The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Foreword by Marie Steiner

[ 1 ] The lectures printed here were a direct experience for both the speaker and the audience, arising from the dramatic-eurythmic presentation of scenes from Goethe’s *Faust*, which engaged all the participants’ faculties—from developing an understanding of the mysteries presented to the creation of every individual scenic detail. Intellectual work served merely as a bridge to grasping the essential reality revealed here by Rudolf Steiner—the reality that lies behind the mysteries of this work and seeks forms of expression for which the artistic means known to date are no longer sufficient. In eurythmy, Rudolf Steiner had created a means of expression through which the supersensible element can speak its own language: the language of movement, which is the form of expression of those worlds that have not hardened all the way down to the physical realm. Secret laws of nature can once again be revealed through the medium of a new art. And in his wisdom regarding the human being, in his science of initiation, Rudolf Steiner has opened the gate through which we can gain access to those realms into which the Faust epic repeatedly transports us—realms that must, however, appear to us as nothing but phantasmagoria unless we possess the key that unlocks that gate. Who, after all, understands *Faust*? Commentaries and scholarly analyses cannot help us here. They do little more than weigh down—indeed, stifle—the spirit that seeks to speak to us through the poem. Although we are indebted to Schröer, for his diligent explanations allow us to refresh our memory of many things that would otherwise easily vanish into the depths of oblivion, this work nevertheless often brings to mind the pain one experiences, for example, when reading the *Divina Commedia*, when one’s soul feels as if it were being shattered by the commentaries appended to nearly every spirited tercet: a dissection into pedantic dryness that is hard to bear. However, the gap between text and commentary is not quite so vast here. Schröer embodies a kinship with Goethe and a sense of enthusiasm, and so his scholarly work comes across not so much as stifling but rather as conscientious. One can set it aside without annoyance, only to then experience the text of the *Faust* poem directly. What lies behind the poem initially speaks to us like a premonition. We are moved by something that no scholarly commentary can explain—something that would be mere words and sound were it not for the profound truths it contains, truths that are, of course, initially inaccessible to us. The murmur of undercurrents becomes audible; mysteries whisper into our inner ear. We are grateful to Schröer for not stifling the voice of the depths, for merely helping to etch certain mythological or historical elements more precisely into our memory. Even these explanations have not been able to lead us to the sources that pulse through the poem. The sources toward which Faust strives and yearns—so much so that he risks the salvation of his soul for them—those that are to restore his lost humanity through the elixir of life he wishes to sip from them—have not flowed to Schröer either in his scholarly existence; they have merely quaked through his soul as longing and as a moral impulse. Faust—and through him, Goethe—cries out for the springs of life; it is also the cry of today’s humanity, which still fully deserves this name, which has not numbed its humanity through the din of machines and the pressure of soul-crushing mechanics. It should hear this cry again in poetry with all its shattering force, let it stir within itself, and respond to it. On stage, however, we usually see a jaded Faust who recites something to us that sounds very abstract and does not deeply move him—it merely fills him with endless boredom and disgust, which ultimately leads him to reach for the bottle of brown liquid; this then makes him somewhat sentimental. It’s hard to feel any real connection to the experience with the Earth Spirit. Then a bit of unfounded, unrealistic legendary romanticism plays out on stage—medieval ghostly spectacle—and Faust only really comes to life when it comes to Gretchen; that’s when he knows where he stands. But his interlude with her doesn’t last long. He must return to that ghostly romanticism. This is followed by a hint of remorse at the sight of Gretchen, who has gone mad in the dungeon. But he quickly forgets and wakes up, refreshed and invigorated, in a flower-filled meadow.

[ 2 ] Little thought is given to how, here, harrowing reality and wild superstition combine to create an overall effect of inescapable grandeur. Admittedly, the human element in this tragedy of Gretchen is expressed so grippingly that this alone suffices to give the work lasting value, even if one perceives the other element—the actual driving force in *Faust*—as merely an accessory. But since the other elements far outweigh the Gretchen episode in scope—at least when reading the work, where one cannot cut or omit passages at will as in a stage production—one cannot help but be amazed that the work has gained such widespread acceptance and is recognized as having the high cultural value that elevates it to the foremost position among the treasures of the German spirit. The sparks that fly from the finely polished diamonds of thought, which flash at us everywhere in the dialogues with Mephisto and in Faust’s soliloquies, have, alongside Gretchen’s blossoming charm and suffering, been sufficient in their vividness and radiance to save the entire work from oblivion—even though Goethe himself said that his *Faust* could never become popular: there was too much mystery woven into it.

[ 3 ] And we must reckon with this fact. Before Rudolf Steiner, no one was able to guide us into the deep recesses of Goethe’s train of thought, his premonitions and intuitions, into the world of those imaginings from which his finely honed words derived their richness of imagery and timeless value. He alone makes it possible for us to delve deeper into those layers of soul-forming human events from which today’s insights derive their substance. They provide, as it were, the coal from which the diamond is formed through metamorphosis. And just as coal could not become a diamond unless the sun’s ray were captured and preserved within it, so too does the thought receive its light from the spiritual sun underlying the archetype.

