ANTHROPOSOPHYA Quarterly Review of

Spiritual ScienceNo. 2 Midsummer 1930 Vol. 5

Richard Wagner and Mysticism
By RUDOLF STEINER
A lecture given in Nuremberg, December 2nd, 1907. Translated
from a shorthand report unrevised by the lecturer and published by
kind permission of Frau Marie Steiner. All rights reserved by
thePhilosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, Dornach,
Switzerland.

It is not the aim of Spiritual Science merely to satisfy

curiosity or a greed for knowledge but to be a spiritual
impulse penetrating deeply into the culture of the present
and immediate future. It will begin to dawn upon us that
this is indeed the mission of Spiritual Science when we
realise that its impulse has already made itself felt in the
form either of clear or vague premonitions, in various
domains of modern life. To-day we shall consider how an
impulse akin to that of Spiritual Science lived in one of the
greatest artists of our time. In speaking ofRichard Wagner,
I certainly do not mean to imply that he was fully conscious
of this impulse. It is so meaningless when people say: You
tell us all kinds of things about Richard Wagner, but we
could prove to you that he never thought of them in
connection with himself. Such an objection is so patent that
even those who think as we do could raise it. I am not
suggesting for a moment that the impulse of which we shall
speak lived in Richard Wagner in the form of definite ideas.
Whether or not one is justified in speaking of it, is quite
another matter. Detailed evidence in support of this point
would lead us too far, but a comparison will show that our
method of approach is fully justified. Does a botanist not
think about a plant and try to discover the laws underlying

its growth and life? Is not this the very thing that helps him
to understand its nature? And will anyone deny him the
right to speak about the plant from this aspect just because
the plant itself is not conscious of these laws? There is no
need to reiterate the generalisation that an artist creates
unconsciously. The point at issue is that the laws which
help us to understand the achievements of an artist need
not be consciously realised by him any more than the laws
of growth are consciously realised by the plant. I say this at
the outset in order to clear away the above-mentioned
objection.
Another stumbling-block which may crop up now-adays, is connected with the word Mysticism itself. Quite
recently it happened that somebody used the word among a
small group of people, whereupon a would-be learned
gentleman remarked: Goethe was really a Mystic, for he
admitted that very much remains obscure and nebulous in
the sphere of human knowledge. He showed by this remark
that he associated Mysticism with all ideas about which
there is something nebulous and vague. But true Mystics
have never done this. Precisely to-day we hear it said in
academic circles: To such and such a point clear cognition
can attain; from that point onwards, however, we grope
blindly among the secrets of Nature with vague feelings, and
Mysticism begins. But the opposite is the case! The true
Mystic enters a world of the greatest possible clarity a
world where ideas shine into the depths of existence with a
light as radiant and clear as that of the sun. And when
people speak of obscure feelings and premonitions this
simply means that they have never taken the trouble to
understand the nature of Mysticism. In the first centuries of
Christendom the word Mathesis was not used because this
kind of experience was thought to be akin to mathematics
but because it was known that the ideas and conceptions of

a Mystic can be as lucid and clear as mathematical concepts.

Men must have patience to find their bearings in the
domain of true Mysticism, and it is purely in this sense that
the word will be used here in connection with the name of
Richard Wagner.
And now let us speak of what is really the fundamental
conviction of everyone who is a true student of Spiritual
Science. It is that behind the physical world of sense
there is an invisible world into which man can penetrate.
This, too, is the attitude of Mysticism. Did Wagner himself
ever express this conviction? Most certainly he did! And the
significant thing is that he expressed it from the musician's
point of view, indicating thereby that to him music or art
was far more than a mere adjunct to existence, was indeed
the most essential element of life. He speaks in a wonderful
way about symphonic music. He regarded symphonic music
as a veritable revelation from another world, a revelation by
which the threads of existence are elucidated far better than
by logic. And from his own experience he knew that the
convictions which arise in a man when he listens to the
speech of symphonic music are so firmly rooted in his being
that no intellectual judgment can prevail against them. Such
words as these were not uttered at random; they were
indications of a deep and profound theory of knowledge.
And now let us see whether we can explain these words
of Wagner in the light of the conviction that is characteristic
of Mysticism. Again and again we find Mystics describing
the nature and mode of their knowledge in definite terms.
They say: In the act of knowledge, man uses his intellect
when he endeavours to understand the laws of the natural
and spiritual worlds. But there is a higher mode of
knowledge. Indeed, the true Mystic realises that this
higher kind of knowledge is much more reliable than any
intellectual judgment. Curiously enough it is invariably

