrant, cool showers all around.
It reflects human striving.
Contemplate it, and you will understand more clearly:
Life lies in this colorful reflection.

[ 16 ] This is Faust, who bathes his earthly breast in the dawn’s first light to prepare himself to gaze into the eyes of the spiritual sun, which rises at the initiation.

[ 17 ] Now Faust is to be transported into the wider world with the gifts he has received as a spiritual being on the path to enlightenment. One might find it strange that Faust is now transported to the imperial court, where all manner of masks and pranks surround him. Nevertheless, these masks and pranks contain deep, deep truths and are significant in every respect. It is not possible, especially today, to delve into the meaning of this masquerade. After all, the nature of this discussion will be to highlight only individual moments from the entire content of the second part of *Faust*. Otherwise, one would have to give many lectures if one wanted to shed light on everything. But this much can be said about the overall content of these masked scenes: For the person who surveys human life with an enlightened gaze, certain words will take on a different meaning than they otherwise have in outward, sober life. Such a person, who immerses themselves in the entire grand course of human development, knows that words such as “national spirit” and “zeitgeist” are not mere abstractions. In the spiritual world, they perceive the true, real entities that correspond to what is otherwise so abstractly called the “national spirit” and the “zeitgeist.”

[ 18 ] Thus, once Faust has been enlightened, it becomes clear to him as he enters the wider world—where the course of world events is determined from a single court—that supernatural forces are at work in what takes place. Out there in the sensory world, one can observe only individual human beings and the laws they follow. In the spiritual world, however, all of this is underpinned by spiritual beings. While people believe that what they do comes from their own souls—that they make their own decisions—the actions and thoughts of human beings are permeated and influenced by spiritual beings from the supersensible world: national spirits, spirits of the age, and so on. People believe they are free in their decisions, thoughts, and concepts, but they are guided by what exists behind the physical-sensory world as spiritual beings. What people call their own intellect—through which they believe the course of history is directed—is at the same time the expression of the spiritual beings behind it.

[ 19 ] Thus, for Faust, the entire masquerade—which is meant to signify something—becomes an expression of the fact that one can recognize how forces come into play in the course of great world events, forces originating from such beings as Faust already encountered in the first part, forces originating from Mephistopheles. Human beings are surrounded by such spiritual beings that tower above them. Thus, at the dawn of the modern era, Mephistopheles appears as the being who inspires the human intellect to invent paper money. Goethe portrays the entire course of events with a certain lofty humor: how from the very same spirit, from the very same intellect—which in human beings is bound only to the physical instrument of the brain—when inspired by a spirit akin to it that acknowledges only the sensory, such phenomena arise that dominate the world, yet have significance only for the sensory world. Thus, the deeper meaning of human development is hinted at precisely in this masquerade and carnival farce.

[ 20 ] But as we proceed, we will be led directly from the world that lies before us—a world in which we are shown how supernatural forces are at work—into the truly spiritual world. Now that the court has been made rich, it also wishes to be entertained by having figures from a time long past presented to it. Paris and Helen are to be conjured up from the past. Mephistopheles, who belongs to those powers of the spiritual world that inspired the invention of paper money, cannot penetrate to the realms from which the entire deeper human evolution springs. Faust carries within himself the soul and the spirit that can penetrate these spiritual worlds. For Faust is the disciple who has bathed his earthly breast in the dawn’s first light, and we are shown how Faust has already experienced something that can be regarded as the first stage of clairvoyance—the stage that the clairvoyant passes through when he has allowed the appropriate exercises to take effect upon his soul. There are certain exercises the student must undergo in meditation, concentration, and so on, which are assigned to him in esoteric symbols into which he immerses himself; and through these, when the soul steps out of the physical and etheric bodies, it is transformed during the night so that it first becomes clairvoyant in the spiritual world. What does the student experience when he has allowed these exercises to take effect?

