The Rudolf Steiner Archive

22. Richard Wagner and the Spiritual World

[ 1 ] The Theosophical worldview seeks to deepen our spiritual life, not arbitrarily, but because it aims to satisfy the deeply felt longing of our time. That the Theosophical worldview is not arbitrary can be seen when compared with other spiritual movements.

[ 2 ] Today we want to examine a cultural movement in art in relation to theosophy. We want to talk about Richard Wagner. Richard Wagner always emphasized that he wanted to serve an ideal that could permeate people just as any religious ideal might.

[ 3 ] Goethe longed for an interpreter of art. Richard Wagner strove throughout his life to be such an interpreter. One might say: What isn’t said about Richard Wagner, what isn’t projected onto him! Richard Wagner himself would never have thought of that. — Nor is it necessary that he have consciously thought all of this through so clearly. Just as a plant cannot itself express what a poet might say about it, so too Richard Wagner need not have articulated or thought through everything that is said about him. The botanist cannot place himself above the forces of plants. He knows only their laws. The plant, on the other hand, can grow according to these laws without knowing them. So too with the artist: he carries out the laws of art. Richard Wagner himself held the view that truth comes to light in philosophy, while the secrets of the world are revealed in art. Speaking of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, he said that in such a creation lies the revelation of another world, far more so than through logical thinking.

[ 4 ] Richard Wagner always had the sense that the spiritual world, as the foundation of the sensory world, lies behind this sensory world. In what we call the devachanic world, he sees beings that are connected to physical bodies. The physical world is an expression of this spiritual world. One must possess what Goethe calls the spiritual eyes and ears in order to see and perceive this spiritual world.

[ 5 ] The Pythagorean spoke of the harmony of the spheres, which is not some arbitrarily chosen, superficial image. Goethe speaks very clearly about this spiritual world of spherical music. For him, what surrounds us is the material expression of this spiritual world. He says in *Faust*:

[ 6 ] What a clamor the light brings! It thunders, it trumpets; the eye is dazzled and the ear is astonished; nothing unheard is heard.

[ 7 ] And elsewhere:

[ 8 ] The sun resounds in the ancient manner, In a contest of song among the celestial spheres, And it completes its prescribed journey With a thunderous roar. A great artist uses comparisons like these not merely as imagery.

[ 9 ] Richard Wagner said that individual musical instruments are like individual organs through which the world expresses itself in primal emotions. He did not hold a theosophical worldview. However, since he was imbued with a theosophical spirit, he always knew that deep connections exist between human beings and what lies beyond them. Much of this is contained in ancient legends, such as the legend of “Poor Henry.” A maiden must sacrifice herself so that the sick Poor Henry can be healed. The sacrifice acts as a force flowing from one to the other. External science can find no trace of the magical power that flows from the savior to the saved.

[ 10 ] In *The Flying Dutchman*, we are faced with a person who has become sinful. Senta’s sacrifice—the power that flows from person to person—must take effect here.

[ 11 ] The entire musical drama is permeated by this idea. Richard Wagner observed: In ordinary drama, the external plot unfolds—merely the purely external expression of inner experiences. In the symphony, on the other hand, we experience emotion only internally—that is, what is missing in drama. Beethoven sought a balance in his Ninth Symphony, in which emotion found its expression in words. Wagner’s music drama also arose from this same aspiration.

[ 12 ] Richard Wagner saw the ideal human being behind the ordinary, everyday person. He saw this ideal human being in myths and legends, which contain in the imagination what human beings possess in potential and as seeds. The Nibelungen saga is a particularly vivid expression of this. In the time of ancient Atlantis, people lived under conditions quite different from those we experience today. Atlantis was shrouded in thick fog year in and year out. Rain and sunshine were not distributed as they are today, so that the rainbow could not appear until after the great flood—the Deluge—because only then were the conditions right for its appearance. Noah saw the first rainbow. Memories of those ancient conditions have been preserved in myths and legends, for example in the name Niflheim—“Land of Mist.” Through myths, we receive a truer account than through materialistic science. The spiritual state at that time was such that the individual “I” did not yet exist. During the migration from the west to the east, human beings developed their sense of self. The Atlanteans possessed a collective consciousness at that time. The Germanic tribes, such as the Cherusci, also still possessed this collective consciousness. Legends and myths depicted this in imagery.

[ 13 ] In the transition from the communal “I” to the individual “I”—to the solitary “I”—the “I” contracts more and more around the individual human being. This increasingly contracting individual “I” was depicted as a ring. Truth and wisdom are interwoven with the imagery of poetry. The human, egoistic “I” finds expression in the ring. The masses of mist converged upon the rivers where people now live. Thus, the myth of the Rhine sees in it what has become of the communal “I” consciousness that once encompassed harmony. The last stragglers of those endowed with universal consciousness were, as it were, drawn into the waves of the Rhine. Gold is the symbol of power.

[ 14 ] Along with love, the possibility of selfish love also flows into the “I”-soul. What is represented by gold—the symbol of power—is sought after by the selfish “I.” Alberich kills love in order to draw to himself what previously belonged to each individual from the cosmic consciousness. In the prolonged holding of the E-flat major pedal note in the prelude to *Rheingold*, we see, as if experienced firsthand, the entry of the “I” into the human being.