characterised by an image which is, however, more than

an image. Those who really know what they are talking
about, speak of music. The Music of the Spheres spoken of
in the old Pythagorean Schools was no mere figure of
speech, in spite of what superficial philosophy may say. The
Music of the Spheres is a reality, for there is a region of the
spiritual world in which its melodies and tones can be
heard. We are surrounded by worlds of spirit, just as a blind
man is surrounded by the world of colour which he does not
see. But if a successful operation is performed upon his
eyes, colour and light are revealed to him. It is possible for
the faculty of spiritual sight to awaken in a man. When his
higher senses open, the higher world will emerge out of the
darkness. To the surrounding spiritual world that lies near
us, we give the name of the astral world, or world of light,
while a higher, purely spiritual world is designated as that
of the Music of the Spheres. It is a real world into which
man can enter through a higher birth. Initiates speak openly
of this world. We are reminded here of certain words of
Goethe, albeit they are generally thought to be mere fantasy.
Indeed our interpretation of these words will be put down
as inartistic because of the current opinion that so far as
intelligence and reason are concerned, a poet must
necessarily be vague and indefinite. But a poet as great as
Goethe does not use phrases; and if there were no deeper
underlying truth, he would be using a phrase when he
writes:
The sun with many a sister-sphere Still sings the primal
song of wonder, ...
These words are either an indication of deeper truth or
mere phraseology, for the physical sun does not sing. It is
unthinkable that a poet with Goethe's deep insight would

use such an image without reason. As an Initiate, Goethe

knew that there is indeed a world of spiritual sound and he
retains the image.
To Richard Wagner the tones of outer music were an
expression, a revelation of an inner music, of spiritual
sounds and harmonies which pervade the created universe.
He felt the reality of this music and stated it in words. On
another occasion he said something similar in connection
with instrumental music (Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven):
The primal organs of creation and of nature are
represented in the instruments. What these instruments
express can never be defined in clear, hard-and-fast terms,
for once again they convey to us those archetypal moods
arising from chaos in the first days of creation, when as yet
there was no human being to receive them into his heart.
Such words must not be analysed by the intellect. We
should rather try to live into their mood and atmosphere
and then we shall begin to realise how deeply Wagner's soul
was steeped in Mysticism. To a certain extent Wagner was
aware of his particular mission in art. He was not one of
those artists who think they must out with everything that
happens to be living in their soul. He wanted to realise his
destined place in evolution and he looked back to a far
remote past when as yet art had not divided into separate
branches.
Here we reach a point which was constantly in Richard
Wagner's mind when he realised his mission, a point too,
upon which Nietzsche meditated deeply, and tried to
characterise inThe Birth of Tragedy. We shall not, however,
go into what Nietzsche says, because we are here concerned
with Mysticism as such, and Mysticism can tell us more
about Richard Wagner than Nietzsche was able to do. The
study of Mysticism carries us back to very early stages in the
evolution of humanity to the Mysteries. What were the

