The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. “The Romantic Walpurgis Night”

[ 1 ] I would just like to make a few remarks about “Walpurgis Night,” which we performed yesterday and will perform again tomorrow, because it seems important to me to have a clear mental image of how this “Walpurgis Night” fits into the progression and overall context of the Faust cycle. It is strange that, after Faust has brought Gretchen to such a state of misfortune that her mother has perished from poison—from the sleeping potion—and after her brother has been slain through the joint guilt of Faust and Gretchen, Faust flees and, in a sense, completely abandons Gretchen, knowing nothing of all that is happening.

[ 2 ] Such a thing naturally made quite an impression on those who had been reading the Faust with a certain fondness. And I’ll just read you the words of Schröer, who certainly regarded Faust with immense affection. You can read about him in my latest book, Vom Menschenrätsel. Karl Julius Schröer says of “Walpurgis Night”: “It is reasonable to assume that Faust, swept away by Mephisto, fled. He left Gretchen in despair. Her mother was dead, her brother slain. Immediately following this event, she gave birth. She descended into madness, drowned her child, and wandered aimlessly until she was captured and thrown into the dungeon.

[ 3 ] Although Faust could not have known everything that happened to Gretchen after Valentin’s death, he was nevertheless in such a state of mind that it must seem entirely unnatural to see him here—the very next day?—as a leisurely stroller on the Blocksberg. This is indeed how he appears to us in the lines beginning at v. 3838 ff. It is evident that even Walpurgis Night is not depicted in full context with the whole. The poet has clearly moved beyond all pathos and approaches the subject matter with a touch of irony. The general underlying idea that connects this scene to the whole is clear. Mephistopheles leads Faust away to the Blocksberg to intoxicate him and make him forget Gretchen; but the love within Faust is stronger than Mephistopheles can comprehend. The witches’ revelry does not appeal to him: the image of Gretchen emerges within him in the midst of the wild frenzy. — This idea does come to the fore, though admittedly not forcefully enough, and the entire Walpurgis Night scene seems far too expansive in relation to the dramatic plot. It had become a self-contained whole, which is, on top of that, excessively expanded by the subsequent Walpurgis Night dream. Of course, this applies only to Walpurgis Night as a component of the tragedy.”

[ 4 ] So even a man who is very fond of Faust cannot really accept that, two days after the great tragedy occurred, Faust appears on the Blocksberg as a sprightly walker, accompanied by Mephistopheles.

[ 5 ] First, however, I would like to counter this—purely from an external perspective—by pointing out that “Walpurgis Night” is among the most mature parts of the Faust cycle. It was written between 1800 and 1801. Goethe began writing Faust as a very young man, so we can trace its origins back to the early 1770s: 1772, 1773, 1774. That is when he began writing down the first scenes. By then he had grown much older, having gone through profound experiences—experiences that found expression, among other things, in the “Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” written earlier—and he now incorporated “Walpurgis Night” into his Faust; the “Walpurgis Night Dream” was even written a year earlier than “Walpurgis Night” itself. We may well form a mental image from this that Goethe was very serious about weaving the mysteries of “Walpurgis Night” into Faust. But one can never, ever escape a certain impasse in understanding unless one takes into account that Goethe truly meant the matter in a spiritual sense.

[ 6 ] I’m familiar with pretty much all the commentaries on Faust that were written up to the year 1900—fewer still after that—but up to 1900 I know them pretty much all; after that, I didn’t engage as deeply with what was written on the subject. But one thing I know quite well is that no one has really addressed the matter from a spiritual perspective. Isn’t it true that one could easily object that it is actually an imposition on our sensibilities, on our feelings, that Faust should be taking a cheerful stroll just two days after the great tragedy? But Goethe was truly not the shallow-hearted, nature-worshipping monist he is often portrayed as, but rather—as the details of “Walpurgis Night” in particular demonstrate—a person who was deeply and thoroughly initiated into certain spiritual contexts. Anyone familiar with these contexts can see from this that nothing in “Walpurgis Night” is amateurish, but rather everything is accurate; they can see—if I may now use a trivial expression—that there is something behind it, that it is not mere fiction, but that it is written from a spiritual understanding. For those familiar with certain matters, it is precisely the details that reveal whether someone is recounting realities—that is, whether a poet with spiritual understanding is describing them—or whether someone has simply made something up about spiritual worlds and what is connected to them, such as the world of witches. In such matters, one must simply cultivate a little more attention.