[ 21 ] The first stage of clairvoyance is something that can initially cause great confusion for a person. We can best understand where this might come from by keeping in mind what is sometimes described as the “dangers of initiation.” Those who live in the physical-sensory world see the things around them with sharp contours. Objects appear to them as if drawn in space, and the human soul finds a foothold in the fixed contours found everywhere—contours with which the soul fills itself when it surrenders to sensory perception. Imagine for a moment that all the objects around you were to become misty, lose their contours, merge into one another, drift about like cloud formations, and undergo metamorphosis. That is roughly what it is like in the world into which the clairvoyant person enters after the initial effects of the exercises. For they arrive at what lies behind the entire sensory world—what underlies all matter, yet from which the sensory world is born—and they reach the stage where the spiritual world first appears to them. Imagine, for example, how crystals in the mountains take shape from their parent substances into their crystalline forms and crystalline lines; that is roughly what it is like when the clairvoyant enters the spiritual world. At first, it seems confusing if the student is not sufficiently prepared. But from the world that appears to him as chaos, the forms of the sensory world emerge, just as crystal forms emerge from their parent substances. Just as the parent substances of the physical-sensory world, so does the human being initially experience the spiritual world. Human beings enter this realm through the gate of death. As the clairvoyant person continues to develop, these forms will indeed take on different, more definite shapes, permeated by the contours that exist in the spiritual world and resonating with what we have referred to as “sphere music” in the spiritual sense. The clairvoyant experiences this after some time, but at first it all seems confusing. Yet it is into this realm that the human being enters.

[ 22 ] If the image of Helen and Paris is to be summoned, it must be brought from this world. Only Faust, who has bathed his earthly breast in the dawn’s first light, who has found entry into the spiritual world, can descend into this world. Mephistopheles cannot; he is capable only of what the world of reason can accomplish. He manages to obtain the key that unlocks the realm of the spiritual. Faust, however, has the confidence and the certainty that he will find there what he seeks: the eternal, the enduring, even as the physical form of man dissolves into its elements upon death.

[ 23 ] It is truly marvelous how, in a magnificent way, we are given a glimpse of how Faust is to descend into the spiritual realm. But even the introduction shows us that the one who describes this is well acquainted with the facts, as well as with the sensations and feelings that come over one who does not merely toy with such things but truly comes to know them. Everything that exists in this world of sensation stood so magnificently before Goethe’s soul when the seed of initiation discussed yesterday emerged through a particular event. He was reading a passage in Plutarch that describes how the city of Engyion sought an alliance with Carthage. Nicias, a friend of the Romans, was to be arrested. But he pretended to be possessed. The Carthaginians wanted to seize him. Then they heard these words from his mouth: “The mothers, the mothers are pursuing me!” This was a cry known in antiquity only from a person who, in a state of clairvoyance, had been transported beyond the physical world. Nicias could be regarded either as a fool, as a possessed man, or as a clairvoyant. But how could one tell? By the fact that he spoke of something known only to those who were familiar with the spiritual worlds. From the statement, “It is the mothers who are pursuing me!” the Carthaginians recognize that he is not possessed, that he is inspired, that he can speak from his own experience about something that can only be known from the spiritual world, and so he goes unpunished.

[ 24 ] As Goethe read this scene, something stirred within his soul—something that had already been planted within him during his time in Frankfurt as the seed of initiation. He knew then what it meant to penetrate the spiritual worlds. Hence the words put into Faust’s mouth. When Mephistopheles speaks of the “Mothers,” Faust shudders. He knows what is at stake—that he is touching upon a sacred realm, but also one that is “off-limits,” forbidden to those who are not sufficiently prepared. Mephistopheles, too, knows of this realm and that he should not enter it unprepared. Hence the words: “Reluctantly do I uncover a higher mystery.” But Faust must still descend into this realm to accomplish what must be accomplished—into this realm where one beholds, in the transformations of eternal being, that which is otherwise fixed and rigid. Here, the spiritual mind perceives, behind the physical forms of the sensory world, that which penetrates the sensory world to take on fixed contours within it. And then Mephistopheles says, characterizing this realm as it presents itself to everyone who enters it:

... Escape from what has come to be
Into realms untethered from form;
Delight in what has long since ceased to exist;
Like drifting clouds, the hustle and bustle winds its way.

[ 25 ] There is no more vivid way to describe what a genuine experience of the truly initiated person is. What is “long since no longer present” is found in this world when it is portrayed in this way. “In the realms unbound by forms”—that is, in the realm where the forms of the sensory world do not exist, which has no such forms, which is unbound from them. Into that realm, where what has long since ceased to exist is found, Faust is to enter. And when one reads “like drifting clouds, the turmoil winds its way,” one again recognizes something most peculiar. Let us imagine entering the supersensible world as if through a gate. Before entering, one must prepare the soul through fitting symbols. One of these symbols is drawn precisely from the sight of the rising sun, and it complements the image of the earthly breast bathing in the dawn: the sun forming a peculiar triangle around itself. The soul experiences this symbol, and it feels the aftereffects of such a symbol once it has passed through the gate, once it is inside the spiritual world. Hence these aftereffects: “Like drifting clouds, the turmoil winds its way.” Every word would be living proof of what this scene is meant to be—Faust’s entry into the first stages of the supersensible world, which you will find referred to as the imaginative world. When Goethe depicted this, he did not have to draw on ancient Indian or Egyptian sources to concoct what a description of the spiritual world should be; rather, he was able to portray his own experiences quite realistically—and that is precisely what he did.