Mysteries?
Among all the ancient peoples there were Mysterycentres. These centres were temples as well as institutes of
learning and they existed in Egypt, Chaldea, Greece and
many other regions. As centres alike of religion, science and
art, they were the source of new impulses in the culture of
the peoples.
And now let us briefly consider the nature of the
Mysteries. What were the experiences of those to whom the
hidden teachings were revealed after certain trials and tests
had been undergone? They were able to realise the union of
religion, art and science which in the course of later
evolution were destined to separate into three domains. The
great riddles of the universe were presented to those who
were admitted to the rites enacted in the Mysteries. The
rites and ceremonies were connected with the secrets of
spiritual forces from higher worlds living in the minerals
and plants, reaching a stage of greater perfection in the
animal and finally to self-consciousness in the human
being. The whole evolution of the World-Spirit was
presented in the form of ritual to the eyes of the spectators.
And what they saw with their eyes, they also heard with
their ears. Wisdom was presented to them through colour,
light and sound and to such men the laws of the universe
were not the abstract conceptions they have become to-day.
Cosmic laws were presented in a garb of beauty and art
arose.Truth was expressed in the form of art, in such a way
that men's hearts and souls were attuned to piety and
devotion. External history knows nothing of these things
and indeed repudiates them. But that matters not. Just as
in the ancient Mysteries, religion, science and art were one,
so were the arts which later on broke off along their several
paths. Music and dramatic representation were part of one
whole, and when Wagner looked back to primeval times he

realised that although the arts had once been indissolubly

united, they had been forced into divergence as a result of
the inevitable course taken by evolution. He believed that
the time had now come for a re-union of the arts, and with
his great gifts set himself the task of bringing about this reunion in what he termed an all-comprehensive work of
art. He felt that all true works of art are pervaded by a
mood of sanctity and are therefore verily acts of religious
worship. He felt too, that streams which had hitherto been
separated were coming together in his spirit, there to give
birth to his musical dramas. To him, there were two
supreme artists: Shakespeare and Beethoven. He saw in
Shakespeare the dramatist who, with marvellous inner
certainty, staged human action as it unfolds in outer
happenings. He saw in Beethoven the artist who was able to
express with the same inner certainty experiences which
arise in the depths of the heart but do not pass over into
deed. And then he asked himself: Is this not evidence of a
severance that has taken place in human nature in the
course of the development of art? Man's inner and outer
life is directed and controlled by himself; he is aware of
desires and passions which rise up and die down again
within him and he expresses in action what he feels and
experiences in his inner being. But a cleft arose in art.
Richard Wagner found passages in Shakespeare's plays
which gave him the impression: There is something at this
point which had perforce to remain unexpressed, for
between this action and that action there is something in
the human heart which acts as a mediator, something that
cannot pass over into this kind of dramatic art. Again, when
human feeling would fain express itself in a symphonic
whole, it is doomed to inner congestion if a musician must
limit himself to tones. In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
Wagner felt that the whole soul of the composer is pressing

outwards and as it becomes articulate is striving to unite

that which in human nature is in reality one and undivided
but has been separated in art. Wagner felt that his own
particular mission lay in this same direction, and out of this
feeling was born his idea of a comprehensive work of art in
which the inner life of a human being could express itself
outwardly in action. That which cannot be expressed
dramatically, must be contained in the music. That which
the music cannot express must be contained in the drama.
Richard Wagner was striving to synthesise the
achievement of Shakespeare on the one side and of
Beethoven on the other. This was the idea underlying all his
work an idea that had arisen from profound insight into
the mysteries of human nature. Herein he felt his call.
A way into the inner depths of human nature was thus
opened up for art. Richard Wagner could not be a dramatist
of everyday life, for he felt that it must once again be
possible, as it was in the Mysteries, for the deepest and
most sacred experiences to be expressed in art. When he
tells us in his own words that symphonic music is a
revelation of an unknown world, that the instruments
represent primal organs of creation, we can well understand
why in his musical dramas he feels it necessary to express
much more than the physical part of man's being. Towering
above this physical man is the higher man. This higher
man surrounds the physical body like a halo and is much
more deeply connected with the sources of life than can be
expressed in outer life. It was just because Richard
Wagner's aim was to give expression to the higher nature of
the human being that he could not draw his characters from
everyday life. And so he turned to the myths, for the myths
portray Beings far greater than physical man can ever be. It
is quite natural that Wagner's stage characters should be
mythological figures, for he was thus able to express cosmic

