The Rudolf Steiner Archive

33. Goethe's Secret Revelation (Esoteric)

[ 1 ] Yesterday I endeavored to show how what is to be taught here regarding Goethe’s innermost, most intimate thoughts and views on the development of the human soul can be derived, and that nothing has been arbitrarily inserted into his works—and particularly into his fairy tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily—that nothing has been arbitrarily veiled in mystery here. I have attempted to show how the entire foundation upon which the interpretation of the “fairy tale” and Goethe’s worldview can be derived arises from a historical examination of Goethe’s life and from a historical tracing of Goethe’s most important ideas and impulses. An attempt has been made to lay the groundwork for what is to be presented today in a freer exposition on this topic.

[ 2 ] When we allow that fairy tale, which was discussed yesterday, to take shape in our minds, it does indeed appear to us as if it were entirely shrouded in mystery, and one might say: Either one must assume that Goethe intended to conceal many, many things within this fairy tale—as he did in Faust, according to his own statement—or one could regard this fairy tale as a mere flight of fancy. Even if Goethe’s entire nature and way of thinking did not already rule out the latter, one would have to say that such an assumption is particularly precluded by the fact that Goethe placed this fairy tale at the end of his collection Conversations of German Emigrants. For it is the same idea that characterizes Goethe’s entire life that also underlies his Conversations of German Emigrants, and from what immediately precedes it, we can once again discern the theme of this fairy tale.

[ 3 ] Here we are presented with the conversations of people who were forced to emigrate due to events in their French homeland, in which they reflect in a wide variety of ways on their sad experiences. The entire narrative culminates in showing what people who have been torn from their surroundings may go through as a result of this upheaval—the loneliness of the soul within themselves—and what people in this situation can gain through reflection, contemplation of their inner experiences, and self-observation. Just a few examples are worth highlighting to show how Goethe sought to bring everything to a head, demonstrating how the soul that wishes to observe itself—that asks: “What kind of guilt have I accumulated upon myself? By what means have I hindered the paths to my own development?”—gains self-understanding. First, we encounter an Italian singer who is to lay her fate before us, because in this fate a human soul appears before us that must remain anchored to the surface of the worldview—a soul that, while attentively following what is happening around her, because she is compelled by the course of life, but who is not yet mature enough to distinguish between what may be called chance and the spiritual necessity of things—a soul who does not understand how the phenomena of life must be connected when we assume the presence of the spirit in the environment. She has behaved toward a man in such a way that her repulsive manner has made him gravely ill, and he is dying as a result of her behavior. She is summoned to his deathbed, but she refuses to come. He dies without having seen her. After his death, all sorts of things occur that give a soul like the one just described cause for reflection. “How should I respond to this?” she asks herself. After the man’s death, something quite strange happens. She hears strange sounds in the room; the furniture dances about; she is slapped by an invisible hand; and she is constantly compelled to ask herself: Is the dead man somehow present, seeking to assert himself because I rejected him? The top of a cabinet bursts open, and at that very moment, in her own apartment in France, a cabinet made by the same carpenter bursts into flames. Goethe did not mean to suggest that such events contain anything that might give cause to believe in hidden spirits or the return of the dead; rather, he merely wanted to say that there could be people who interpret all manner of events in such a way—people who are not superstitious enough to say, “The dead are certainly stirring there”— they merely succumb to a vague feeling and cannot shake it off. What Goethe wishes to draw our attention to is how souls fare in the external world according to their stage of development. He then shows how one comes to be in a position to heal a woman of sensuality and passion; he embarks on the path of asceticism. This is yet another indication of what the soul can go through in order to undergo development. Goethe then leads us step by step upward. First, a soul groping in the dark; then a more concrete example in the lady just described, for many achieve a purification of their soul through fasting. We are already entering more deeply into reality. And through the third example Goethe cites, we enter fully into reality. He shows how a person is initially somewhat unscrupulous; he is at a lower stage of soul development and says: “What belongs to my father also belongs to me.” He commits theft. Then his conscience awakens, his soul rises, and precisely through this wrongful act, he becomes a kind of moral center for the humanity that gathers around him. He demonstrates a development of the soul that signifies an ascent from a lower level to a higher level of knowledge and worldview.