[ 7 ] Although I could expand on this story a hundredfold, I want to tell you a simple little story that will illustrate how one can tell, based on details, whether one is dealing with something that has substance or not. Of course, one can still be mistaken; in that case, it depends on how the story is told. I was once in a gathering that included theologians, historians, poets, and so on. In that gathering—it was a long time ago, back in the 1880s, so nearly thirty years ago—the following story was told: Once, in a Parisian church, a canon preached in a very fanatical manner against superstition, insisting on allowing only what the Church permits, and above all seeking to prevent people from believing in certain things that actually frightened him. Specifically, this canon sought to make it clear in his fanatical sermon that Freemasonry was indeed a very evil thing —as you know, Catholic clergy very often preach about Freemasonry and say all sorts of things about its dangers—but he would only concede that it was a highly reprehensible doctrine and that the people involved were truly wicked; yet he would not concede that there was anything spiritual in some such brotherhoods. And this was overheard by a man who, in turn, had been led there by someone else, and it struck him as very strange that the canon of a large parish was telling the people something he considered incorrect, because he truly believed that spiritual forces do indeed operate through such societies. After the sermon, the two men waited for the canon, and they spoke with him; but he insisted very fanatically on his opinion that there was nothing spiritual involved, but that these were simply bad people with a very evil doctrine. Then one of them, who knew something about the matter, said: “Reverend, I suggest that you come with me next Sunday at a specific time; I will take you to a hidden place in a certain lodge where you can witness these things for yourself.” — And he replied: “Yes, I will do that, but may I also bring some relics with me?” — For he had begun to feel afraid! So he took some relics with him; then he was led there and sat in hiding. When the agreed-upon signal was given, he saw a very strange figure with a pale face moving toward the president’s chair—not stepping forward one foot after the other, but gliding forward. This was recounted in a specific way, and the person in question went on to say that he had then let his relics take effect, spoken the blessing, and so on, when suddenly a commotion broke out among the entire assembly, and the whole thing fell apart!

[ 8 ] After a very learned priest who was present—a theologian—had expressed his opinion that he simply did not believe the story, and another priest claimed that he had heard at a college in Rome that ten priests had taken an oath in Rome attesting to the truthfulness of that canon, the first priest still maintained: “I would rather believe that ten priests took a false oath than that the impossible is possible,” I said at the time: “The way it was told is enough for me.” For what did it matter how it happened—the matter of the slipping away.

[ 9 ] This sense of drifting away is also present here in Walpurgis Night: Gretchen, as she reappears, drifts away. So even such a detail is portrayed accurately by Goethe. And thus every detail is accurate; nothing is portrayed in an amateurish way in the spiritual sense.

[ 10 ] What, then, are we actually dealing with? We are dealing with something that attests to the fact that for Goethe, there was never any question of whether Faust, two days after the tragedy had occurred, as a carefree wanderer through woods and meadows on the Blocksberg—but rather with a spiritual experience Faust has on “Walpurgis Night,” one he could not reject, one that arises precisely as a consequence of the shattering events he has endured. We are thus dealing with the fact that Faust’s soul is torn from his body and has found Mephisto in the spiritual world. And within the spiritual world, they make the pilgrimage to the Brocken—that is, they join those who, even now, as they undertake the pilgrimage to the Brocken, have stepped out of their bodies, for, of course, the physical bodies of those people making the pilgrimage to the Brocken lie in bed.

[ 11 ] During the times when such practices were carried out with particular intensity, those who wished to undertake this “Brocken hike”—the day, or rather the night, for this is from April 30 to May 1—would anoint themselves with a certain ointment, which enabled a more complete separation of the astral body from the “I” than is normally achieved during sleep. In this way, they undertake this journey to Brocken in spirit. This is an experience—admittedly of a rather low order—but it is an experience that can indeed be undergone. However, no one should believe that they can easily obtain information anywhere about the composition of the witch’s ointment, any more than you will easily obtain information on how to do it the way van Helmont did—by rubbing certain chemicals onto a specific part of the body to extract from one’s body

[ 12 ] to deliberately set it aside. That is what happened with van Helmont. But such things are not recommended for those who—like Franz in Hermann Bahr’s Himmelfahrt—find it too tedious to do the exercises required to complete the task properly. I know full well, however, that some would not be at all unhappy if such methods were revealed to them!

