The Rudolf Steiner Archive

15. Goethe’s “Faust”: A Portrait of His Worldview from the Perspective of a Theosophist

[ 1 ] In the Middle Ages, we can trace a mystical tradition from Meister Eckhart to Jakob Böhme. Goethe delved deep into mystical wisdom. A merely scholarly explanation of Goethe’s works is not enough. Goethe was a profound connoisseur of mysticism in all its depth. In his “Gospel,” his Faust, he presented a picture of his theosophical or mystical worldview.

[ 2 ] The theosophist is convinced that human beings possess within themselves a core that is the soul, that is the spirit. Giordano Bruno, too, was convinced that the soul and the spirit have a significance that extends beyond the material world. This is the conviction of the theosophist. Theosophy elevates religion to wisdom; it elevates faith to knowledge. Theosophy teaches that within every human being there is a divine-human being who has emerged from the divine womb, who develops, and who returns to the Divine. It sees nature as an expression of the divine source.

[ 3 ] From his youth onward, Goethe sought God in nature and the reflection of the divine being in his own heart. He saw in the products of nature an expression of the divine spirit. The other science deals only with the sensory realm; it knows nothing of the soul-spiritual realm. Human beings are placed [as spiritual beings] within nature and wage their struggle in this physical world. Goethe describes [in Faust] the great human struggle that leads people to higher development, through which they gain insight into the soul and spiritual world and recognize that they constitute a divine self, a divine “I.” Goethe wishes to suggest that this struggle is rooted in the spiritual world, in the Prologue in Heaven. The struggle takes place between good and evil. It is the struggle of spiritual world forces. When the mystic ascends to the highest world, he speaks of the music of the spheres in the Pythagorean sense; he speaks of this highest world as a world of tones and harmonies.

[ 4 ] The mystic sees in the starry sky the creative spirit of the world in resounding harmony.

The sun sings in the old way

[ 5 ] says Goethe. The world is the expression of the divine idea of the world. Human thoughts are reflections of the divine idea of the world.

That which hovers in ever-changing form,
Anchor it with enduring thoughts.

[ 6 ] Faust seeks to understand the spiritual realm. Spirits exist in the world: the human spirit, the planetary spirit, the spirit of the solar system—Goethe refers to the spirit of the Earth. The physical Earth is merely the expression of a real Earth Spirit. Goethe’s description of the Earth Spirit is accurate. When we study life on Earth—its emergence and decay—we find an Earth Spirit that is of a completely different nature than the spirits of other planets. The task of the Earth Spirit is, in fact, to work on the immortal garment of the Godhead.

[ 7 ] When we consider Faust in his entirety as a striving being, we realize that he seeks to penetrate ever more deeply into his inner self. We can only come to know ourselves by going through experiences. Faust passes through the entire stage of the world. This is what the first part shows. Theosophy teaches that through experience, human beings acquire human abilities and ascend to higher levels of existence. Everything that a human being—who is a creature of the senses and the intellect—can come to know, Faust has come to know. But he wants to know what lies beyond.

[ 8 ] Goethe was convinced that a person can approach the highest source of knowledge only as a prepared, purified being. Faust first passes through all the individual sensory experiences—the experiences of the lower self. These tempting forces are now personified in Mephistopheles. Only by overcoming this resistance can a person become perfect, become better.

[ 9 ] Now that Faust has made his way through the struggle of life, he recalls that the Earth Spirit is at the same time an expression of the divine Spirit. The Earth Spirit reveals to him humanity’s kinship with all of nature and then leads him to self-knowledge. This illustrates how humanity is guided from the transitory to the enduring. But humanity must first gain experience. Faust succumbs to temptation. He becomes the tempter. Later, we see him deeply contrite and despondent, unable to break free from his inner self.

[ 10 ] The second part aims to illustrate a transition in which the spiritual world enters into the sensory world. Goethe shows us how Faust’s inner being is stirred when he listens to the spiritual world. Once again, the resounding spiritual world appears, in harmony with all mysticism.

[ 11 ] Inwardly, Faust is to ascend to the heights of humanity. We are led to the imperial court. We are shown how Faust, like humanity, acts not only for himself but for the lower self of many people. Faust creates material prosperity for people. Faust undergoes a greater lesson, but still within the realm of the material. He is to be led even higher. Faust is to be able to reveal something that cannot be attained through the senses. What once lived is still present in the spirit. The spiritual archetypes exist somewhere. The tempter has been able to lead him through the sensory world. Mephistopheles holds the key to the eternal foundations of things—to the spiritual world—but lacks the power to enter it himself. That is why he gives Faust the key to the realm of the Mothers.