laws and the deeds of Beings belonging to an unknown

world through the dramatic action and the music albeit in
a form not always understood. I can only give a few
examples here, for to enter into every detail would lead too
far. But it is everywhere apparent that in the depths of his
being, Richard Wagner was connected with the teachings of
Spiritual Science.
Now what does Mysticism tell us with regard to the
relation of one human being to another? To outer eyes, men
stand there, side by side; in the physical world they work
upon each other when they speak together or when one
becomes dependent on another. But there are also much
deeper relationships between them. The soul living in the
one man has a deep, inner relationship with the soul living
in the other. The laws manifested on the surface of things
are the most unimportant of all. The deep laws which
underlie the soul are spun from the one man to the other.
Spiritual Science reveals these laws, and, as an artist,
Richard Wagner recognised and knew of their existence.
Therefore he uses themes in which he is able to show that
laws far deeper than the outer eye can perceive are working
between one character and another.
This urge to reveal the mysterious connections of life is
apparent in one of Wagner's earliest works. Do we not feel
that something is happening invisibly between the
Dutchman and Senta, and are we not reminded of another
mysterious influence in the medieval legend entitled Der
arme Heinrich, when miracles of healing follow the
sacrifice of a virgin? Such images as these are the
expressions of truth deeper than the superficial doctrines of
conventional erudition. There is a deep reality in a sacrifice
made by one being for the sake of another. These mystic
threads unfathomable by the superficial intellect
express one aspect of the universal soul, albeit this universal

soul must be thought of as a reality, not as a vague

abstraction. Wagner is expressing a profound truth when he
uses the image of one human being sacrificing himself for
another.
I shall here repeat certain teachings of Spiritual Science
which will help you to understand these things. We know
that the world evolves and that in the course of its evolution
certain beings are continually destined to be thrust down.
There is a law of which we learn in Spiritual Science,
namely, that every stage of higher evolution is connected
with a fall. Later on, compensation is made, but for every
saint, a sinner must arise. Strange as this may appear it is
nevertheless true, because the necessary equilibrium has to
be maintained. Every ascent involves a descent and this
implies that at a later stage, the powers of the being who has
ascended in evolution must be used for the redemption of
the other. If there were no such co-operation between
beings, there would be no evolution. Thus is the flux of
evolution maintained. And a picture of one human being
sacrificing himself for another reminds us of the mysterious
link that is created by the ascent of the one and the descent
of the other. Such truths can only be expressed with the
greatest delicacy. Richard Wagner realised and understood
the mysterious thread that binds soul to soul, and when we
study the fundamental features of his works we find that the
mystical life is the source of them all.
And now when we turn to his most famous work the
Nibelung we shall see out of what depths of spiritual
scientific wisdom it was created. But first we must consider
certain things which are explained by Spiritual Science,
however contradictory they may be of the views of modern
science.
Our remote ancestors lived in a region lying to the West
of Europe, between Africa and America. Science itself is

gradually beginning to admit the existence of a continent

there in the far past a continent to which we give the
name of Atlantis. Atlantis was the home of our ancient
forefathers whose form was very unlike our own. As I say,
science is already beginning to speak of old Atlantis. An
article on Atlantis appeared in a magazine entitled Kosmos,
issued under the direction of Haeckel. True, it only spoke of
animals and plants and omitted all mention of human
beings, but Spiritual Science is able to speak with greater
clarity of what natural science is only now beginning to
surmise.
In old Atlantis, the atmosphere was quite different from
the atmosphere around us to-day. There was no division of
water and the sun's rays in the air. The air was permeated
with vapours and clouds. Sun and moon were only seen
through a rainbow-haze. Moreover man's life of soul was
entirely different. He lived in a far more intimate
relationship with Nature, with stone, plant and animal.
Everything was immersed in cloud-masses. In very truth the
Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters! The
wisdom that lived on among the descendants of the
Atlanteans was possessed in abundance by the Atlanteans
themselves. They understood all that was living in Nature
around them; the rippling brooks were not inarticulate but
the actual expression of Nature's wisdom. Wisdom
streamed into the men of Atlantis from everything in their
environment, for those ancient forefathers of ours were
possessed of dull, instinctive clairvoyance. Instead of
objects in space, colour-phenomena arose before them.
They were endowed with clairvoyant powers. Wisdom was
there in the mists and clouds and they perceived it with
these powers. Such things can, of course, only be indicated
here in the briefest outline. As evolution proceeded, the
mists condensed into water, the air grew clearer and