[ 13 ] Faust—that is, Faust’s soul—now actually encounters the witches who have emerged from their bodies and are gathering together on the night of April 30 to May 1. This is a genuine spiritual process, and Goethe now describes this genuine spiritual process accurately. Goethe thus not only depicts that one can have a subjective vision, but he also understands that when one truly leaves one’s body, one encounters other souls who have likewise left their bodies. Mephisto, after all, alludes to this very precisely when he says:

Into the realm of dreams and magic
It seems we have entered.

[ 14 ] They have truly entered another sphere. They have entered the world of souls; there they meet with the other souls. And in this world, we naturally find them just as they must be there, under the lingering influence of what came from their physical life. Faust must, of course, return to his physical body. As long as one is predisposed to return to one’s physical body—that is, as long as one has not physically died—one carries with oneself, when one steps out with one’s astral body, certain inclinations and affinities from one’s physical existence. That is why Faust quite understandably says that he feels at home in the spring air, in the April air; for he naturally perceives it—since he is not entirely separated from his body, but is merely outside it and wishes to return to it—he naturally perceives it fully. When one is outside one’s physical body, as Faust is here, one can perceive everything in the world that is fluid or gaseous—but not the solid. After all, there is fluid within every being out in nature. The human being is more than ninety percent a column of liquid, and only a very small percentage of solid matter is within him. So you must not think that, since he is out here like this, he cannot see another human being; he simply sees only that which is liquid. That is why he can also perceive nature, which is permeated by the liquid. Everything described here is accurate! Faust can perceive it this way. But Mephistopheles—that is, Ahriman—an Ahrimanic being has no understanding of the present Earth; he actually belongs to that which has been left behind; therefore, he does not particularly like it when spring arrives. Remember how I explained in one of the last lectures that in winter one can recall the lunar aspect. But the present lunar quality—when the Moon is the Earth’s Moon—does not particularly appeal to him. The lunar quality, however, that merges with the earlier lunar quality when the fiery, luminous element emerges from the Earth—that is his element: the will-o’-the-wisps, not the moonlight. This attraction to the will-o’-the-wisps—which he draws out of the lunar quality still present in the Earth—is entirely appropriate!

[ 15 ] I’ll just note in passing: the manuscript we have for “Walpurgis Night” is illegible, and there must be some kind of oversight, because the published editions contain all sorts of things that are almost impossible; and actually, it wasn’t until we were doing our rehearsals here for the mental image that I noticed corrections are necessary precisely in “Walpurgis Night.” In the published editions, first of all, this call-and-response dialogue between Faust, Mephistopheles, and the will-o’-the-wisps is not assigned to specific characters. Scholars have proposed all sorts of attributions, but they are incorrect, so I have assigned the lines in such a way that what is so frequently attributed to Faust actually belongs to Mephistopheles:

Into the realm of dreams and magic
It seems we have entered.
Guide us well and bring honor to yourself!

[ 16 ] — he says to the will-o'-the-wisp —

So that we may soon move forward
In the vast, desolate spaces.

[ 17 ] Even in Schröer’s version, I find this noted here in Faust, but it actually belongs to Mephistopheles, as was also mentioned yesterday, if you recall. Next:

See the trees behind the trees,
How quickly they rush by,
And the cliffs that bend over,
And the long rocky outcrops,
How they snore, how they blow!

[ 18 ] — that belongs to the will-o'-the-wisp.

[ 19 ] Then it is Faust's turn, and the things that remind him of the harrowing experience he had just gone through begin to come to him:

Through the stones, through the grass
Streams and brooks rush downward.
Do I hear a murmur? Do I hear songs?
Do I hear sweet laments of love,
Voices from those heavenly days?
What we hope for, what we love!
And the echo, like the legend
Of ancient times, resounds once more.

[ 20 ] Strangely enough, it is precisely Schröer who is assigned the next role after Mephistopheles; this, of course, should be assigned to the will-o'-the-wisp.

Hoo! Hoo! The sound grows closer... and so on.