[ 12 ] Mysticism throughout the ages has described the highest spiritual realm as something feminine. The mystic conceives of the entire world as a fertilizing father. The soul is the eternal feminine, which grows ever more mature through fertilization from without. The highest spiritual realm is the realm in which the deity originally reigns. It is the realm of archetypes, of mothers.

[ 13 ] The Theosophist recognizes that the deepest essence is expressed in three forms. Faust finds the glowing tripod. It corresponds to the deepest essence of the human being, which the Theosophist calls “Atma, Budhi, Manas.” These are the three highest principles of the human being.

[ 14 ] In the realm of mothers lie the archetypes of all things. Faust is capable of summoning the archetypes of all things. Faust summoned the spirit from Paris and Helen.

[ 15 ] The way in which human beings live as a unity of body, soul, and spirit is depicted in a marvelous way in the second part of Faust. One may approach the spirit only in purity, not with desire. Human beings must first be purified of their lusts and desires. Faust must still be purified and attain higher insights. This will be elaborated upon. Faust returns to the laboratory. The homunculus is the soul. The spirit dwells with the mothers, the sources of spiritual life. The soul is [revealed] in the homunculus. The soul dwells in the physical body [like the homunculus in the glass vial], but is itself imperishable. It can perceive the sensory world through the physical body. The mystic knows, through practical experience, how to see without the body.

[ 16 ] The soul’s eye is clairvoyant. The homunculus lacks physical attributes, but not spiritual ones. The homunculus sees Faust’s dream. The vivid way in which Goethe portrays the homunculus—how it longs for embodiment, for entry into the physical world—shows how the soul lives in the spiritual world with qualities such as those possessed by the homunculus. The human body, in its connection with soul and body, is depicted here.

[ 17 ] In the classic Walpurgis Night, we are told how the homunculus [begins to take on a physical form] in the lowest kingdom and evolves through all the kingdoms of nature. As the homunculus evolves from the mineral kingdom up to the plant kingdom, the text states, to indicate this:

It's growling like that.

[ 18 ] Then, as sexual life begins, Goethe introduces Eros. Finally, Homunculus is shattered against Galathea’s shell-carriage. He has passed through all the realms of nature, unites with the spirit, and becomes human.

[ 19 ] Now that body, soul, and spirit are united, Helena can appear in the flesh. Helena embodies the feminine principle. Through her outward form, Helena is meant to reveal the spiritual realm to Faust. This marks Faust’s ascent toward the spiritual realm. Then self-knowledge dawns upon Faust—a mystical experience. This arises because, in life’s moments of celebration, a person can glimpse into a spiritual world. Then he gives birth to the divine spirit within himself. In Faust, this is depicted through the birth of Euphorion. Human beings unite with their higher self—the feminine, Helena. Their son is Euphorion. Euphorion represents how this or that person, in this or that way, gives birth to the spiritual within themselves. For one person it is poetry; for another, mystical contemplation. This recognition of the higher worlds in life’s moments of celebration is individual.

[ 20 ] When a person returns to everyday life and then recalls what they brought into being during life’s moments of celebration, they hear these words ringing out:

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

[ 21 ] Faust is still not at the point where the mystical life becomes the cornerstone of his being. Goethe himself, however, defined his Faust as a mystic. Speaking to Eckermann about the second part of Faust, he says: “For the initiate, the deeper meaning is apparent.”

[ 22 ] Faust finally gains the ability to live as a selfless person. He wants to become a messenger of the divine workings of the world. However, he is still attached to external, sensory perception. He has not yet risen above all that is sensory. Once again, he brings about destruction—the destruction of the hut. Now comes the final step of his ascent. In doing so, he makes further progress. Even when a person has already attained a higher level of development, lower thoughts and worry still gnaw at him. Worry blinds him. His external, sensory perception fades away. As a result, a bright light shines within. His inner sense is opened. Goethe has presented in Faust everything that a human being can recognize and comprehend. He shows what the soul will be like at the beginning and at the end. At the beginning, the innocent Gretchen—at the end, Gretchen once more as the feminine in the human being, the soulful. At the summit of development, the inadequate becomes the event. Faust can behold what cannot be perceived by the senses. In Faust, we have before us the development from the lower self upward toward the higher self.