The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. Richard Wagner in the Light of Spiritual Science I

[ 1 ] Myths are stories conveyed to humanity by the great initiates, behind which lie great truths. The Trojan War, for example, represents the struggle between the third and fourth sub-races of the fifth root race. The former is represented by Laocoon, the priest from the ancient priestly state who was also a king; the latter by Odysseus, the personification of cunning—the power of thought that was developing during that epoch. In the North, too, we find this development guided by such initiates. In Wales, there existed a society of initiates from the pagan era, the era of priestly rule, whose greatest flowering is represented by King Arthur and his Round Table. Opposing them was the Order of the Holy Grail and its knights, who worked to spread the Christian faith.

[ 2 ] Art, political development—everything is connected to the great initiates of these two associations, the embodiment of pagan and Christian culture. The influence of the Grail Society grew ever greater around the turn of the 13th century. That era of city-building marked a special turning point in European culture: The old peasant culture, based on land ownership, was replaced by bourgeois urban culture. This was a radical transformation of the entire way of life and thought. It is therefore significant that, at that time—during the Singers’ War at Wartburg Castle—we see the emergence of a legend: the legend of Lohengrin. What did this legend mean in the Middle Ages?

[ 3 ] Today, people have no idea what the medieval collective psyche was like. It was particularly receptive to the spiritual currents that were at work beneath the surface of things. Today, people find that the Lohengrin legend strongly emphasizes the Catholic point of view. But when considering what disturbs us about it today, we must bear in mind that back then the legend could only have an effect if it was clothed in the garb of what truly moved people’s souls at that time. Fervent piety had to provide the legend with its form so that it might embody something of what lived within the people. So what was the legend meant to signify? An initiation—the initiation of a chela into an arhat, of a disciple into a master. Such a chela first becomes a person without a home; that is, he fulfills his duties like everyone else, but he must strive to look beyond his own self and develop his higher Self. What, then, are the characteristics of the stages of initiation for a chela?

[ 4 ] First: Overcoming the personal, freeing God within oneself. Second: Freedom from all doubt; all skepticism ceases. Spiritual matters stand before his soul as facts. Freedom also from all superstition, for since he is able to examine everything for himself, he can no longer fall prey to deception. At an even higher stage, the key to knowledge is then handed to him. It is said that he receives the gift of speech; he becomes a messenger of the supersensible world. The depths of the spiritual world are revealed to him. This is the second stage of chelaship. The third stage is that in which the human being, just as he says “I” to himself in ordinary life, can now say “I” to all beings in the world, where he is elevated to encompass the entire universe. At this third stage, in mysticism, the chela is referred to as a “swan”; he becomes a mediator between the arhat, the teacher, and humanity. Thus, the Swan Knight appears to us as a messenger of the Great White Lodge; thus, Lohengrin is a messenger of the Grail Community.

[ 5 ] A new impetus, a new cultural shift was to be initiated. You know that in mysticism, the soul or consciousness is portrayed as something feminine. Here, too, the consciousness of the new, bourgeois culture is presented as something feminine. This emergence of a new culture is understood as an elevation of consciousness. Elsa of Brabant represents the medieval soul, and Lohengrin—the great initiate, the swan in the third degree of discipleship—brings the new culture over from the Grail community. One must not ask. It is a desecration and a misunderstanding to ask the initiate about that which must remain a mystery.

[ 6 ] Thus, the ascent to new states of consciousness always occurs through the influence of great initiates. As an example of how these initiates work, I would like to mention Jakob Böhme. You know that Jakob Böhme proclaimed profound truths. Where did he get this wisdom? He recounts that he was once left alone in his master’s shop as an apprentice. A stranger came in and asked for a pair of shoes. The boy was not allowed to sell them to him in the master’s absence; the stranger spoke a few more words to him, then walked away, but after a while called the young Böhme out and said to him: “Jakob, you are still young, but one day you will become a completely different person, one who will astonish the world.” — What does this mean? This is an initiation; the moment of initiation is depicted. For the time being, the boy does not yet grasp what has happened to him, but the impulse has been given.

[ 7 ] A moment like this also appears in the Lohengrin legend. Such legends are important clues, but they are only transparent to those who can see things in context. As already mentioned, the Lohengrin legend appears in connection with the legend of the Singers’ Contest. Richard Wagner drew upon it for his Lohengrin libretto. This demonstrates the depth of Richard Wagner’s inner calling.

[ 8 ] Richard Wagner explores another ancient body of legends in his Ring of the Nibelung. These are ancient Germanic legends that embody the destiny of the tribe which, after the great Atlantic flood, spread across Europe and Asia as remnants of the Atlantic population and ushered in the post-Atlantic era. The legends contain a memory of the great Initiate Wotan, the Aesir god. Wotan is an Initiate from the Atlantean era; like all the Norse gods, he is nothing other than an ancient, great Initiate.

