The Rudolf Steiner Archive

30. Address on the Recitation from “The Awakening of the Soul” at the Opening Ceremony of the Anthroposophical University Courses

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! We shall now proceed to the recitation of a scene from my dramatic mystery play The Awakening of the Souls—specifically, the scene in which I have attempted to convey—I might say—from the perspective of the modern soul, that which was lived within the ancient mysteries, namely, within that instinctive interplay of art, religion, and science, as I took the liberty of hinting at today. I would like to note in advance that, certainly, nothing that is to come from here will ever be about reviving any of the old worldview currents or cultural impulses—no matter how justified they may have been in their own time. We can safely leave it to others to attempt—for example, drawing from ancient or even falsified ancient Indian traditions—to rehash these ideas for Western civilization. All such rehashing can have no beneficial effect. What we are attempting here, rather, is to open up truly new spiritual sources appropriate to humanity’s present stage of development. But that is precisely why it is so important for such spiritual impulses and for allowing them to take effect to immerse ourselves in that which, in earlier times, was created and sought after out of instinctive primordial wisdom and out of art imbued with this primordial wisdom, and was created and pursued—to immerse oneself in that, just as it is [important] for the external observation of the world to delve into the historical development of humanity. That is why, among many other things that pertain to the present, I have also included in my Mystery Dramas retrospectives on such endeavors within the ancient mysteries, through whose activities one can see how governments and other forces that move the world were inspired by them. And what is now to be recited is the reenactment of a scene from the Egyptian mysteries—not the kind of reenactment an archaeologist might attempt. The insightful art historian Herman Grimm, after all, had already spoken out against the practice of attempting to reconstruct such things from whatever paleontological or philological remnants have survived. For those capable of conducting research in the humanities, the possibility arises of rendering—in a truly modern language and in a modern artistic form—that which can be perceived through the spirit regarding the former content of the mysteries or other spiritual content. And so an attempt has been made to present to the modern soul, drawing specifically from the mystery rituals of ancient Egypt, precisely that which points to how the transition from Egyptian culture to Greek culture emerged from a certain shift in the nature of the Egyptian mysteries—how, out of guilt and punishment, atonement and redemption, the will and contemplation of aristocracy, conservatism and radical progressivism—Greek civilization emerged under the spiritual influence of ancient Egypt; this is what this scene is intended to portray. And this scene—which, of course, had to undergo a certain artistic modulation because it features many characters—is intended to provide a demonstration of the art of recitation and declamation, which will also be discussed here, for which further examples will be provided—the very art of declamation and recitation that we wish to cultivate right here.