[ 4 ] We are dealing entirely with spiritual forces, represented by the characters—the beings of the “fairy tale”—and with the interplay of these spiritual forces, which is meant to be purified into harmony, into a symphony of spiritual forces manifested in the actions performed by the characters. First, we encounter will-o’-the-wisps that are ferried across the river by a ferryman. These will-o’-the-wisps are initially filled with gold, but the ferryman does not want the gold as payment, because that would lead to wild turmoil. Instead, he wants the fruits of the earth: three heads of cabbage, three artichokes, and three large onions. The will-o’-the-wisps have the ability to scatter gold around them. They encounter the snake, the “Aunt,” coming from the horizontal direction. For her, the gold is fruitful and blessed. She becomes radiant within through the pieces of gold. She can now illuminate what she could not see before.

[ 5 ] More than twenty years ago, when I tried in every possible way to gain access to this fairy tale, it was, above all, a rewarding insight into the tangle of questions surrounding the “fairy tale” when it became clear that, above all, one must follow the gold. Gold plays a role in various ways. The will-o’-the-wisps scatter it about. In a certain sense, it is something not particularly blessed. In the snake, it becomes a blessing. Then we encounter the gold again in the golden king, on the walls of the old man’s hut with the lamp; there the will-o’-the-wisps lick it up, growing fatter as a result. At one point, we are made to realize which human soul quality gold is connected to when we are told that the Golden King represents the giver, the bringer of wisdom. Here Goethe himself tells us: Compared to the others, the Golden King signifies the giver of wisdom. Gold must therefore have something to do with wisdom. Gold is what makes the king wise, what enables him to endow the young man with wisdom:

Realize the Supreme!

[ 6 ] Gold is something that the Giver of Wisdom is able to channel into human beings. The will-o’-the-wisps must therefore represent the soul forces that are capable of receiving wisdom—and that can also shake wisdom off. It must be shown how the gold can be stored; for a long, long time it is stored within the walls of the hut. Since we know how well-founded this is, we have no choice but to see soul forces in individual people. We can describe the will-o’-the-wisps as abstract intellect, abstract thinking, which is capable of acquiring a certain amount of wisdom. Now we also understand why knowledge, in the form of pure intellectual power, plays such a significant role in will-o’-the-wisps. Whoever takes in what science is with the mere intellect does so in order to derive something personal from it, to be able to use it personally.

[ 7 ] Goethe often congratulated himself on not officially representing science as a teacher. He congratulated himself on being able to share his wisdom with the world only when he felt an inner urge to do so—rather than being compelled to dispense it, as is necessary when one is destined to be a teacher or a mere abstract dispenser of wisdom. In this way, Goethe portrays those who possess abstract knowledge as will-o’-the-wisps. Abstract intelligence can absorb a vast amount of knowledge, but it leads to vanity. It is also entirely in keeping with Goethe’s thinking: No matter how cleverly we may think or how many abstract concepts we may have, as long as our ideas are not drawn from the depths of life, they are unsuitable for ultimately leading us into the mysteries of the eternal enigmas of existence. Where we need something that speaks directly to the heart from the eternal ideas of existence, we need something other than abstract concepts. When we reach the boundary between the physical world and the realm of the spiritual, we are repelled along with all our abstract concepts and ideas. Indeed, all these abstract concepts and ideas are not even capable of making us comprehend, so to speak, what is closest to us. How far removed is the abstract thinker from grasping even the most mundane things that surround him. He is incapable of contributing anything to the current we must cross if we wish to enter the supernatural world. And if we wish to approach the very origin of life, it resists us when we approach it with mere intelligence. The will-o’-the-wisps belong to the vertical line, while the serpent belongs to the horizontal line. This indicates that, with abstract ideas, human beings distance themselves from the ground—from the ground of everyday life. We see how vividly the will-o’-the-wisps are depicted. But are ideas and concepts, philosophical treatises, under all circumstances what separates us from the true source of existence? No, not at all; for if a person also has the capacity to live in such a way that he unites his own life forces with things—so that he does not rise into the realm of abstract concepts and ideas, but moves calmly among things—such a spirit becomes like Faust when he says:

Sublime Spirit, you gave me—you gave me everything
I asked for. You did not in vain
Turn your face toward me in the fire.
You gave me magnificent nature as my kingdom,
The power to feel it, to enjoy it. You do not
do you merely allow me to gaze coldly and in wonder,
You grant me permission to look into its deep bosom,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the procession of the living
past me and teach me to recognize my brothers
in the silent thicket, in the air, and in the water.

[ 8 ] Where human beings truly form an inner communion with the beings of nature, the very concepts that alienate abstract thinkers from the world serve to help them delve ever more deeply into existence. We must not simply turn this around and say: because the abstract thinker distances himself from reality, concepts and ideas are therefore worthless. If there is a spiritual power within them that lives in and with things, they simultaneously become radiant. That is why gold becomes such a blessing for the snake that lives in crevices—a creature oriented horizontally that does not alienate itself. When a person loves things and immerses themselves mystically in them, then ideas are the light that can guide them through. This is why one may find that philosophy presented in an academic manner sometimes seems cold and sober. But when the same ideas are encountered among solitary people of nature—herb and root gatherers and the like—one will see how, indeed, in the snakes, in those who enter into communion with things, the ideas that are sober among the abstract thinkers become radiant. The snake thus points to the power of the soul that has the mystical urge to immerse itself mystically in all things. This is depicted when the snake moves through the crevices. The person who does not dwell in abstract matters comes close, like the snake, to the subterranean temple. If a person has a sense for the mysterious workings of the forces of nature, they reach the heart of nature; they can experience something of what lives in the things out there in nature, even if they lack the ideas. The serpent shows us people who, if necessary, can live without ideas, but who, through loving immersion in things, come to grasp the mysteries of the world. But when a balance is created—through ideas and concepts immersing themselves in these mystical soul forces—then the person who is lovingly attuned to things can also illuminate with their own light that which was previously only sensed from the sources of existence. Goethe says meaningfully:

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

[ 9 ] He points out directly how we must bring light to the mysteries of nature if these mysteries are to shine forth once more. Human beings must possess inner meaning and an open heart; they must have cultivated an awareness of the spiritual. Only then can they perceive the spiritual in their surroundings. Then the serpent enters the underground temple. Such underground places exist for the life of the soul. Such things can only be described if they delve more intimately into the wondrous workings of the human soul during its development. Can one sense that, before the soul is able to perceive the Spirit in the external world, it has the inner certainty: Yes, there is a primal source from which everything flows? It can have this certainty and yet not be able to perceive the Spirit everywhere. Oh, it is a great goal to perceive the Spirit everywhere. [Feel: I myself have crystallized out of the spiritual. To achieve this, a person must awaken.] A person must first develop the highest soul forces within themselves. They must first awaken within themselves the supersensible, which lies dormant in ordinary, normal consciousness. First, they must ascend to higher stages of development.

[ 10 ] First, a person must sense that such a thing exists. Then another insight dawns: I can only reach my ultimate goal if I see how my entire existence is permeated by the Spirit. I have crystallized, born of the spiritual, of the supersensible, without my having any part in this birth from the supersensible, which I can ultimately attain through knowledge. In a mysterious way, I have been born from the land that I can ultimately reach again. This characterizes the land of the beautiful lily, from which the human being also originates. The ferryman brings him across. Humanity is brought across by secret powers. The ferryman who brings people to this shore is not permitted to bring anyone back again. The same actual way in which we are brought across from the supersensible realm through birth cannot be the way in which we return consciously. Other paths must be taken.

