The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third lecture

[ 1 ] In the previous lecture, we saw how the great artist Wagner returned to myth in order to depict the great connections of the world. The entire content of the Nordic worldview up to the time of Christianity lives on in the Siegfried myth. This Nordic worldview has a tragic aspect; it ends in the twilight of the gods. What does this tragic aspect mean?

[ 2 ] I have said that there were also mysteries in the North; in them, the disciples were taught what it means that the Nordic myth ends with the twilight of the gods. In these mysteries, something is revealed of what is still hidden and will only happen in the coming age. The priests of the Nordic world had to proclaim that the old world of gods would perish and that a new one would rise from the fire in which the Nordic world perishes, purified by Christ into love. The old had to die; hence the tragic movement toward the end. This is what Wagner brings to light in such a wonderful way: this preparatory mood of the Norse legends, which comes to an end in Götterdämmerung.

[ 3 ] This Norse worldview has four phases. Humanity has gone through four stages, and then Christ came. We live today in the fifth sub-race of the fifth root race, the others preceding it: the Sanskrit culture, then the Persian-Median and Chaldean-Babylonian-Egyptian cultures; the Greek-Latin cultural epoch was the fourth, and now we have the Teutonic-Germanic tribe in the north. Christianity bursts in as a new influence. At this stage, everything will change and the old will perish. This is beautifully illustrated in the story of Winfried Bonifatius, who cuts down the sacred oak tree. “Oak” is synonymous with “druid” in the ancient mysteries. Thus, the destruction of the oak tree signifies the destruction of the ancient Nordic religion. The Nordic mysteries predicted the overcoming of the druid cult.

[ 4 ] While the first four sub-races developed in the south, the Nordic peoples prepared for this development. Here, too, we have four phases, and here, too, the development goes through four stages; the last is the twilight of the gods itself. It is peculiar that in these four phases, the entire earlier development of humankind is repeated. Humanity has gone through various states. The Nordic myth is a kind of memory of the entire history of the earth; it lives in it as a vision, as mythical content. And these four stages of development live in Wagner's dramas because he took his dramas from the myth. Wagner was quite right to form a tetralogy. The prelude presents the development of humanity in four parts; the fifth stage will be Christianity.

[ 5 ] What is the basic motif in “Rheingold”? And what is the basic motif of our present root race? If we go back to the polar root race, we find people who did not yet possess self-consciousness and were not yet divided into different sexes; the same is true of the Hyperboreans. It is only in the third root race, in the Lemurian epoch, that humans become unisexual. And it is only in the Atlantean period, with the fifth sub-race, that the ego is born. This is when human beings say “I” to themselves for the first time. This ego-consciousness is depicted in mythology as a dwarf, as Alberich, and is perceived as rising up from Nibelheim. Atlantis was Nibelheim, and it could rightly be called a foggy home. Our Earth's atmosphere had not yet been purified by water vapor, and there was no precipitation in the form of rain. Out of this Nibelheim, with its seething waters and floating mists, the human ego is born. Wagner expresses this magnificently in the E-flat major chord of the orchestra; the basic motif of our present humanity resounds from Nibelheim.

[ 6 ] Let us be clear about what happened on earth during this time. Human beings came to earth as spiritual beings. Their bodies were born from the etheric earth. At this point, human beings were not yet male or female, nor did they know anything about possessions or power. The soul is described as water. Possessions, which are also power, were still guarded by the surging forces of the astral world, the Rhine maidens. But what will emerge in the Atlantean era is slowly preparing itself: the ego, selfishness. However, the original soul being contained something that humans must now renounce: love that does not yet seek an external entity, but rests within itself. Alberich must renounce this love that rests within itself. He can do this through the ring that connects everything human. As long as dual sexuality was preserved, man did not need the ring; only when he gave up soul love, dual sexuality, did the ring have to connect externally what was separated. In union with another special being, man must now attain love. The ring is the symbol of the union of separate human beings, the connection of the two sexes in the physical realm. When Alberich conquers the ring, he must give up love. Now comes the time when man can no longer create in unity. Formerly, body, soul, and spirit were one. Now the deity creates the body from outside. The sexes are hostile to each other; they are represented by the two giants Fafner and Fasolt. The human body has become unisex.