[ 15 ] Relationships between people must be governed by external law. We see this in Wotan. Because of his love for his wife, he loses his one eye—even though its clairvoyant power was already faint. In return for what the giants have done for him, he is willing to sacrifice the embodiment of love—the force that preserves youth—in exchange for selfish power. Wotan still maintains a connection to the universal consciousness. This consciousness manifests in Erda—an ancient awareness that is dim yet clairvoyant. Through her clairvoyance, she experiences the depths of the natural world in what lives and weaves in springs and waters:

[ 16 ] Your sleep is dreaming, your dreaming is sensing, your sensing is sovereign knowledge.

[ 17 ] There is no better way to express this ancient consciousness, and all of this is also expressed in drama and music. When the “I” was enclosed within the ring, it was confined within the skin. People who possess both clairvoyant consciousness and the consciousness of today are called initiates. This has always been represented through the image of the feminine. Goethe’s words:

The Eternal Feminine
Draws us upward

[ 18 ] refers to the higher human consciousness to which humanity aspires. Every people has leaders who correspond to its character. Here, among the Germanic peoples, bravery is the defining characteristic. The warrior’s soul rises above ordinary consciousness. This is symbolized by a female figure, the Valkyrie. Whoever does not die on the battlefield dies a worthless death. But whoever falls in battle is led upward by the Valkyries. The feminine leads into the spiritual realm.

[ 19 ] The initiate experiences in this life what the ordinary person experiences only after death. Siegfried is an initiate. He already unites with the Valkyrie here on earth. Cosmic consciousness gives way to ego consciousness. The close marriage gradually gives rise to the distant marriage. The mingling of related blood bestowed the power of clairvoyance. This power fades with the distant marriage. When distant blood is joined with distant blood, it kills clairvoyance and sovereign knowledge.

[ 20 ] We find this transition to the “distant marriage” in the world of legends, where a member of the bloodline leaves the group and marries outside of it. In the legend, this is characterized as always being associated with suffering and hardship. Siegmund and Sieglinde are typical examples of the “close marriage.” The son born of this marriage, Siegfried, must know nothing of this. He must grow up on his own, entirely reliant on himself. Fricka, the representative of the new order, rebels against the union of Sieglinde and Siegmund.

[ 21 ] Richard Wagner incorporated theosophical teachings into his drama *Der Sieger* (*The Victor*), which he began in 1856 but never completed. Amander, the son of an Indian king, is loved by a Dschandalah girl. He does not consider her worthy of him and enters a monastery. The girl remains behind and later realizes that in a previous incarnation she was a king’s daughter, and the current prince was a Dschandalah whom she had refused to marry. A balance had now been restored. She, too, subsequently enters a Buddhist monastery. This could have become a purely theosophical drama with reincarnation at its core, but Richard Wagner did not yet feel ready to tackle that.

[ 22 ] The following year, he was invited to Villa Wesendonck. From his window, he saw spring outside—the first sprouts, the reawakening of nature. He recognized the connection between this cosmic phenomenon and the mystery of the Resurrection. “Parsifal” arose from this. The symbol at the heart of the Parsifal problem is the Holy Grail. There truly was a brotherhood of the Holy Grail. It still exists today: the realization of the pure ideal.

[ 23 ] What the Grail student and the Rosicrucian student go through is to be conveyed in a dialogue that did not take place exactly as written, but captures the essence of it. It was made clear to the disciple: Look at the plant. The root goes down into the ground, while the sap—the “blood”—rises upward, where the fruit forms. The calyx stretches toward the sunbeam, the sacred lance of love. Compare this to the human being. Unconscious, the plant is enveloped in sleep, not yet permeated by desires. It develops upward toward the human being. Then the plant sap becomes blood, coursing with desires, and the plant leaf becomes flesh. By incorporating these desires, the human being attains waking consciousness in contrast to the plant’s sleep consciousness.

[ 24 ] There was also talk of future development: Everything is in a state of development. Human beings will evolve to ever more perfect stages. Richard Wagner also points this out. An organ that is still in the process of development, that still stands at the lowest stage—every materialist will find what I am about to say appalling, but that doesn’t matter, for it is true—the heart is indeed a real thorn in the side of materialist science; it is an involuntary muscle with striated fibers like those of voluntary muscles. This already points to a later stage of development. The human larynx, too, will undergo a higher stage of development. It will become productive; it will create the image of man: it will become the future reproductive organ. Later, just as the plant does now, human beings will turn their chalice chastely toward the sun, toward the sacred lance of love. This was revealed to the Grail student. One can attain this knowledge not through speculation, but only through spiritual insight. The Grail student should empathize with it and relive it.

[ 25 ] In *Parsifal*, the character portrayed is one who strives for the Grail ideal—the Christian initiate. The pure fool knows nothing through his own speculation, but rather through empathy; he knows through compassion.

[ 26 ] In Kundry, Wagner portrays the base sensuality that passes from incarnation to incarnation. Kundry is Eve; she is Herodias. She mocked the Savior. But she must not be lost; she, too, must be redeemed. This happens through Parsifal’s kiss. Klingsor represents black magic, raw power.

[ 27 ] In *Siegfried*, the ancient initiation is linked to the Christian initiation. Siegfried is vulnerable in only one place: where the Savior later carried the cross. The ancient can only evolve into selfless, free love if Christian love is embraced. This is expressed in Richard Wagner’s transition from *The Nibelungs* to *Parsifal*, as he moved from the Nibelung saga to the Parsifal saga. Richard Wagner himself saw himself as a herald.

Let this house be called “Wahnfried,”
Where my longing found peace.

[ 28 ] That is written on his house. A person must pass through delusion if he wishes to ascend to the spiritual world.

[ 29 ] If one wishes to interpret the mysteries of the world, [then] one must turn to art.