[ 11 ] There, the will-o'-the-wisps ask the snake how they can enter the realm of the beautiful lily—that is, how a single soul force can ascend to the Highest. Two ways are suggested: first, when the snake lies across the river at noon. But the will-o'-the-wisps do not like to travel then. It is, after all, entirely beyond the realm of the abstract thinker—who wishes to live entirely in ideas and reasoning—to cross over in the manner represented by the snake: through devotion to things, through mystical communion with things. This mystical communion cannot always be attained. A great mystic of the Alexandrian school confesses that he has experienced only a few moments when the spirit of the infinite entered the soul—moments in which God is experienced within the human heart. These are midday moments, when the sun of life is at its zenith, in which such an experience is possible. For the abstract thinkers who tell themselves: “Once one has the right way of thinking, it must lead to the Highest,” such midday hours of life—which one must await as a grace of life—are not hours in which they can journey; for them, what they seek must be attainable at any time. Then their attention is drawn by the serpent to the shadow of the giant, who himself can do nothing—the giant; but when twilight spreads and he casts his shadow across the river, people can also cross over. If we wish to understand the giant, we must bear in mind that Goethe was well aware of the powers of the soul that lie beneath the threshold of consciousness—powers that emerge in the normal person only in dreams, but which belong to the lower clairvoyant powers. These are powers that are not attained through the development of the soul, but which appear particularly in primitive souls in the form of premonitions, second sight, and in everything connected with less advanced souls—from which primitive clairvoyance emerges.

[ 12 ] Through such clairvoyant powers, human beings gain certain intuitions about the supersensible worlds. Even today, many people still prefer to approach the supersensible world through such intuitions, or through spiritualistic phantoms, rather than through the genuine development of the soul, Everything that belongs to the realm of the subconscious, to the realm of the soul—that which is not illuminated by clear reason, by the light of insight, or by self-control—all of this, which manifests as dreamlike perception, is represented by the giant. In truth, one cannot truly know anything through this consciousness, for it is very weak compared to true knowledge. It is something that cannot be controlled. It is best personified by a person who cannot bear any weight, for through this awareness nothing can be recognized that carries any weight for a worldview. But the shadow of this subconscious plays a major role in life. It takes only one word to characterize this shadow: superstition. If countless people did not have superstition—the shadow image of the subconscious that operates in the twilight of knowledge—they would have no idea of the supersensible world. For countless people today, superstition is still the shadow of the subconscious that leads over into the supersensible. To begin with, I need only emphasize how people can say that theosophy and spiritual science are things that only those who exert great effort to raise the soul to a higher level can truly understand. This is an inconvenient reality. If the spirits wish to be there for us, they must descend to us. This brings to light everything that flourishes so abundantly in the realm of modern superstition—a superstition to which even scholars today pay homage, scholars who absolutely refuse to admit that the soul can partake of the spiritual through development. They are just as willing to accept a medium who can bestow upon them some gift from the spiritual world. This is not to say that these things cannot be based on truth, but distinguishing between error and truth is immensely difficult here and possible only for the initiated.

[ 13 ] Goethe wishes to draw attention to this shadow of the subconscious, to this realm within the human soul—but not as a polemicist, which Goethe never was. Goethe is well aware that every power of the soul has its significance at its own level; he even finds it useful here to have the will-o’-the-wisps offer advice through the snake. But superstition plays a major role in drawing attention to and directing the human senses toward the supernatural world. Goethe, who seeks to portray the entire realm of the soul’s powers in their symphonic harmony, shows how this superstition has a sound foundation in the soul—in those powers that do not always align with sober, clear concepts, but rather say to themselves: “Things are rich; let us first merely sense the mysteries, rather than confine them within sharp contours.” This intuition is something immensely important that is meant to play a part in the entire consciousness and life of our soul’s development.