[ 26 ] Faust now brings forth the glowing tripod, around which sit the Mothers, the sources of existence in the spiritual world. With its help, Faust is able to conjure up Paris and Helen before the people, bringing images of the spiritual world before them. It would take us too far afield to elaborate on the important symbolism of the glowing tripod. The point here is to show how a kind of initiation is truly depicted in the second part of *Faust*. But we can see how carefully and correctly Goethe proceeds in that he shows us the path into the spiritual world—a path that only the worthy can walk, slowly and with resignation. He shows us that even now Faust is not yet worthy enough. Only the one who has shed everything connected with the narrow personal self to such an extent that no desires or cravings arising from this narrow personal self are stirred is worthy to enter the spiritual world. This may seem like a modest statement, but in truth it conveys an extraordinary amount. For there usually lies between what is aspired to and what is to be attained through the eradication of personal desires and cravings not just one human lifetime, but many human lifetimes.

[ 27 ] Goethe meticulously demonstrates that Faust is not yet worthy. Desire stirs within him; he wants to embrace Helena out of personal desire. Then the whole thing shatters; it is gone. He has sinned against the spiritual world. He cannot hold on to it. He must penetrate deeper into the spiritual world. And so, in the course of the second part, we see him continue on his path. We see him, after being “paralyzed by Helena,” once again in a different state of consciousness, detached from his physical body, sunk into sleep. There we see something happening around him that winds its way upward from the sensory world into the supersensory. What winds its way upward there is meant to represent nothing other than that Faust, now that he is once again detached from the physical world, is experiencing something that can only be experienced with full consciousness in the supersensory world. It is the complete becoming of the human being that he must now experience. He must experience those mighty events that unfold behind the scenes of the physical world so that he may truly behold what he desires. Helena, on the other hand, must return to the physical world; she must be reincarnated, entering a new incarnation. When he brings up the mere imaginative image from the spiritual world, he collapses along with the whole. He must reach deeper.

[ 28 ] We now see him ascending to a second stage. In this state into which he has been placed—now that he has once again been separated from his physical body—we see how his consciousness gradually rises from the sensory world into the supersensory. This is portrayed in a truly masterful, poetic manner. It is not appropriate here to marvel at what is real, for this is simply explained by the fact that Goethe depicts the second part of *Faust* based on his own experience. But it is magnificent how Goethe portrays the mystery of Helena’s incarnation, also in a poetic way.

[ 29 ] Anyone familiar with the fundamental truths of spiritual science knows that when a human being enters our earthly world, they bring with them an eternal, spiritual component from entirely different realms; that this spiritual component connects with what takes place physically in the line of heredity—what is ultimately imparted by the father and mother, what is drawn from the physical-sensory world. On the whole—if we do not go into the nature of the human being in detail, but rather characterize the various parts of the human being in summary—we can say that within the human being, an eternal and an earthly aspect are united. An eternal aspect that passes from life to life, that descends from the spiritual world into a physical embodiment—we shall call this, for the time being, the spirit. And in order for this spirit to connect with what is to take shape as physical matter, there must be an intermediate link; and this intermediate link, this link between the actual body and the spiritual, is, in the sense of spiritual science, the soul. Thus, spirit, soul, and body are united in the process of human incarnation.

[ 30 ] Now Faust, with his heightened consciousness, is to experience how these aspects of human nature come together. The spirit descends from the spiritual spheres, gradually surrounds itself with its soul from what it draws from the soul world, and then, according to the laws of the physical world, draws the physical body around itself. If one understands the principle that organizes itself around the spirit as the soul—what we have often called the astral body—and if one understands what stands right in the middle between spirit and body, then one has the intermediate link that, so to speak, binds the spirit and the body together.

[ 31 ] Faust finds the spirit in the realm of the mothers. He already knows where to look for this spirit and where it comes from when it sets out for a new incarnation. But he must still learn how the bond is formed when the spirit enters the physical world. And now, in this peculiar scene, we are shown how, starting from the sensory realm and touching upon the boundary of the supersensory, the “Homunculus” is created in Wagner’s laboratory. Mephistopheles himself contributes to this, and we are wittily told that Wagner merely creates the conditions for its coming into being. And so, with the spiritual world, so to speak, playing its part, this peculiar entity, the Homunculus, comes into being.