[ 21 ] Schröer attributed that to Mephistopheles; that is, of course, incorrect. The last one, then, must be attributed to Faust:

But tell me, are we standing still,
Or are we moving on?
Everything, everything seems to be spinning,
Rocks and trees, the faces
Cutting through, and the mad lights,
That multiply, that swell.

[ 22 ] I should like to note right away that there are still errors in what follows. After Faust has spoken the words:

How the wind rushes through the air!
How fiercely it lashes my neck!

[ 23 ] you will find a long speech attributed to Mephistopheles; it does not belong to Mephistopheles—it is attributed to Mephistopheles in all editions—only the three lines belong to Mephistopheles:

You must grasp the ancient ribs of the rock,
or else it will plunge you down into this abyssal tomb.
A fog thickens the night.

Listen to the roar echoing through the woods!

The owls take flight, startled... and so on.

[ 24 ] That now belongs to Faust. And once again, the final lines:

Do you hear voices from on high?
In the distance, or nearby?
Yes, all along the mountain
A furious, magical song flows!

[ 25 ] belong to Mephistopheles. That had to be corrected because things have to be accurate. Then I allowed myself to insert just one line. Since, of course, some things—especially when it comes to witches—are really not suitable for the stage, I allowed myself to insert one line, but it’s not actually part of the text.

[ 26 ] Well, I must admit, it actually saddened me a bit to see how corrupted the text is in all the editions, and how no one has thought to arrange the material in the correct order. One must be absolutely clear that Goethe wrote Faust bit by bit, and that, of course—he himself called the manuscript a “confused manuscript”—some things definitely need to be corrected; but this must be done properly. It is not Goethe who should be corrected, of course, but those who produced the editions.

[ 27 ] From what has been said, it is therefore clear that Mephistopheles also uses the will-o’-the-wisp as a guide, and that they enter, as it were, into a world that is perceived in precisely the same way—as fluid and undulating—as it is perceived when the solid has vanished. Now consider everything that is said here: how appropriately the solid is omitted, and how this is entirely consistent with the fact that Goethe now presents the will-o’-the-wisps, Mephisto, and Faust as beings that exist outside the body. Mephisto does not have a physical body; he merely assumes one; Faust is not currently living in his physical body; will-o’-the-wisps are elemental beings that, of course, cannot take on a physical body because it is solid. By weaving all of this together in a call-and-response manner, Goethe shows that he wishes to introduce us to the essential nature of the spiritual world—not to something merely visionary, but to the essential nature of the spiritual world. However, we are immediately made aware that things look different when one is in the spiritual realm, for an ordinary observer would probably not see Mammon glowing within the mountain, the gold inside. In general, the entire scene that is described—and there is no need to explain this—shows how a soul existing outside the body is portrayed here. We are thus dealing with a real connection that is presented to us within spiritual beings, and Goethe weaves into the narrative that which connects him personally to the knowledge of the spiritual world. The fact that Goethe was able to introduce Mephistopheles into his poetry so appropriately testifies that he was already well acquainted with these matters, that he knew Mephistopheles to be a being who has fallen behind. That is why he even introduces such beings. Just think—a voice that says:

Which way did you come from?

[ 28 ] “A voice from below—so that is the kind of voice that comes more from a being with subhuman instincts,” she replies:

Over Ilsenstein!
I peeked into the owl's nest.
It gave me a real look!

[ 29 ] Voice: Oh, go to hell!
Why are you riding so fast!

[ 30 ] Voice: She has tormented me,
Just look at these wounds;

[ 31 ] Now consider that this is addressed later:

[ 32 ] Voice, above: Come along, come along, from Felsensee!

[ 33 ] Voice from below: We'd like to go up too.

[ 34 ] Voice from above: Who is calling from the crevice in the rock?