[ 14 ] What was so clearly expressed in the external natural world for Goethe plays out at a higher level in his development. Goethe saw a certain law in all natural processes, like a leitmotif; it is a law of balance, whereby nature has a certain measure for all things and can bring forth all possible beings from unity. Goethe sought this law throughout all of nature in order to see everything that is embodied one-sidedly in the external world as existing in harmony. When Goethe uttered this sentence, people viewed him simply as a poet, a dilettante. The statement only caused a stir when Cuvier, in his dispute with Geoffroy St. Hilaire, also drew attention to this law. Goethe, who held a view of nature that saw one-sidedness everywhere and sought to grasp the whole by harmonizing the one-sided, also saw in the soul something he wished to synthesize through harmonization. There are people who represent one-sided soul forces. The false prophets, who seek to impose their wisdom everywhere, are the will-o’-the-wisps; then there are serpents and so on. He wanted to show that human beings can attain higher levels by embodying within themselves the archetype of humanity. Thus, abstract intelligence must be connected to the sense that intuits the supersensible within the sensible. One must not allow sober intelligence to be subjugated by intuition, but neither should one one-sidedly emphasize abstract concepts and refuse to understand how rich in content is that which lives and weaves within things. Goethe wanted to show how human beings can become one-sided, but also how they must strive toward the beautiful lily—toward the inner, balanced human soul.

[ 15 ] After the serpent has received the inner light, it enters the temple. The powers that must inspire the human soul bestow the strengths that a person must possess within themselves if they wish to ascend to a higher existence. Goethe shows that there are certain powers of the soul that the soul must possess if it is to ascend to higher levels. But if a person wishes to attain these higher levels without having found the proper path at the right time through inspiration, through the world forces, then this worldview is something that can kill him, confuse him in his soul, and paralyze him. Therefore, the young man who is not yet mature is first paralyzed, even killed by mere contact. Thus, whatever seeks to liberate the spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves has a deadly effect, says Goethe. All our striving must be directed toward making ourselves mature, toward shaping ourselves so that the soul, in the right mood and the right state, receives the highest. Thus, the young man is first killed. He is to be prepared by being endowed with soul forces by the kings. We have already seen that the Golden King is the spiritual force that can be kindled in the soul and that, when harmoniously aligned with the other soul forces, bestows wisdom in the right way. The Silver King represents piety. For Goethe, beauty and the cultivation of art are closely linked to piety. Beauty is that which makes one inwardly pious. The soul force that draws us through feelings toward the spiritual world is represented by the second king. The soul force of the will [toward the good] is represented by the bronze king.

[ 16 ] But these soul forces must enter the soul in such a way that we can separate them—that they enter us in the right way, so that we can master them and set them apart; the emotional life from the life of wisdom, and likewise the life of will from the emotional life and the life of wisdom. These powers, which appear in this distinct manner, give rise to the higher life of wisdom. The lower life is represented by the mixed king. Every human being has these three soul powers within them, but they are mixed together. A higher age in human development begins only when this chaotic mixture of the soul forces ceases—when they are no longer chaotically mixed as with the fourth king, but are clearly separated from one another: the realm of the soul force permeated by wisdom, that permeated by beauty, and that permeated by the will to good. Then humanity will reach the point at which it may say to itself: The time has come. Something else must precede this. A soul that has been guided through wisdom, beauty, and strength without prior preparation would hardly perceive anything special.

[ 17 ] We must be guided by another spiritual force, represented by the man with the lamp. The lamp can only shine where there is already light. It is the light of faith that radiates from our hearts, even if we have not yet penetrated the essence of things. It is that which is offered to things as faith. It is a light that can shine only where another light already exists: Religion can generate faith only where it is attuned to what people feel within a given cultural climate and era, and so on. There, the serpent—which seeks to penetrate to wisdom, beauty, and strength through the soul’s inner power alone—must encounter the light of faith that prepares the soul. Thus Goethe shows that the right time must come, that the soul must first be guided by the light of faith, and that we can then ascend to a direct grasp of the soul’s powers in their separateness and in their direct interaction. On this side of the river, then, human beings must prepare themselves. On the other side, it is shown how a person, if they connect with the powers of the soul unprepared, suffers harm to their soul.