[ 4 ] Rudolf Steiner has opened up for us the path into these deep shafts of unfolding events, the path to the “Mothers.” Unlike the “Faust” created by Goethe, and unlike the Faust of legend, we are not to seek this path through the means of medieval occultism, which had already become obsolete by the time Faustian figures, on the threshold of the modern era, were struggling between inherited, now-decadent alchemical research methods and the newly emerging exact natural sciences. At that turning point in history, people worked with often misguided and murky methods to penetrate the mysteries of life: with obsolete magic formulas, with conjuration experiments, with mediumship, hypnosis, tinctures, and ointments—methods that would even tempt today’s experimental psychologists to enrich their science. Rudolf Steiner has shown us other paths to reach the sources of life: the paths of pure thought, moral self-education, scientific and artistic work, and the free exercise of the “I” in the service of humanity. Yet preparation for this was necessary through what has happened in the meantime: the renunciation by advanced Europeans of the last remnants of atavistic clairvoyance, the immersion in the boundaries of natural science, the conquest of technology, and the temporary severing of the personality from its spiritual source. Now we stand at another turning point. We are on the verge of losing our individuality, of allowing mechanics to kill the human being. The power of thought must lead us back to our spiritual nature, to the grasping of pictorial insight, to an understanding of the spirituality that reigns within us and underlies all phenomena of life. In the struggle for the highest goal, the figure of Faust, as Goethe portrayed him, can serve as an example and an inspiration. And we no longer need to be tempted by the aberrations of medieval sorcery. Spiritual Science points us toward a sure path to knowledge.

[ 5 ] The tragedy of the medieval occultists, standing on the threshold of the modern era, lay in the fact that, through the traditions of the secret schools, they still knew of the real spiritual communion between the most highly developed human beings and the intelligences of the cosmos, but they also knew that this path was now closed to them. They could go no further than communication with the forces of the intermediate realm. A gradual darkening, a turning away from the rigorous paths of spiritual inquiry, was often the consequence of this experimentation with the retort and with the forces of the elements and their essences. Their striving went astray; parched for meaning, they resorted to the means of despair and chased after illusions. It is in this sense that we must understand what torments Faust’s soul. Yet in the intensity of these researchers’ striving lay a force that awakened the “I.” Through suffering, their consciousness opened itself ever more to the alert impulses of the “I”; through the conquest of matter, the human being strove toward the center of his being, where he might find himself—the center that could bring him back to life in the spirit. In the smaller dome of the burned-down Goetheanum, where Rudolf Steiner had brought to life the representatives of humanity’s various cultural epochs in image and color, one could also see, floating in a dark blue haze, this figure of Faust—the serious alchemist on the threshold between the Middle Ages and the modern era—raising his right hand to his face in a pensive gesture and with a deep gaze, behind whose eloquent finger gesture the seal word “I” appears; reaching out its hands toward him, the emerging higher, spiritual “I” of the human being floats toward him in the form of an angelic child. Beneath him looms the Skeleton, the other pole of the human “I”; above the figure of Faust, the genius who inspires him leans toward him.

[ 6 ] We cannot approach an understanding of *Faust* based on narrow-minded assumptions; we must broaden our perspective. The lectures presented here provide us with the foundation for understanding *Faust*. They are not commentaries written in a scholar’s study, but rather an introduction to the fields of Spiritual Science through a poetic work inspired by them—a work whose mysteries are only properly illuminated by these very Spiritual Sciences. There is no other way to penetrate to the core of the Faust problem. And this greatest work of German literature will only be able to become popular when Spiritual Science permeates the cultural life of the people just as much as natural science has done in recent centuries.

[ 7 ] Certainly, one could raise many objections to the publication of such a book, which seems to consist of fragments. The explanations were provided on a case-by-case basis, depending on what the work at the Goetheanum entailed; those scenes were presented in which Faust grapples with the mysteries of existence and enters into the supersensible realm. The performances took place in the large carpentry workshop of the Goetheanum—where the columns of the burned-down building had also been crafted—under primitive conditions, yet with the aim of bringing to light what underlies the poetry as spiritual reality. To portray those scenes set in the supersensible worlds—whether in the upper or lower realms—the art of eurythmy, cultivated at the Goetheanum, proved to be the appropriate medium. It was as if the Faust epic had been waiting for this form of expression to come fully alive on stage, to transform what is otherwise inexpressible into artistic reality. What would otherwise have remained abstract and conventional—a mere stereotype—found in eurythmy the vibrant language befitting it. Rudolf Steiner stood by the performers, offering help and advice on every detail of the presentation. Our regret is that, under the circumstances prevailing at the time, only partial performances could take place. Yet they serve as a guide for us to grasp the whole. That is why we must not timidly reserve this gift for only a small circle. We must pass on to our contemporaries and to future generations what we have received here for the formation of knowledge. Even if, unfortunately, these are only imperfectly transcribed lectures arising from an immediate situation, they nevertheless contain what no one else can provide—and what will promote humanity’s well-being. From the greatest work of German poetry—which also aims to shape a worldview—the people, whose mission is the conquest of the spiritual, should be able to draw the inspiration that gives them the strength and courage for their difficult task.