[ 32 ] Much has been thought about the homunculus. But pondering and speculating about these things does not help. Only through genuine creation based on spiritual science can the mystery of what the homunculus is be unraveled. To those who spoke of him during the Middle Ages, he was nothing other than a specific form of the astral body. One must not imagine this scene in the sensory realm, but rather in such a way that the entire scene must be conceived as transported into the spiritual world. One must, as it were, follow the entire process from Faust’s state of consciousness. Just as the homunculus is characterized in the following scenes, so he truly presents himself as the representative of the astral body.

He does not lack intellectual qualities,
but he is sorely lacking in practical competence.

[ 33 ] This is the characteristic of the astral body; and the homunculus himself says of himself:

Since I exist, I must also be active ...,

[ 34 ] an astral entity that cannot remain still, that must express itself through constant activity. It must be led into spheres where it can truly unite spirit and body.

[ 35 ] And now we see what Faust is going through—the process of becoming human—as depicted in the classic Walpurgis Night. There we are shown the sum total of all the forces and beings that work behind the physical-sensory world; and continually interwoven into this are spirits from the physical world who have developed their souls to such an extent that their souls have grown together with the spiritual world, so that they are simultaneously “conscious in the spiritual world.” Such figures are the two Greek philosophers Anaxagoras and Thales. From them, this homunculus wishes to learn how one can come into being; how, if one is spiritual, one can advance to a physical form. And all the figures presented to us on this classical Walpurgis Night are to play a part—the figures representing the realization of the astral body, which is ripe for entry into the physical world. If one could follow all of this closely, even the smallest detail would serve as proof of what is meant. Homunculus seeks guidance from Proteus and Nereus on how to enter the physical world. He is shown how to organize the elements of matter around himself, and what his spiritual qualities are—that is, how the soul gradually enters into the physical-sensory elements through what has taken place in the realms of nature. We are shown how the soul must once again pass through the states of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms in order to develop upward into a human being:

You must set out on the vast ocean!

[ 36 ] that is, in the mineral kingdom. Then you must pass through the plant kingdom. Goethe even invents a term for this that does not exist elsewhere. He has the homunculus say:

It's rumbling like that, and I love the smell!

[ 37 ] He is shown how to proceed until a physical body gradually forms around him. Finally, the moment of love arrives. Eros will bring the whole process to completion. Thales offers the following advice:

Give in to that noble desire,
To begin creation anew!
Be ready to act swiftly!
There you move according to eternal laws,
Through a thousand and a thousand forms,
And you have time until you reach humanity.

[ 38 ] For once the homunculus has entered the physical world, it loses its characteristics. The ego becomes its master:

Just don't strive for higher orders:
For once you have become human,
Then it's completely over for you.

[ 39 ] So says Proteus; that is to say, be gone, astral body, which has not yet entered the human realm.

[ 40 ] Goethe’s entire view of nature—the kinship of all beings and their metamorphic development from the imperfect to the perfect—is embodied here in this image. At first, the spirit can exist in the world only in embryonic form. It must pour itself out into matter, into the elements, submerge itself in them, in order to assume a higher form from them. The homunculus shatters against Galatea’s shell chariot. It dissolves into the elements. The moment is depicted in a wondrous way—the moment when the astral body has truly united with a body of physical matter and can now live as a human being.

[ 41 ] These are experiences that Faust undergoes while he is in a different state of consciousness, a state detached from the body. Gradually, he matures to the point where he can perceive the mysteries that lie beyond physical, sensory existence. And now he can see how that which belongs to the realm of “what has long since ceased to exist”—the spirit of Helena—appears before him in physical form. We have the third act of the second part of *Faust*, the reincarnation of Helena. Goethe presents the idea of reincarnation in a mysterious way, as he had to at that time: how spirit, soul, and body from the three realms unite to form a human being, and before us stands the reincarnated Helena.

[ 42 ] We must, of course, realize that Goethe, as a poet, depicts what the clairvoyant consciousness experiences, as it were, in imagery. Therefore, we must not intervene with crude criticism and ask: Has Helena truly been reincarnated? We must realize that a poet speaks of what he has experienced in the spiritual worlds. Thus, after having overcome a new stage of life, Faust can experience harmony with that which “has long since ceased to exist”—the connection with Helena.

[ 43 ] Now we see how, from the union of the human soul with the spiritual—once the soul has risen into higher worlds—a being emerges who, as a child of the Spirit, lives not by the laws of the sensory world but by the laws of the spiritual world: Euphorion. Precisely when we recall the lines discussed earlier from the intended epilogue of *Mephistopheles-Phorkyas* at the end of the third act, we will grasp what arises from the union of the spirit thus elevated with the sensory world, once we understand that Goethe imbued Euphorion with traits of Byron, whom he so highly revered. Since these are experiences in the spiritual world, he is free to apply the laws of that world to them. Thus, Euphorion, barely conceived, is already born and immediately leaps, moves, and speaks words full of spirit.