clearer, and man began, very gradually, to develop the kind

of consciousness he has to-day. He was shut off from outer
Nature and became a self-contained being. When all men
live in close connection with Nature, wisdom is uniform
among them, for they live and breathe in a sphere of
wisdom. This gives rise to brotherhood, for each man
perceives the same wisdom, each man lives in the soul of
the other. When the cloud-masses condensed into water,
man emerged with the beginnings of Ego-consciousness;
the central core of his being was felt to lie within himself,
and, when he met another Ego-being, he began to make
claims on him. Brotherhood gave way to the struggle for
existence.
Legends and myths are not the phantasies they are said
to be by erudite professors. What are legends and myths, in
reality? They represent the last echo of the ancient
clairvoyant experiences of men. It is nonsense to say that
the myths are merely records of struggles between one
people and another. Learned professors speak of the poetic
folk-phantasy, but it isthey who are indulging in phantasy
when they say that the Gods were simply poetical allusions
to clouds. That is the kind of nonsense we are expected to
believe! But even nowadays it is quite easy to understand
the real origin of myths. The legend of the Noonday
Woman is still familiar in many regions. This legend is to
the effect that when labourers stay out in the fields at noon
and fall asleep instead of returning to their homes, a figure
of a woman appears and puts a question to them. If they
cannot answer within a given time, the woman slays them.
This is obviously a dream which comes to a man because he
is sleeping out of doors with the full heat of the sun pouring
down upon him. Dreams are the last vestige of ancient
clairvoyant consciousness. The example given indicates
that legends do indeed originate from dreams. And the

same is true of the Germanic myths. For the most part these
are myths which originated among the last stragglers of the
Atlanteans. The old Germanic peoples looked back to the
ages when their forefathers lived away yonder in the West
and wandered towards the East in the times when the mists
of Atlantis (Nebel-land) were condensing and giving rise to
the floods now spoken of as the Deluge, when the air was
becoming pure and clear and waking consciousness
beginning to develop. The ancient Germanic peoples looked
back to the Land of Mists, to Nifelheim. They knew that
they had left Nifelheim and had passed into a different
world, but they also knew that certain Spiritual Beings had
remained behind at the spiritual level of those times. And
they said that such Beings had retained the characteristics
and qualities of Nifelheim while sending their influences
down into a later age, that they were Spirits because they
did not live a physical existence.
We can never understand such marvellous interweavings
by reference to pedantic text-books. We must rather have
an eye to the interweaving of phantasy and clairvoyant
faculties, of legend and myth. Nor should we divest these
ancient legends of the magic dew upon them.
The ancient Germanic peoples looked back to the time
when the mists of Nifelheim were condensing, and they
conceived the idea that the water from these same mists
was now contained in the rivers in the North of Central
Europe. It seemed to them that the waters of the Rhine had
flowed out of the mists of old Atlantis. In those ancient
times wisdom came to men from the rippling of brooks and
the gushing of springs. It was a wisdom that was common to
all, a wisdom from which the element of egoism was entirely
absent. Now the age-old symbol of a wisdom that is
common to all is gold. This gold was brought over from
Nifelheim. What became of the gold? It became a