[ 7 ] In the old religions, the human body was represented as a temple; the deity creates in it from outside. Since becoming an “I,” man himself must create the inner temple, our soul. In the creative divinity, love is still preserved; it still creates the “outer temple.” This is contained in the myth where Wotan wants to take the ring from the giants and Erda appears and advises him against it. Erda is the clairvoyant collective consciousness of humanity. The god should not keep the ring, which binds together what must be dissolved in order to reunite at a higher level, when the sexes have neutralized each other again. Thus, Wotan is prevented by the prophetic and clairvoyant power of the earth consciousness from gaining possession of the ring; the ring remains with the giants. From then on, each human being contains only one gender. The giant represents physical corporeality. Only now do the giants build Valhalla. In the battle for the ring, Fasolt is killed by Fafner, representing the conflict between the masculine and the feminine. In each human being, one gender is killed first; the man kills the woman within himself, and the woman kills the man within herself.

[ 8 ] But now the higher consciousness must first be born out of the comprehensive earthly consciousness. This happens through Wotan's union with Erda, and Brünhilde is created. In her there is still something of the divine omniscience of world consciousness. However, this consciousness initially recedes. In contrast, Wotan creates Siegmund and Sieglinde with an earthly woman. This is the spiritual duality of the sexes, the male and female souls. Neither can possibly live on alone. The female soul, Sieglinde, falls prey to Hunding; the soul must surrender to the physical brain. Now begin the wanderings of Siegmund, the soul imprisoned in the body; it is not powerful enough to approach the divine that has been lost. The gods cannot protect Siegmund; the sword is shattered by Wotan's spear.

[ 9 ] Wotan must then relinquish control to the human self, which acts entirely in the realm of the sensual, to Hagen, Alberich's son, to the principle of the lower self. All powers conspire against the alliance of the male and female souls. Wotan himself must assist Fricka. Fricka represents the male-female soul on a higher level; she urges Wotan to dissolve the connection between the male and female souls on the earthly level. In life, the male and female souls remain united; but on earth, blood and sensuality play a role. This is deeply indicated in the sibling love. This is the illicit element that comes into play, and if it remains dominant, Siegmund and Sieglinde, the physical, must perish. Sieglinde is to be destroyed by the all-encompassing consciousness, Brünhilde; all earthly development would be hindered. But Brünhilde stands by her and gives her the horse Grane, which carries man through earthly events. Brünhilde retreats into exile, Waberlohe surrounds her rock. Now the clairvoyant consciousness is surrounded by the fire through which man must first pass in order to be purified if he wants to return to the all-encompassing consciousness.

[ 10 ] Sieglinde, however, the soulful feminine, gives birth to Siegfried, the human consciousness that must rise again to the higher realm. He grows up in seclusion with Mime. He must overcome his lower nature, the Lindworm, in order to gain power. He also overcomes Mime. Who is Mime? Mime can bestow something that makes one invisible, the magic helmet, something of a power that is invisible to ordinary people. The magic helmet is the symbol of the magician—both the white and the black magician—who walks visibly among us but is invisible as such. Mime is the magician who can give the magic helmet from earthly, black powers. He wants to make Siegfried a black magician, but Siegfried does not want this. He has killed the Lindworm, taken a drop of its blood, the symbol of passion, into himself, and is thus enabled to understand the language of birds, of the sensual and earthly. He can follow the path of the higher initiate; the path to Brünhilde, to universal consciousness, is shown to him.

[ 11 ] So far, we have three phases of Nordic development: first the dwarf, then the giant, and now man. The Valkyrie represented the second phase. And in Siegfried, we have the birth of man himself. Enclosed in physicality, he must first find his way back to pure wisdom. In Götterdämmerung, the fourth part, it is expressed that in the Nordic world, man was not yet mature, that he had not yet attained complete initiation. Siegfried is still vulnerable in one place, the same place where Christ carried the cross. Siegfried could not yet take up the cross. This is a profound expression of what the Nordic people still lacked: that Christianity was still a necessity for them. Siegfried cannot unite with Brünnhilde; he is the human soul, begotten from the earth woman, from the union of Siegmund and Sieglinde. Brünnhilde is the one who has remained a virgin, the higher consciousness.

