The Rudolf Steiner Archive

24. Theosophy, Goethe, and Hegel

Article in “Göteborgs Aftonblad”, No. 81, April 7, 1908

[ 1 ] “Theosophy—Goethe and Hegel” was the subject of a lecture given last night at the Handelsinstitut by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, a German writer and lecturer, one of Germany’s leading theosophists, and a prominent Goethe scholar—this and more, incidentally, had already been mentioned during his introduction to a Swedish audience.

[ 2 ] As the headline suggests, yesterday’s lecture was a theosophical one, the purpose of which was to show that both Goethe’s and Hegel’s worldviews essentially coincided with those of modern theosophy. With a fluid eloquence, at times driven by lofty pathos, the speaker developed his theories in a lecture lasting nearly an hour and a half, which apparently held the interest of the small audience throughout.

[ 3 ] Strangely enough, the audience in this city—which is otherwise quite interested in Theosophy—consisted of just under 100 people. Perhaps it was the German language that deterred them—the universal language of Theosophy is, in fact, English—or perhaps it was old Hegel, with whom most of today’s audience has probably failed to become more closely acquainted. Goethe, on the other hand, is someone we should all know—including the rather hard-to-digest second part of his *Faust*.

[ 4 ] It is primarily from this that Dr. Steiner draws his evidence that Goethe appears as one of the “initiates”—one of those who, through the power of a higher intuition, can perceive a higher reality behind the physical world, an embodiment of ideas—and, in the theosophical sense, comes into contact with the divine spirit that permeates the universe. In particular, the speaker sought to demonstrate that Goethe adhered to the theosophical doctrine of reincarnation.

[ 5 ] The speaker expressly emphasized that, in order to understand the second part of *Faust*, it must be studied in the light of theosophy.

[ 6 ] That “the universal Goethe”—and in particular his *Faust* poem, which has been the subject of seventy times seven interpretations—was thus also exploited for theosophical exegesis is hardly more than one might expect.

[ 7 ] This part of the lecture was undoubtedly the most interesting. Less successful, however, was the speaker’s attempt to turn Hegel—a pantheist with his conception of the individual as a fleeting moment—into a theosophical adept. Finally, the speaker returned to the author of *Faust* and concluded with these words of his, which, like so much else that “the great pagan” said, wonderfully testify to his belief in the divine within humanity:

If the eye were not like the sun,
how could we see the light?
If the power of God did not dwell within us,
how could the divine delight us?