[ 44 ] And once again we see how Goethe rigorously and conscientiously portrays the entry into the spiritual world. In his striving toward the supersensory worlds, Faust is far beyond what he actually experiences there. But even there, he is not yet free from the forces from which he must free himself if his soul is to unite fully with the spiritual world. He is not free from what Mephistopheles interweaves into these spiritual experiences. Faust is what one calls a mystic who, in the Helena-Euphorion scene, lives entirely within and weaves in the spiritual world. But because he has not yet ascended to the necessary level that would enable him to be fully absorbed into the spiritual world, what he could have experienced there slips away from him once again: Helena and Euphorion. What he had drawn from the spiritual world through his experience slips away from him once more. He has become capable of immersing himself in the spiritual world, of experiencing Euphorion, the child of the Spirit who arises from the union between the human soul and the World Spirit, but it slips away from him again and sinks into oblivion.

[ 45 ] Now a strange cry rings out from the depths. Faust is now like a mystic who has stumbled for a while, who has looked into the spiritual world and knows what it is like there, but who could not remain within it and suddenly finds himself cast back into the forms of the sensory world: he perceives his own soul as the mother of what he has brought forth from the spiritual world. But what he has brought forth sinks back into the spiritual world, and it is as if it were calling out to the soul itself that gives birth to such things:

Don't leave me alone, Mother,
in this gloomy realm!

[ 46 ] It is as if the human soul were compelled to return to the realm from which it has once again vanished. All that remains for Faust is Helena’s dress and veil. Those who delve more deeply into the meaning of such things know what Goethe meant by “dress and veil.” It is precisely what remains for one who has once gained insight into the spiritual world and then had to leave it again. What remains for him is nothing other than abstraction—the ideas that span from epoch to epoch—which are nothing more than the dress and veil of spiritual powers that live out their existence from epoch to epoch.

[ 47 ] Thus, the mystic is once again set aside for a while and must rely on his own thinking, just as the insightful historian must rely on his own thinking, only that the former is clothed in garments and veils that carry him from one epoch to the next. These ideas are not fruitless. They are absolutely necessary for those confined to the sensory world. They are even something special for those who already have a sense of and experience from the spiritual world. They seem dry and abstract to those who are abstract thinkers by nature. But once someone has been touched by the spiritual world—even if they grasp only these abstract ideas—they now carry that person through the world into a completely different time, where they can once again experience how the forces play out throughout the great world.

[ 48 ] Once again, Faust is transported into the world he has already experienced at court. Once again, he sees how the spiritual beings—whose actions merely serve as a backdrop for human beings—assert themselves. Once again, he sees how supersensible threads are spun, and how the same power he knows as Mephistopheles is a co-weaver of these supersensible threads. Thus he immerses himself once more from the sensory world into the supersensory, learning how powers that we perceive out there in the natural world entwine themselves into our sensory world—just as, so to speak, Mephistopheles leads the spirits behind the forces of nature onto the battlefield. He calls them the “mountain folk.” The forces that lie behind the sensory world are depicted as if the mountains themselves were sending their peoples into the war. But here, a life unfolds that exists on subordinate levels. This intervention by a world that lies beneath the human realm—yet is guided by spiritual forces—is vividly described here.

[ 49 ] Then it is described, with magnificent vividness, how historical forces—which are real forces for the spiritual observer—come into play. From the old armories and storerooms, where the ancient helmets lie, emerge those beings of whom the abstract thinker would say, “These are historical ideas”—but of whom the one who can see into the spiritual world knows that they live in the spiritual realms. And there we see how Faust, in his higher state of consciousness, is led to the powers of history; we see the powers of history rise up and be led into the fray. — Faust’s consciousness is to rise even higher. The whole world is to appear to him as spiritualized; all the events we behold around us—which the ordinary abstract thinker describes only with the intellect, which is bound to a physical brain, and then believes he has done everything once he has described the outward appearance. But all of this is bound, and is guided and directed by supersensible beings and powers.