possession of the human Ego. The universal Wisdom, once

bestowed by Nature herself now became a wisdom flowing
from the Ego into human deeds and confronting them as a
separate independent power in each individual. Man had
built a Ring around himself and the Ring changed
brotherhood into the struggle for existence among human
kind. The element of wisdom common to all men in earlier
times lived in water, and the last vestige of this water flowed
in the Rhine.
Now just as human beings have developed Egoconsciousness, so too must the Nibelungen. The
Nibelungen knew that they possessed the old universal
wisdom and they now forged the Ring which thenceforward surrounded them as the Rising of Egoism. This
shows, albeit in brief outline, how true realities stream into
the world of phantasy and imagination. Gold represents the
remaining vestige of the ancient wisdom flowing through
the mists; the wisdom-filled Ego builds the Ring which
gives rise to the struggle for existence. Such is the deeper
truth underlying the myth of the Nibelungen.
This was a theme which Richard Wagner could
reproduce in the form of dramatic action and in the tones of
a music expressing the invisible world behind the world of
sense. And so he wrote a modern version of the Nibelung
myth and in his picture of this whole process of evolution
we feel how the new Gods who rule over mankind have
come forth from the ancient Gods.
And now think once again of old Atlantis. Clouds and
mists, wisdom sounding from all creation. As time went
on, the Gods could no longer work through a wisdom
possessed uniformly by all men; they could work only by
means of commandments and decrees. When Wotan, one of
the new Gods has to fulfil his covenant to deliver up Freia,
since he himself is now entering into the sphere of Ego-

wisdom symbolised by the Ring, a figure personifying

ancient, primordial consciousness appears before him a
personification of the Earth-consciousness wherein all men
were enveloped in the days of Atlantis.
This consciousness is represented in the figure of Erda:
My musing is the ruling of wisdom; For when I sleep I
dream, And all my dreams are sovereign wisdom.
A great cosmological truth is contained in these words,
for all things were created by this wisdom as it lived in the
springs and brooks, rustled in the leaves and swept through
the wind. It was this all-embracing consciousness out of
which individual consciousness was born and it was verily
sovereign wisdom.
This wisdom was mirrored in the ancient clairvoyant
faculties of man, in an age when his consciousness was not
confined within the boundaries of his skin. Consciousness
flowed through all things. One could not say: here is Egoconsciousness and there is Ego-consciousness.
All that the depths conceal, All that pervades the hills and
vales, Water and air, is known to thee. Thy breath doth blow
throughout creation; Thy mind is there wherever knowledge
dwells: All, it is said, is known to thee.
All is known to Erda in this consciousness. And so step by
step, we can see how through his intuition Wagner was able
to draw upon amounts of primordial wisdom and express
this in the Nibelung myth.
And now let us consider the time of transition from the
old phase of evolution to the new. Again let it be
repeated, however, that Richard Wagner's achievement was
not the outcome of any conscious realisation on his part.

The old Atlanteans were possessed of a consciousness of

brotherhood in the truest sense of the word. This was
followed by the transition to Ego-consciousness. And now
think of the beginning of the Rhinegold. Is not the coming
of this Ego-consciousness expressed in the opening notes
themselves, in the long E flat on the organ? Do we not feel
here that individual consciousness is emerging from the
ocean of consciousness universal? In motif after motif we
find Richard Wagner expressing in the tones of music a
world that stands behind the physical world, using the
instruments verily as if they were the primal organs of
Nature.
And now, if we turn to Lohengrin, what do we find?
Lohengrin is the emissary of the Holy Grail. He comes
from the citadel of the Initiates, where a higher wisdom has
its home. The legend of Lohengrin is connected with a
universal tradition which indicates that the Initiates send
down their influences into human life. We must always turn
to legends for enlightenment in regard to significant
turning-points in evolution, for the truths they contain are
deeper than those recorded in history. Legends show us
how the forces and influences of Initiates intervene in the
course of history and they are not to be regarded as
accounts of happenings in the outer world.
The time of transition from the universal clairvoyant
consciousness to individualised Ego-consciousness was of
the greatest significance, and we find it set forth in the
Lohengrin myth. It is an age when the new spirit emerges
from the old. Two Spirits of an Age confront one another.
Elsa, the feminine principle, represents the soul who is
striving for the highest. Conventional interpretations of
Goethe's words in the Chorus Mysticus at the end of his
Faust are terribly banal, whereas in reality they emanate
from the very depths of Mysticism:

The Eternal Feminine leads us upwards and on.