[ 35 ] And then we are addressed by a voice that creeps through three hundred years. That is to say: Goethe summons the spirits from three hundred years ago. Three centuries have passed since the creation of Faust, the Faust legend; it originated in the 16th century. The spirits that have remained from that time, who now mingle with those who come to the Brocken as modern-day witches, also make an appearance—for one must take these things literally. So Goethe says: Oh, such souls still exert their influence in our context, and they are akin to the souls of witches, since they have remained behind for three hundred years. - Where everything comes under the guidance of Mephistopheles, on “Walpurgis Night,” such—I would say—still very young “Mephistopheles-like figures” can also appear amidst the witches’ souls. And then a half-witch appears, one from the present; for the voice that once called out:

Take me with you. Take me with you!
I've been climbing for three hundred years now,

[ 36 ] That’s not the half-witch, but a being that’s truly three hundred years old. Witches don’t live that long, even if they go to the Blocksberg. - The half-witch, shuffling slowly, gradually rises upward. Here, then, spiritual beings truly meet—even spiritual beings who have transcended time, who have, in a sense, been left behind by time. Some words are downright wonderful. This is what one voice says—the very one that has been rising for three hundred years:

And can't reach the summit.
I'd like to be with my own kind.

[ 37 ] Goethe thus beautifully expresses that the souls of witches and those who, like the deceased, linger so intensely have something in common. These souls that wish to remain want to be with “their own kind.” Very interesting!

[ 38 ] Then we see how Mephistopheles actually always wants to keep Faust rooted in the ordinary, in the trivial; he wants to keep him among the souls of witches. But Faust wants to discover the deeper mysteries of existence, and that is why he wants even more, to go even further; he wants to reach the truly evil, the evil depths:

But I’d rather be up there!
I can already see the flames and swirling smoke.
There, the crowd is streaming toward evil;
Many a mystery must be unraveled there.

[ 39 ] Mephistopheles lacks a proper understanding of this deeper reality—which Faust himself seeks even within evil—and he does not wish to lead Faust there, for that is where the story becomes rather complicated. To be led to the witches as a soul—that’s fine; but when someone like Faust is led into this community, then, as he progresses toward evil, he may discover things that are extremely dangerous to some people, for one would discover there, in evil, the origin of so many things that exist on earth. That is why it was better for some people to burn the witches. For even though one certainly does not need to actively promote witchcraft, the fact that witches exist—and could, in a sense, be exploited by certain people seeking to uncover secrets through their mediumistic abilities—means that, if such mediumship were to go far enough, the origin of many things in the world might thereby come to light. They would not let that happen; that is why they burned the witches. Those who burned the witches had a definite interest in ensuring that what would come to light if any expert delved deeper into the witches’ secrets could not be revealed. Well, one can only point out such things. One would have discovered the origins of many things, and no one who truly has no reason to shy away from such matters was in favor of burning witches.

[ 40 ] But Mephisto, as mentioned, wants to keep Faust focused on the trivial. And Faust is already growing impatient, for he has a mental image of a Mephistopheles as a real devil—and expects him not to show him trivial magic tricks, but to lead him properly into evil, now that he has already pulled him out of his own body once. So he wants Mephistopheles to present himself as a “devil” and not as just an ordinary magician who can only introduce him to the trifles of the spiritual world. But Mephistopheles diverts his attention; after all, he only wants to introduce him to the trivial. It is now extraordinarily interesting how Mephistopheles diverts Faust’s attention from the true evil—which is not yet to be revealed to him at this stage—and draws his attention back to the elementary. And this is a wonderful passage:

Do you see that snail over there? It's crawling toward me;
With its feeler-like face
It's already nibbled a bit off me.

[ 41 ] How wonderfully apt is this shift into the realm of smell! It is truly so: in this world, into which Mephistopheles has led Faust, one smells far more than one sees. “Tactile face”—a wonderfully vivid expression, because it is not the kind of sense of smell that humans possess, nor is it a face, but rather it is as if one could extend something from one’s eyes to feel things with delicate rays of light. That something like this exists in lower animals is true, for the snail not only has feelers, but these feelers extend into extraordinarily long etheric rods, and with them such an animal can indeed feel what is soft—but only in an etheric sense. Think how appropriate, not at all amateurish.