[ 50 ] When a person rises in this way to the spiritual heights, he comes to know the full power of that which is meant to pull him back down into the sensory world. In a strange way, he comes to know the one whom he had not yet fully known before. This is how Faust feels now. Here Faust stands at a crucial point in his inner development. He must complete his journey. Mephistopheles is intertwined with everything he has seen thus far. He can only free himself from Mephistopheles—from those spiritual forces that bind human beings to the sensory world and refuse to let them go—when Mephistopheles confronts him as the tempter. Where the world with its realms, nature, and history with their spirituality present themselves before Faust, there he experiences something from which anyone who understands these things can readily recognize the depths from which Goethe spoke. The Tempter, who seeks to pull a person down once that person has already ascended a little way into the spiritual world, approaches the person and attempts to instill false feelings and sensations regarding what he beholds in the supersensible world. The way the Tempter confronts the person is portrayed in a truly magnificent manner! He who also approached Christ at the very moment when the tempter promised him all the kingdoms of the world and their glories.

[ 51 ] Something like this approaches the person who has immersed himself in the spiritual world. The tempter promises him the world with all its splendors. What does this mean? It means nothing other than that he must not believe that anything from this world can still belong to his narrow-minded egoism. That the entire personality, with all its egoistic desires and cravings, must have vanished, that the Tempter must have been overcome—Goethe hints at this so clearly through Mephistopheles that it can serve as a touchstone for what he means:

But so that I may finally speak quite clearly:
Did nothing about our surface appeal to you?
You overlooked, across immeasurable expanses,
“The kingdoms of the world and their splendors.”
(Matt. 4.)

[ 52 ] One might say—to drive the point home for those who refuse to understand—that Goethe uses precisely these words to hint at what he actually intends, in order to depict this important stage in the spiritual development of humankind. Then Faust succeeds in overcoming the selfishness of personal desire and will to such an extent that he devotes all his energy to the piece of land he has been granted. He does not want to own this land; he does not want fame; he wants none of that—only to work selflessly for other people: “To stand on free soil with a free people.”

[ 53 ] We must understand these words to mean that personal selfishness gradually peels away from the human soul. For no one who has not overcome this personal selfishness can truly reach the final stage that Goethe also seeks to describe. Thus he depicts Faust at the point where the veils of human personal selfishness fall away like scales, where Faust surrenders himself entirely to the spiritual, where all the trappings of fame and outward honor in the world truly mean nothing to him anymore. But there is one thing Faust has not yet overcome, even at this point. And once again, we see Goethe looking deep, deep into the heart from a spiritual perspective as he now describes what happens next.

[ 54 ] A person free of selfishness has, to a certain extent, become like Faust. He has learned what it means to say to himself: “Action is everything; glory is nothing!” He has learned to say: I want to be active. “My work shall flow out into the world; I want nothing but the reward of this work!” — But in one very small area, it becomes apparent that his selfishness has not yet disappeared. On his vast estate stands an old cottage on a hilltop, inhabited by an elderly couple, Philemon and Baucis. While Faust’s selfishness has vanished in relation to everything else, it has not yet vanished in relation to this little cottage. There remains a final remnant of selfishness that asserts itself in his soul. What could he gain from this elevated spot! He could stand up there and survey the fruits of his labor at a glance, and take delight in what he has created! This is a final form of selfishness: the pleasure of sensory contemplation. The remnant of pleasure in this sensory overview has remained with him. He must still break free; he must leave. Nothing of pleasure and contentment—that is, of immediate devotion to the external world, with which egoism is linked—must remain in his soul.

[ 55 ] And once again we see Faust coming into contact with spiritual powers. In “Midnight,” four gray women appear. They approach him. Three of them—Deprivation, Guilt, and Distress—have no power over him. But now something emerges that is part of the experiences of the path of initiation. On the path of initiation, there is a mysterious connection between everything a person can do out of selfishness and the state of mind expressed by the word “worry.” For the person who has reached the point where they can look into the spiritual world free from selfishness, there is no worry. Worry is a byproduct of selfishness. And as hard as it may be for some to believe that, as long as worry is present, selfishness has not yet disappeared, it is nonetheless true that on the long, self-sacrificing path into the spiritual world, selfishness must vanish completely. If a person enters the spiritual world while still carrying some trace of selfishness into it, then worry arises and reveals itself in all its destructive power.

[ 56 ] Here we see something of the dangers of initiation. In the physical world, the benevolent powers of the spiritual world ensure that the power of worry cannot approach human beings in this way. But the moment a person merges with the spiritual world—the moment they become acquainted with the forces at work there—things like worry become destructive forces. Some things can be overcome through the keys that lead into the spiritual world; worry, however, creeps in through every keyhole. If, however, a person has progressed far enough, then worry—when faced courageously—becomes a force that takes away even this last remnant of selfishness: Faust goes blind. Why? He goes blind through the exchange of the last remnant of selfishness still within him and the power of worry. The last possibility of pleasure is taken away from Faust. It grows darker and darker all around him. Now his soul realizes that the last remnant of egoism reigned within it when it had the little house destroyed—from whose site egoistic pleasure, in the form of satisfaction with what had been created, could have been attained.