The human soul must be quickened by those mighty
events through which new principles find their way into
evolution. What enters thus into evolution is represented in
the Initiates who come from mysterious lands. Spiritual
Science speaks of advanced individualities and again and
again one is asked: Why do these individualities not reveal
themselves? But if they were to do so, the world would
enquire about their civic name and rank. This is of no
significance in regard to one who is working from spiritual
worlds, for the position of an Initiate whose mission is to
proclaim the mysteries of existence is so sublime that to ask
about his birth, name, rank or calling, is meaningless. To
put such questions shows such a lack of understanding of
his mission that parting is inevitable.
Ne'er shalt thou ask Nor yearn to know, Whence I have
come And what my name and nature
These words of Lohengrin might be spoken by all those
whose consciousness transcends that of the everyday world,
when they are questioned about their name and rank. This
is one of the notes struck in Lohengrin, where the clear,
true influences of Mysticism are apparent in music and
drama alike.
Now there is a certain profound mystery bound up with
humanity and it is depicted symbolically in a myth. When at
the beginning of our evolution Lucifer fell from the ranks of
those Spirits who guide humanity, a precious stone dropped
from his crown. This stone was the cup from which Christ
Jesus drank with His disciples at the Last Supper and in
which the Blood flowing on Golgotha was received. The cup

passed to Joseph of Arimathea who brought it to the West.

After many wanderings it came into the hands of Titurel
through whom the Citadel of the Grail was founded. The
cup was guarded by the holy love-lance, and the legend
says that all who looked upon it took something of the
Eternal into themselves.
And now let us think of the mystery contained in this
myth as a parallelism of the progress of human evolution, as
indeed it is known to be by those who understand the
mysteries of the Grail. In the earlier phases of evolution on
the earth, all love was bound up with the blood. Men were
united by the blood-relationship. Marriage took place
between those who were united by the blood-tie. The point
of time from whence onwards marriage took place between
those who were not of the same kith and kin marked an
important turning-point in the life of the peoples.
Consciousness of this truth is expressed in many sagas and
myths. To begin with, as we have said, love was bound up
with blood-kinship and later on, the circle within which
human beings were joined by marriage grew wider and
wider. This was the one stream in evolution: love that is
dependent upon uniformity of flesh and blood.
But later on, a different principle began to hold sway
the principle of individual independence. In the age
preceding that of Christendom these two streams were
present: the stream expressed in love bound up with the
blood-tie, and the principle of independence, freedom. The
former represented the power of Jehovah, whose name
means I am the I am, and the latter the Luciferic principle
of independence. Christianity was to bring into the world a
love that is independent of blood-kinship. The words of
Christ are to be interpreted thus: He who forsakes not
father and mother that is to say, he who cannot substitute
for a love that is bound up with flesh and blood, a love that

flows from soul to soul, from brother to sister, from a man

to all men he cannot be my disciple.
A stone falls from Lucifer's crown and this stone
becomes the holy cup wherein the Christ-Principle is united
with the Lucifer-Principle. Knowledge of this mighty
impulse developed the power of the Ego in the Knights of
the Grail. And to those who were pupils in the Mysteries of
the Holy Grail the following teaching was given: (I will
give in simple dialogue form what the pupils of the Grail
were made to realise step by step. Many people will say:
This is unheard of! None the less it is truth but truth that
will be subjected to the same fate as those emissaries who
were sent from civilised States to the courts of barbarians
as Voltaire relates. First, unworthy treatment and then,
afterwards, recognition and acknowledgment.) This, then,
was said to the pupils of the Grail: Look at the plant. Its
flower may not be compared with the human head. The
flower, with its male and female organs of fertilisation,
corresponds to the sexual system in man. It is the root of
the plant that corresponds to the human head. Darwin
himself once rightly compared the root of the plant with the
head of man. The human being is a plant reversed. He has
accomplished the complete turn. In chastity and purity the
plant stretches out its calyx towards the light, receiving its
rays, receiving the holy love-lance, the kiss which ripened
the fruit. The animal has turned only half-way. The plant,
whose head bores into the earth, the animal with its spine
in the horizontal direction, and the human being with his
upright posture and his upward gaze these together form
the cross. To the pupils of the Grail it was further said:
Verily, Plato spoke truly when he said that the World-Soul
lies crucified in the Body of the World. The World-Soul, the
soul pervading plant, animal and man, lives in bodies
which, together, represent the cross. This is the original