[ 12 ] In the final phase, higher knowledge must be attained. Because man has not yet attained the ability to unite with virgin wisdom, he has a desire for higher knowledge. This must be overcome. And his desire to unite with Brünhilde in earthly lust leads to an exchange of goods; she gives him the horse, he gives her the ring.

[ 13 ] Before man can unite with the higher self, the ring, the external compulsion, has not yet lost its power. Man sinks into the lower consciousness; he is struck blind. Siegfried forgets Brünhilde and unites himself with Gudrun, the lower consciousness. He even wants to woo Brünhilde for the unworthy, the other, for Gunther. This means that in the final phase, before the advent of Christianity, man once again falls into the impure path, into the dark forces. Brünhilde's unlawful union with Gunther is the cause of Siegfried's downfall. He must meet his death at the hands of the lower powers in whose power he has become entangled.

[ 14 ] The final phase is approaching. Once again, the three Norns appear. It is the phase where all-encompassing consciousness is lost:

To the end, eternal knowledge!
Tell the world
Nothing more: —
Down to the mother, down!

[ 15 ] The higher wisdom that was once given to the sons of the gods is lost on earth; it returns to the eternal. Humanity is left to its own devices.

[ 16 ] For those who look deeper, the music drama “Tristan and Isolde” is once again a clarification of the problem of the duality of the sexes for Wagner. The masculine and the feminine only have meaning on the physical plane. In Tristan, there is a longing to no longer be separated, to find balance, to have a consciousness that is no longer masculine or feminine. This longing surges and swells throughout the drama: no longer to be Tristan, but to have taken Isolde into himself; no longer to be Isolde, but to be Isolde and Tristan. The two have lost all awareness of this separation. This is how it sounds in the final words of this poem, the redemption from being special:

In the sea of bliss
in the waves of fragrance
in the resounding sound
in the breath of the world
in the blowing universe
to drown
to sink
unconsciously
supreme bliss!

[ 17 ] Every word is imprinted with a deeper knowledge. The astral world is this surging sea of bliss, the world resounding with fragrant tones is Devachan. The principle of life is the breath of the world, in which everything must find balance. No longer separated in consciousness: to drown, to sink, unconscious, in the undifferentiated, that is the highest pleasure. The highest pleasure for the earthly is indeed to overcome the sensual from the spiritual. The pleasure that strives for the destruction of the earthly ennobles; it is the overcoming of what it has within itself. This is the problem that Wagner tried to solve in Tristan and Isolde.

[ 18 ] All these thoughts did not live consciously or abstractly in Wagner, but they live in myths, and Wagner drew them from myths. The individual artist does not need to have these thoughts abstractly within himself. Just as plants grow according to laws without knowing these laws, so the forces of the world live in myths as symbolic images of divine, eternal truth.

[ 19 ] Wagner's Siegfried is still entangled in the earthly realm, and he must perish there. Brunhilde recognizes the connection and understands what is at stake. So she gives the ring to the Rhine maidens, to the element that has not penetrated the game of this world. The entire development of humanity goes back to the original, virgin matter.

[ 20 ] A new worldview replaces the older, Nordic worldview, which no longer appeals to the external, sensual, but only to what has remained virgin, to the soul. Brunhilde, who is still entangled in the external, sensual through her union with Siegfried, rides into the fire. There, love is born. This is a thought that is initially tragic for the North, for that which was capable of being understood is destroyed. Born out of the sea of fire, the original, virgin matter, love becomes spirit. “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine.” From the same element from which egoism and sensual love were previously born, a new feeling is now born that is exalted above everything that is entangled in the physical plane. Wisdom returns to bring forth love from the part of the element that has preserved its virgin purity. This is Christ, the Christian principle. Selfless love, in contrast to selfish love, is the great evolution that is purchased with the mysterious involution of death, the demise of the physical. We have strictly contrasted the opposites of life and death.

[ 21 ] The wood is withered life, and on this wood hangs the new, eternal life from which the new age is now being born. A new, spiritual life emerges from the twilight of the gods. As Richard Wagner longed to do after passing through the four phases of Nordic life, he showed us the depth of this Christian principle in his Parsifal, which represents the fifth phase. Because Wagner had lived through the tragedy of Nordic development, the glorification of Christianity was a necessity for him.