[ 42 ] But now they come to a lively club—we are, of course, in a spiritual world!—so they come to a lively club. And Goethe had already understood not to become one of those who speak of the spiritual world only with a tragically drawn face, but to speak with the necessary humor and irony when they are called for. Why shouldn’t an old general, a minister, “His Excellency,” a social climber, and even an author—when they’re just discussing their business and, as the Germans say, “picheln”—sipping a little wine, and gradually find what they’re saying so uninteresting that they fall asleep in the process—why shouldn’t they, when they’re under the special influence of what’s happening in the club, when they’re playing a little game and the passion for the game is still among them—why shouldn’t these souls emerge in such a way that one finds them gathered together in a lively club among the others who have come out there? In a club: the general, His Excellency the minister, the upstart, and now the poet as well? Why shouldn’t that be the case? One encounters them there, too, for they are outside their bodies. And if one is lucky, one might even find such a gathering, for sometimes these gatherings are such that they fall asleep together through their own amusement. You see, Goethe does not exactly misunderstand the matter. But Mephistopheles is so surprised that here, for once, through nature itself—without anything other than a somewhat abnormal course of natural life leading to it—they have reached this state in their souls—he is so surprised that it approaches him in this way that he must recall even older layers of his existence. That is why he suddenly grows old on the spot—he cannot experience this in his physical form; things from the human world are even intruding upon him, and he does not want that. For even to the will-o’-the-wisp he says it must not zigzag but go straight, otherwise he will blow out its flickering light. By moving in a zigzag pattern, the will-o’-the-wisp seeks to imitate humans; but he wants to go straight ahead, while humans move in a zigzag. He is also disturbed by the fact that, through an abnormal course of life—not through some hellish event—four honorable members of human society have entered the Blocksberg zone.

[ 43 ] But then things start to get better again. First, the junk-selling witch appears—who, of course, has also come out of her own body—with all her tricks, which are so beautifully described:

There is no cup from which, into a perfectly healthy body,
A scorching poison has not been poured,
No ornament that has not seduced a lovely woman,
No sword that has not broken the covenant.

[ 44 ] Since this witch is most certainly “anointed,” he feels right at home again and addresses her as “Aunt”; but he says:

Mrs. Muhme! She doesn’t quite understand the times.
It’s done! It’s a done deal!
Let her focus on the latest news!
Only the latest news interests us.

[ 45 ] He wants something that might interest Faust more. Faust, however, is not particularly drawn to it; he now feels himself to be in a very low intellectual realm and says—and I ask you to take note of this—he says, remarkably:

I just hope I don't forget myself!

[ 46 ] That I might not lose consciousness! — So he does not want to experience the whole thing with his consciousness suppressed—in an atavistic manner, perhaps—but rather with full consciousness. But at such a witches’ sabbath, one could easily lose consciousness; that must not happen. Just imagine how far Goethe goes.

[ 47 ] And now attention is drawn to how the soul must emerge from the body, and how a portion of the etheric body must also be drawn out—something that does not otherwise occur throughout the entire course of Earth’s evolution, but rather takes place as a special process of emergence; I would say, in a kind of natural initiation. Faust’s etheric body has gone along in part; since the etheric body—as I have often mentioned—of the man is feminine, it is seen as Lilith. This takes us back to times when human beings were not constituted in this way at all. According to legend, Lilith is Adam’s first wife and Lucifer’s mother. So here we see how Luciferic arts—which also come to Mephistopheles’ aid—play a role, yet there is something base about it. This is the case in the following speech, which amounts to a seduction. Faust is already afraid that he might lose consciousness, and Mephistopheles is determined to ensure that Faust does indeed lose consciousness and thus truly sink into the depths. He has now persuaded him to extract a portion of his etheric body so that he can take on the form of Lilith. He wants things to go quite far, so he tempts him into this witches’ dance, where he himself dances with the old witch and Faust with the young witch. And then it turns out that Faust cannot lose consciousness. He cannot lose consciousness!

[ 48 ] So Goethe has accurately depicted a scene that takes place among spirits. Once souls have left the body, they can experience it. Goethe was able to portray it this way. But other souls can also enter such a gathering. They, in turn, simply bring their earthly characteristics with them. Goethe was well aware that Nicolai lived in Berlin, who was even a friend of Lessing’s. This Nicolai was one of the most fanatical Enlightenment thinkers of his time—the sort of people who, back then, would have joined a Monist League if one had existed, and would even have become “executives” in it, for that was the sort of people they were in the 18th century! —who, back then, waged war against everything spiritual. The proctophantasmist is one such person—I won’t translate the word; you can look it up in the dictionary—but that’s the sort of person he is. So Nicolai—not only did he, when Goethe was writing The Sorrows of Young Werther, written The Joys of Young Werther to mock Goethe’s sentimentality from a free-thinking standpoint, but he also—in order, as we would say today, to be a true monist—wrote at the Berlin Academy of Sciences about the reprehensibility of superstition regarding the spiritual world. And he was able to do that!—He suffered from visions, saw into the spiritual world; but he had the medical antidote that was already known back then; namely, he had leeches applied to a certain part of his body. Then the visions subsided. And that is why, in that lecture at the Academy of Sciences, he was able to offer a materialistic interpretation of the visionary; for he could demonstrate from his own example that having leeches applied dispels the visions. So everything is merely under the influence of the material! Goethe wasn’t just blindly making this up out of thin air; rather, he knew Nicolai—Friedrich Nicolai, born in 1733, a bookseller and writer, who died in 1811—very well. And to leave no doubt that he is referring to Nicolai, he has the proctophantasmist say—after the latter has joined the spirits as a spirit himself and tried to argue them away—he has him say after some time: “/p”