signification of the cross All other interpretations are

meaningless.
In what sense has man accomplished the complete turn?
According to the insight of true Mysticism, the plant has the
consciousness of sleeping man. When he is asleep, the
human being is, in a sense, like a plant. He has acquired the
consciousness that is his to-day by having permeated the
pure plant-body with desires, with the body of passions.
Thereby he has risen higher on the path to selfconsciousness. But this has been achieved at the cost of
permeating pure plant-substance with desire.
The pupils of the Grail were told of a state to which man
would attain in the future. Possessed of clear, alert
consciousness, his being would be purified, the substance of
his body would become as pure and chaste as that of the
plant, and his organs of reproduction transformed. The idea
living in the minds of the Knights of the Grail was that the
man of the future will have powers of reproduction not
filled with the element of desire but as chaste and pure as
the calyx which turns towards the love-lance the rays of
the sun. The Grail Ideal will be fulfilled when man brings
forth his like with the purity and chastity of the plant, when
he brings forth his own image in the higher calyx and
becomes a creator in the Spirit. This ideal was known as the
Holy Grail the transformed reproductive organs which
bring forth the human being as purely and as chastely as the
word is brought forth to-day by the waves of air working
through the larynx.
And now let us see how this sublime ideal lived on the
heart and soul of Richard Wagner. In the year 1857, on
Good Friday, he was standing on the balcony of the
summer-house at the Villa Wesendonck and as he looked
out over the landscape he saw the budding of the early
spring flowers. The sight of the young plants revealed to

him the mystery of the Holy Grail, the mystery of the

coming-to-birth of all that is implicit in the image of the
Holy Grail. All this he felt in connection with Good Friday
and in the mood that fell upon him the first idea of Parsifal
was born. Many things happened in the intervening period
but the feeling remained in him and out of it he created the
figure of Parsifal the figure in whom knowledge is
sublimated to feeling, the figure who having suffered for
others, becomes a knower through compassion. And the
Amfortas-mystery portrays how human nature in the course
of evolution has been wounded by the lance of defiled love.
Such, then, is the mystery of the Holy Grail. It must be
approached with the greatest delicacy; we should try to get
at the whole mood and feeling and let the ideas in their
totality stand before our souls. Wherever we look we find
that as an artist and as a human being, Richard Wagner's
achievements were based upon Mysticism. So clear, so full
of mystical feeling was his realisation of his mission that he
said to himself: The art which is living in me as an ideal
must at the same time be divine worship. He realised that
the three streams (religion, science, art) converge into one
another and he desired to be a representative of this reunion. Out of his insight was born that feeling which though
mystical in essence is yet clear as daylight and which lived
in all the great masters. It lived, too, in Goethe who wrote:
The man who overcomes himself breaks that power which
binds all beings. When this urge to give freedom to the
Ego, to penetrate into world-mysteries pulsates through all
a man's forces and faculties, then he is a Mystic in every
domain of life. No matter whether his activities in the outer
world are connected with religion, science or art he works
through to the point of unification. Goethe was trying to
express this mystery of man as a whole and complete being,
when he clothed the secret of his own soul in the words: He

who has science and art has religion too. He who has not
these twain, let him think he has religion!