[ 18 ] A curious character is the old man’s wife with the lamp, who is portrayed as human—all too human—as vain and so on, and who is chosen to pay the ferryman with the fruits of the earth. This is primitive human nature, which has the power to be united with the light of faith. We are shown that as the light shines from the old man’s lamp, stones are transformed into gold, wood into silver, and dead animals into gemstones. The pug, after all, is transformed into a gemstone. This demonstrates the power of faith—this truly wondrous power of faith—oh, how it is capable of revealing all things to us in such a way that, in a certain sense, they truly reveal their divine nature to us, showing us what lies within them. Dead stones are transformed into gold, revealing themselves to be endowed with wisdom; faith already senses this in things—that all things are not merely what they appear to us through the senses. This is demonstrated by the transformation brought about by the lamp. When a person remains in their healthy nature—even if they cannot attain science—they possess something within themselves that leads far more closely to the threshold of the supersensible. The scientist becomes a doubter, a skeptic; and one should try to see how firmly grounded some primal nature is—represented by the old woman—who can give facts their flow, in a way that the will-o’-the-wisps cannot. Such natures possess a primal feeling that connects them to the supernatural, which weaves and lives within all things; and one can see in such people how a compassionate smile appears when scientists speak, as if to say, “We know something you cannot know—this brings us together with that from which we are created.” This is demonstrated by the fact that the woman is able to pay.

[ 19 ] The temple must be raised from beneath the earth into the upper realm; it must rise above the river on its own. And it is conceivable that a soul has ascended the steps in this way, since it can experience and feel the midday moments of life; thus, through a higher development of the soul, it is achieved that not only special spirits can cross the river. This is what is achieved through spiritual science in the new culture. And Goethe behaves like a prophet in the new culture by pointing out that not only can exceptional spirits find the supersensible realm, but that there is a development of the soul that everyone can undergo; so that all may pass back and forth once what is the true mystery has come to pass.

“How many secrets do you know?” — “Three,” replied the old man. “Which is the most important one?” asked the Silver King. “The obvious one,” replied the old man.

[ 20 ] The expression “the manifest mystery” appears frequently in Goethe’s work because, like all true mystics, he believed that the connection between the material and the spiritual is evident everywhere; therefore, it is not so important for human beings to seek the spiritual through all sorts of roundabout ways, but rather to truly connect with things, just as the serpent connects with them. The “manifest mystery” of all three is that which can be found everywhere, requiring only a certain maturity of the soul. The three mysteries are simply these: wisdom, piety, and virtue. A fourth is also necessary, as the serpent whispers into the old man’s ear; this the old man cannot know. But he can know that the time has now come. What does the serpent say? That she is ready to sacrifice herself to serve as a bridge across the river. Therein lies the entire secret of the sacrifice of the lower soul forces. You will find this sacrifice further on in Goethe’s words:

And as long as you don’t have that,
this dying and becoming,
you are but a gloomy guest
on this dark earth.

[ 21 ] First, a person must go through everything that has guided him through life. But in order to ascend, he must be able to sacrifice what he has gained and what he has experienced through the lower life of the soul.

[ 22 ] Jakob Böhme, whom Goethe knew very well, expressed this mystery in a beautiful way:

Whoever does not die before he dies will perish when he dies.

[ 23 ] Anyone who enters the supersensory world before having died to the lower self would not yet be able, in this incarnation, to truly perceive the spiritual realm after death.

Whoever does not die before he dies will perish when he dies.

[ 24 ] The soul, says Goethe, protects itself from ruin in the lower self by becoming like the serpent that sacrifices itself—that is, there is a spiritual power within us that can unite with the forces of nature and must be sacrificed: that which, as lower selfishness, is necessary for the attainment of human freedom. Therefore, that which has guided us becomes, in itself, the path to the beyond. We pass into the supernatural world through what we ourselves have sacrificed. The will-o’-the-wisps are now able to unlock the gate of the temple. Science holds the key to the realm of the supernatural, but it cannot lead us into the true mysteries, for it leads only to the temple gate—just as Mephisto possesses only the key to the realm of the mothers but cannot enter it himself. Thus we see how the will-o’-the-wisps indeed fulfill their role to the very end, and how Goethe captures the essence of the soul’s development in each individual case.