[ 57 ] “Only within does a bright light shine!” Now Faust’s soul belongs to that world over which worry and all the destructive elements that tear the body apart have no power. And now Faust experiences what one who is to be initiated into the spiritual world experiences. He witnesses, as if they were external events, the occurrences he did not experience in the physical world: his own death, his own burial. From the spiritual world, he looks down upon the physical world and everything happening to him as if it were happening to someone else: these matters are now the concern only of those forces that exist solely in the physical world.

[ 58 ] It would take us too far afield to describe how Goethe now has the “Lemurs” appear—creatures composed solely of tendons and bones, so that they possess no soul; they represent human beings in the state before a soul had yet entered them. Faust himself, however, is transported into the spiritual world. We now see Mephistopheles fighting a final battle for Faust’s soul—a significant, remarkable battle. If one were to analyze this battle in detail, one would see what a profound connoisseur of the spiritual world Goethe was.

[ 59 ] There lies the dying Faust. Mephistopheles is fighting for his soul. He knows that this soul can emerge from various parts of the body. There is much to be learned here for those who study from this or that textbook how the soul leaves the body. Goethe goes further. He knows that it is not always the same place, that the soul’s departure from the body at death depends entirely on a person’s stage of development. He knows that while the soul is in the body and takes on a form corresponding to the body, it can only maintain this form through the elastic power of love. Mephistopheles believes that Faust’s soul is ripe for the realm of darkness. In that case, it can only take on the form he describes as an “ugly worm.” When the soul is surrendered to its own powers, it can only have a form that is the expression of its virtues or its vices. If Faust’s soul were ripe for the realm of darkness, it would be shaped as Mephistopheles assumes. But now it has developed, and it is carried away because its virtues correspond to the spiritual world, and it is taken into possession by the spiritual worlds.

[ 60 ] First, we encounter those people who are, so to speak, the links between the physical world and the spiritual world—those who stand as initiates in the physical world and reach upward with their spirit into the spiritual world: those who experience and perceive the supersensible. This is how they are presented to us. In his poem titled “Symbolum,” Goethe speaks of how two voices resound from the spiritual world:

But from over there
The voices of the spirits call out,
The voices of the masters:
Do not neglect to practice
The powers of good!

[ 61 ] Here, too, Goethe remains true to his insight. He depicts the spirits that are not embodied in the sensory world. First, however, he depicts those for whom the name “Masters” is often used—those who are embodied in the sensory world. He depicts them in the guise that seemed most natural to him at the time—as Pater Ecstaticus, Pater Seraphicus, and Pater Profundus—and regarding which he said to Eckermann: “Incidentally, you will admit that the conclusion, where the saved soul ascends, was very difficult to write, and that, with such supernatural, scarcely conceivable things, I could very easily have lost myself in vagueness had I not given my poetic intentions a beneficially limiting form and firmness through the sharply defined Christian-ecclesiastical figures and concepts.”

[ 62 ] Anyone who has heard the lectures on Christian initiation here will recognize how deeply Goethe was initiated into these matters.

[ 63 ] Thus the soul of Faust ascends through the regions through which such souls have already passed—souls that have grown into the spiritual world and are active within it; souls that are also active in bringing other souls into the spiritual world. And then we see how Goethe, so to speak, makes his profession of faith—that profession which characterizes him as a member of the spiritual-scientific movement that has been mentioned here frequently, especially in the lecture “Where and How Does One Find the Spirit?,” where an example was given of how a human being enters into the spiritual world. There, the black cross with the red roses was cited. Forces awaken in the soul when a person devotes themselves to this Rosicrucian symbol, in which the black cross represents the descent into the sensory world, and the red roses represent the sprouting of the spiritual world—which abstractly expresses what the words say:

And as long as you don’t have that,
This: Die and Be Reborn!
You are but a gloomy guest,
On this dark earth.

[ 64 ] Goethe knew what a person can achieve through spiritual understanding and through the power of the red roses, and he acknowledges this: The roses fall from the spiritual world as Faust’s immortal soul is received. And so we see how Goethe truly depicts for us the path of the human soul into the spiritual world.