You're still here! No! That's outrageous.

[ 49 ] They should be gone by now, since he wants to talk them out of it.

Just go away! We've already cleared things up!

[ 50 ] Today, one would say: we have, in fact, spread monism.

That devilish bunch—they don't care about any rules.

[ 51 ] Now he must see it after all, for he really can see it; he is, after all, someone who suffers from visions, for such people are also suited to coming together on “Walpurgis Night.”

[ 52 ] Goethe, for his part, did not portray this in an amateurish way, but rather took a person who, through his imagination—when circumstances are just right—can consciously enter the spiritual world on the night of April 30 to May 1 and encounter the witches. It must be precisely such a person. Goethe does not depict things in an amateurish way; rather, he uses people who are entirely suitable. But they remain within the inclinations and affinities they have in the world. That is why he, the proctophantasmist, wants to abolish ghosts even as a ghost himself; and Goethe makes this very clear. For Friedrich Nicolai himself, as an addendum to this treatise—the treatise on the leech-ghost theory—also discussed a ghostly apparition that took place on Wilhelm von Humboldt’s estate in Tegel. Wilhelm von Humboldt lived near Berlin, in Tegel; Friedrich Nicolai, as an Enlightenment thinker, also made a mockery of him; that is why Goethe has him say:

We're so smart, and yet Tegel is haunted.

[ 53 ] Tegel is a suburb of Berlin; the Humboldts had an estate there; that is where the haunting took place, a matter that greatly troubled Goethe; he also knew that Friedrich Nicolai had described it, but as an opponent, as an Enlightenment thinker.

How long have I been scrubbing away at this madness?
And it never gets clean; that’s just outrageous!

[ 54 ] Well, even the home of the enlightened Wilhelm von Humboldt in Tegel is haunted. He cannot stand “intellectual despotism,” for the spirits do not follow him; they are not obedient:

My mind can't wrap itself around it.

[ 55 ] And to make it absolutely clear that he is indeed appropriately portraying a real person—in this case, Nicolai—he goes on to quote the following words:

Today, I see, nothing goes my way;
But I always take a journey with me,
And hope, even before my final step,
To conquer the devils and the poets.

[ 56 ] Namely, Nicolai took a trip through Germany and Switzerland at that time and wrote about it; he recorded everything remarkable that he encountered, and there are many quite intelligent, enlightened observations to be found there. In particular, he spoke out everywhere against what he called “superstition.” So even his trip to Switzerland is alluded to!

And I hope, before I take my final step
To conquer the devils and the poets.

[ 57 ] The devils, because he had taken a stand against the spirits; the poets—“The Joys of Young Werther”—against Goethe.

[ 58 ] Mephistopheles is well aware of such people. That is why he says:

He’s about to sit down in a puddle,
That’s how he finds relief,
And when leeches feast on his tailbone,
He’s cured of ghosts and of his mind.

[ 59 ] This is also a reference to Friedrich Nicolai’s leech theory. You can read about it in the proceedings of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Friedrich Nicolai delivered this lecture in 1799.

[ 60 ] But now that this matter has been settled, Faust sees a very ordinary sight: a little red mouse jumps out of the beautiful witch’s mouth. This is a very ordinary sight and proves that Faust has remained fully conscious; for if he were not fully conscious but merely in a dreamlike state, it would remain merely a red little mouse, but he is now able to transform this vision—initially evoked by sensual impulses—into what it is truly meant to be for him. The scene freezes—I think this makes a powerful impression—and the little red mouse becomes Gretchen. Only the red streak of blood around her neck remains. The imagination has dissolved. Faust is able to move from a base imagination to the vision of Gretchen’s soul, which, through her misfortune, now becomes visible to him in its true form.