[ 9 ] In Wagner’s engagement with the Siegfried saga, we can clearly distinguish three stages. In the first stage, we find a reflection on modern culture. For Richard Wagner, people today have become day laborers of culture. He sees a great difference between people in modern times and those of the Middle Ages. Today, the work performed by people is largely mechanical, whereas in medieval culture, all work was an expression of the human soul. The house, the village, the city—everything that lived within them—was thoughtfully designed; people took joy in it. What do our department stores, our shops, and our cities mean to us today? What connection do they have to our souls? Back then, the house was the expression of an artistic idea. The entire streetscape—with the market in the city center and the cathedral towering above it all, toward which everything converged—was an expression of the soul. Wagner sensed this contrast. That was what he sought to achieve in his art: to create something that, at least in one realm, would allow the human being to appear in their entirety. With his Siegfried, Wagner wanted to portray a whole, harmonious human being, in contrast to the day laborer of industry. This is how our great minds have always felt; this is how Goethe felt, and how Hölderlin felt—who put it this way: “You see craftsmen, but no human beings; thinkers, but no human beings; priests, but no human beings; masters and servants, young people and established figures, but no human beings.” A reversal was not possible on the surface; our entire development cannot be rolled back. That is why Wagner wanted a temple of art to be built, in which the Gesamtkunstwerk would elevate people above their ordinary lives. The new era, in particular, needed such a place of elevation, precisely because modern life was so fragmented. This was the original idea behind the Siegfried cycle that Wagner was working on.

[ 10 ] But a second idea came to mind as he delved even deeper into his feelings. In the early Middle Ages, an ancient legend found its way into German literature: “The Wibelungs.” Such legends embodied the deepest sentiments of the national soul at that time. Only those who truly study the national soul can grasp what lived in people’s hearts back then. Such legends were the expression of profound, inner truths. Take, for example, the legends of Charlemagne. The emperor was not portrayed historically in today’s sense; instead, people looked deeper into the ancient contexts. The Frankish royal dynasty thus became the ancient ancestors of the later post-Atlantean root race. The Wibelungs were priest-kings who not only provided for their realms but also imparted spiritual guidance. These legends served as a reminder of a great era that had faded away. In this regard, the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome was regarded as something particularly important. In ancient times, the Wibelungs had been the consecrated priest-kings; the memory of this was perpetuated in the German imperial legends. It was to these that Wagner was drawn.

[ 11 ] One figure in particular seemed to him to embody the contrast between the new age of material possessions and the medieval era, which still maintained a connection to that spiritual culture. It was the legend of Barbarossa that occupied his thoughts. In Barbarossa, too, we are presented with a great initiate. The story tells of his journey to the East; from there, he is to bring back the higher wisdom, knowledge, and the Holy Grail from the initiates there. The myth of the 12th and 13th centuries depicts the emperor sitting, enchanted, inside the mountain; his ravens bring him news of what is happening in the world. The ravens are an ancient symbol of the mysteries. In the language of the Persian mysteries, they represent the lowest level of the initiates; they are thus the messengers of the higher initiates. What was this initiate supposed to bring? Richard Wagner sought to depict the replacement of the old era by the new, with its new social structures. What had once existed had withdrawn, like Barbarossa. To him, the intervention of the initiates crystallized in the figure of Barbarossa.

[ 12 ] This idea still shines through in the Nibelungen. At first expressed only superficially, but now on a deeper foundation, it becomes the expression of the profound worldview of the Middle Ages, in which the emergence of a new culture is portrayed. Yet once again, Wagner seeks an even deeper grasp of this idea; instead of Barbarossa, he ultimately chooses the figure of Wotan, with an infinitely deeper, intuitive understanding of the ancient Germanic myths of the gods. These myths depict the replacement of the Atlantean culture, the emergence of the fifth root race from the fourth. This is at the same time the development of the intellect. The development of human intellect and self-consciousness had not yet emerged among the Atlanteans. They lived in a state of clairvoyance. It was not until the fifth subrace of the Atlanteans—the Proto-Semites—that the first elements of the combinative intellect began to take shape, an intellect that lived on in the fifth root race. With this comes the emergence of self-consciousness. The Atlanteans did not yet say “I” to themselves with the same intensity as the people of the following age. This ancient culture was carried over after the downfall of Atlantis; the Europeans are a later branch of the Atlanteans. A contrast now arises between the general spiritual culture and the initiates, who work in secret and inspire the outer intellect.

[ 13 ] The dwarves of Niflheim are the bearers of self-consciousness. Richard Wagner pits Wotan, the ancient Atlantean initiate, against Alberich, the bearer of egoism from the dwarven race of the Nibelungs, the initiate of the post-Atlantean era. Gold is deeply significant and meaningful in mysticism. Gold is light; the light that radiates becomes wisdom. Alberich retrieves gold—hardened wisdom—from the waters of the Rhine. The waters always represent the soul and the astral realm. From the soul, the ego—gold, the wisdom of the “I”—is born. The Rhine is the soul of the new age, in which the intellect and the “I”-consciousness arise. Alberich seizes the gold; he snatches it from the Rhine maidens—the feminine element that characterizes the original state of consciousness.

[ 14 ] This connection lived deep within Wagner’s soul. The emergence of self-consciousness in this new age is felt with great intensity and powerfully portrayed at the beginning of Das Rheingold in the chords in E-flat major. This also lives and weaves musically throughout Wagner’s Rheingold. Wagner had before him poems that stemmed from primordial myths. In these sagas lived something that, filled with power and life, permeates the soul with a spiritual rhythm. What one experiences and is oneself—it awakens, resounds, and permeates the human being in these ancient sagas.