[ 65 ] Some things could only be sketched out. For there is something peculiar about Goethe’s *Faust*: the more one delves into it, the deeper and deeper it becomes, and only then does one come to understand what Goethe can mean to humanity. One comes to understand what Goethe will one day become for humanity when anthroposophy sheds light on the esoteric poetry of Goethe—there where, drawing on his own experiences, he speaks of the spiritual world. Goethe depicted realistically what he knew to be facts of the spiritual world. This second part of *Faust* is realistic poetry, though naturally it remains closed to those who do not know that the spiritual worlds are realities. We have not symbols here, but only poetic renditions of events that are depicted quite realistically yet are supersensory; those supersensible events that the soul experiences when it becomes one with the world that is its original home—when it feels not merely a kind of knowledge that is merely an abstraction, a fusion with sensory observations or intellectual abstractions, but rather a real fact of the spiritual world.

[ 66 ] Of course, we are still a long way from truly understanding Goethe’s *Faust*, for one must first come to understand the language of *Faust* if one wishes to delve into it. One can pick up commentary after commentary on *Faust*: not even the words themselves are interpreted correctly by people who are otherwise quite intelligent. — When Wagner sees the homunculus spring forth in the retort, he says—you can read in commentaries on *Faust* what the words Wagner speaks are supposed to mean:

It’s happening! The masses are stirring more clearly!
Their conviction grows truer and truer.

[ 67 ] I am speaking just as incorrectly as all those people since Goethe who have claimed that Wagner was convinced the Homunculus would come into being: That conviction is far more clearly evident in Wagner! — And the interpreters of *Faust* think they can exhaust the full depths of *Faust* with such trivialities! Of course, our age—which, after all, bandies about a term coined by Goethe, the “Superman,” without grasping its deeper meaning—could not interpret these words any other way. But the true meaning is this: What is begotten in the physical world is a begetting; what is begotten here in the astral world is a conviction—a begetting in the supersensible worlds, a conviction. But one must first learn to read Goethe, where he, like all great minds, creates new words. Then one will be able to appreciate the full gravity from which *Faust* emerged. Then, above all, one will no longer commit the triviality of understanding the closing words of *Faust* to mean that the “Eternal Feminine” refers to something connected with the feminine in the sensory world.

[ 68 ] The Eternal Feminine is that force within the soul which allows itself to be fertilized by the spiritual world and thus grows together with the spiritual world through its clairvoyant and magical deeds. What can be fertilized there is the Eternal Feminine within every human being, which draws them upward toward the spheres of the Eternal. And Goethe has described this journey of the Eternal Feminine into the spiritual worlds in *Faust*.

[ 69 ] Let us look around in the physical world: everything we encounter there—we see it all the more clearly when we do not view it as true reality, but rather as a parable for the eternal. The soul experiences this eternal reality when it passes through the gates into the spiritual world. There it experiences what can be hinted at with sensory words, provided these sensory words are used in a very special way. Goethe also once spoke about this, issuing something like a great warning to all those who insist on clinging to an abstract opinion about this or that. As a great admonition to humanity, Goethe expressed in two poems that when someone speaks of something from the spiritual world, they can express it in two completely opposing perspectives. In the first poem, he says:

The Eternal continues to stir within all things,
For everything must dissolve into nothingness,
If it is to persist in being.

[ 70 ] So while he expresses the idea of his philosophy of the eternally flowing here, he goes on to say in the next poem:

No being can disintegrate into nothingness!
The Eternal continues to stir within all things,
May you find happiness in Being!

[ 71 ] While the opposing ideas in the sensible world are represented as the opposing reflections of the supersensible world, the supersensible world cannot be described in the same way as the sensible world. Sensible words are always inadequate when used in a specific sense.

[ 72 ] Thus we see how Goethe, precisely by depicting what is “indescribable” from a wide variety of perspectives, makes it visible to the eye of the spirit. What is “inadequate” for the sensory world is accessible to spiritual contemplation if the soul trains itself in that aspect which is to be developed through the powers that can be bestowed upon the soul by spiritual science. It is no coincidence that Goethe allows the work in which he has set forth the most magnificent and rich of his experiences to conclude with a “Chorus mysticus”—a chorus into which, however, absolutely nothing trivial may be introduced. For in this *Chorus mysticus*, he hints to us how that which cannot be described in sensory terms—when one employs reflective representation—is accomplished, and how the soul is drawn into the spiritual world through its eternally feminine power.

All that is fleeting
Is but a parable;
That which is inadequate,
Here becomes an achievement;
That which is indescribable,
Here it is accomplished;
The eternal feminine
Draws us upward.

[ 73 ] This is how Goethe could speak of the path into the spiritual world. This is how he could speak of the powers of the soul which, when developed, gradually lead a person into the spiritual world.