[ 61 ] You may think whatever you like, but the interconnections in the spiritual world are manifold, and perhaps even confusing; and what I have just described to you—the transformation of a lowly vision of a little red mouse into something higher, truer, and deeper—is indeed a spiritual fact. It is highly probable that Goethe originally conceived the entire scene differently; there is a small sketch in which the scene is depicted somewhat differently, just as Mephistopheles would like to conjure it up for Faust; but Faust has become conscious enough to withdraw from Mephistopheles here and to see a soul to which Mephistopheles himself would never have led him; even for Mephistopheles, she remains “Medusa,” from which you can see that Goethe intends to illustrate how two different souls can interpret one and the same spiritual reality in entirely different ways; one correctly, the other incorrectly in one way or another. Mephistopheles, driven by his base instincts—which color such apparitions—comes to the frivolous remark: “Everyone sees something just like his sweetheart.” And now we also see that this is a spiritual experience for Faust, one he was bound to have. He is not the sprightly stroller, but rather the one undergoing a spiritual experience; and what he sees here as Gretchen is, in essence, that which lives within him, and which the other merely brings to the surface.

[ 62 ] Now Mephisto wants to distract Faust from the whole of what constitutes the deeper spiritual reality, and then leads him before something—at the end of “Walpurgis Night,” this must certainly be viewed in this light—that Mephisto has simply conjured up: namely, a kind of theater. This is unquestionably a magical feat by Mephistopheles. What is performed is the following: “The Walpurgis Night Dream.” But the entire scene is transposed to the Blocksberg, because it is to be presented exactly as Mephisto wants Faust to perceive it, and the entire “Walpurgis Night Dream”—which I do not wish to discuss further today—is actually staged by Mephisto to steer Faust toward very specific lines of thought. But there is a curious kind of poetic paraphrase here. Do you remember how Mephisto says:

Just despise reason and science,
Man’s greatest power,
Let only illusions and sorcery
Strengthen you with the spirit of lies,
Then I’ve already got you for sure

[ 63 ] In the “Walpurgis Night Dream,” everything is rational; but Faust is to be shown that he should merely take delight in this rationality. Goethe reinterpreted the Italian “dilettare” as the German “dilettieren”; it actually means “to delight.” And Servibilis was invented by Goethe as a servant of Mephistopheles, whose purpose is to induce Faust to take delight in what is rational—that is, to regard it in a base, frivolous manner. That is why, even though the “Walpurgis Night Dream” is to be taken seriously, it is said:

Here we go again.
A new play, the last of seven;
That’s the custom here—to put on so many.
An amateur wrote it,
And amateurs are performing it, too.
Forgive me, gentlemen, if I take my leave;
I’m an amateur at raising the curtain.

[ 64 ] So this is how Mephistopheles now intends to tempt Faust into despising the rational elements of the “Walpurgis Night Dream.” That is why he has it presented to him, as it were, in such an aura. For it suits him just fine if he can trick the rational element onto the Blocksberg; he thinks that’s good. For, in his view, that is where it belongs.

[ 65 ] As you can see, with Goethe we are truly dealing here with poetry that certainly deals with the lower spiritual world and that shows us that Goethe was well-versed in spiritual insights. On the other hand, this can also draw our attention to how necessary it is for people to gain some exposure to Spiritual Science, for otherwise—how is one to understand Goethe? Even outstanding people who love Goethe might otherwise conclude that this Goethe is such a dreadful fellow!

[ 66 ] They don't say that; they just cover it up. That's part of the lies we tell ourselves!

[ 67 ] He is such a dreadful fellow that, after causing Faust to bring misfortune upon Gretchen’s mother and Gretchen’s brother, he leads Faust—two days later—as a carefree wanderer up the Blocksberg. But one must repeat time and again: Goethe was by no means that cheerful, carefree “forest-and-meadow” Goethe as he has appeared to people until now; rather, one will have to come to terms with the fact that there is something entirely different within him, and that much of what lies hidden in Goethe’s poetry has yet to come to light.