[ 25 ] What remains of religious faith? Tradition in our cultural processes. Go to the libraries, look into how much of that gold is stored there, and see how the abstract thinkers lick the gold away and turn the old books into new ones, as a librarian once said. Goethe shows that will-o’-the-wisps can feed on it. How many scholars strut about, brimming with what comes directly from these sources. The pug dies from it; it makes him worse. But he can be revived by the lily once he has passed through death. Whoever wishes to endure contact with the lily must first have gone through the lower death. The young man is only ready to unite with the beautiful lily once he has suffered the final misfortune, has been completely killed, and has fully felt the effect of what happens when one unites with the supersensible while still immature. The serpent sacrifices itself, which initially takes effect in the details of natural existence. Once all this has taken place, the young man can first be led into the temple. Then the soul is raised to the realization that everything is interwoven with and permeated by the Spirit. Then the temple is raised upward, and the soul is endowed with that which leads to the supersensible. Wisdom gives him that which is characterized by:

Recognize the Supreme

[ 26 ] and by the wreath of oak; that is given by the Golden King. The Silver King says:

Feed the sheep,

[ 27 ] in memory of the devout shepherd,

Feed my lambs;

[ 28 ] It is an expression of piety. The Iron King gives him a sword and a shield and says:

The sword in the left hand, the right hand free!

[ 29 ] Stand strong and firm when it comes to defending human destiny and human dignity, but do not be aggressive. Now the young man may unite with the lily. The soul’s powers may be illuminated by truth and love, which the soul finds only when it unites with the Spirit. The young man feels the love of which it is said, in the end: wisdom, beauty, piety, and virtue—these foster the soul’s development; love shapes the soul, forms it, and harmonizes everything. When a person ascends into the temple where insights can be experienced, he comes to behold, with sacred awe, the Supreme—like a small temple within the great temple—the mystery of the human being himself, who passes from the spiritual world into the world of this life. The ferryman’s hut is placed within the great temple as a small world; when the soul ascends to higher knowledge, it attains what Goethe perceived as Spinozist love of God; it arrives at the riddles, the mysteries of the world. But as the highest of mysteries—as that which he, in turn, beholds as a small temple within the great one—this is the mystery of human existence itself in connection with divine being.

[ 30 ] The giant appears last and becomes something like an hour hand that indicates the time. Our knowledge becomes spiritual; as it ascends, it sheds everything that constitutes external consciousness—all forces that act mechanically, which are remnants of the subconscious. All of this may remain united only when we look up at what is, for our inner being, the most external. Thus, the purely mechanical—which has not yet been elevated to higher insights—has its justification. Goethe may have had in mind all the superstitions that have arisen from the art of numbers and all the mechanisms that prevail in beliefs stemming from ancient worldviews. But one thing remains: to form a kind of chronometer for what knowledge provides him. Thus, everything—down to the very last detail—is transformed into a vivid image of what Goethe perceived as the law of human education.

[ 31 ] Today I was able to explain only the most important features, but you will find—if you read the “Fairy Tale” in this light—that every page, indeed every half-sentence, can serve as evidence of its truth. One can only hint at this symbolically, through rich, symbolically suggestive imagery. One must be aware that what is contained in Goethe’s “fairy tale” is infinitely richer than what could be put into words, and that everything said today is merely a suggestion as to how one should seek and feel one’s way through a symbolic fairy tale. It is not possible to offer more than such a hint. But perhaps you have gained a sense of the immense and immeasurable creative power from which Goethe drew, and how right he was when he said that beauty and art can be nothing other than an expression of truth. This, too, was the conviction that lived within Goethe and led him, step by step, in his ceaseless striving. But that is also what drew us so strongly to Goethe. Goethe is one of those minds that exert an influence the way only the very greatest minds can. One reads a work by Goethe and believes one has understood it; yet every time one reads it again later, one believes only then to have truly understood it. Finally, one says to oneself: I still do not understand it even now; I must wait until I become more and more mature. This is true only of the most exceptional minds. This assures us that in Goethe we have one who belongs among the leaders of humanity. Thus, Goethe is rightly counted among those minds of whom one can say, in summary, what is to be characterized here:

They shine like stars
In the sky of eternal being
The spirits sent by God.
May all human souls
In the realm of earthly existence,
Be granted to behold the light of their flames.