# Scene 1

*The library and study of Caaesius. Prevailing colour brown. Evening. First Capesius, then the Spirit Forms who are powers of soul later Benedictus.*

*Capesius (reading in a book):*  
‘By inward gazing on the Beingless,  
And dreaming through the shadowy picture realm  
Of thought, conformably to self-made laws:—  
Thus erring human nature often seeks  
To find the meaning and the goal of life:  
The soul from its own depths would draw replies  
To questions that concern the universe.  
Yet such attempts are vain, illusory  
E'en at the outset, and they lead at last  
To feeble visions which destroy themselves.’

*(Speaking as follows.)*

Thus is portrayed in words of import grave  
Through Benedictus' noble spirit-sight,  
The inward life of many human souls.  
Each phrase goes home destructive to my heart—  
Unfolding truly mine own way and life  
Until this day, with cruel vividness.  
And should a god this very hour appear  
Descending on me in a raging storm  
And clad in wrath, yet could his threatening might  
Not torture me with more appalling fears  
Than do the Master's words, as strong as fate.  
Long hath my life been, but its web displays  
Nothing but pictures shadowy and dim  
Which haunt my dreaming soul and fondly strive  
To mirror truths of nature and of mind.  
With this dream-fabric hath my thought essayed  
To solve the riddles of the universe.  
Down many a path my restless soul I turned.  
Yet do I clearly see that I myself,  
Was not the active master of my soul  
When threads of thought along illusion's path  
Spun themselves out to cosmic distances.

So that which I in my content beheld  
In pictures, left me empty, led to naught.  
Then came across my path Thomasius,  
The youthful painter. He indeed strode on,  
Upheld by truest energies of soul  
To that exalted spiritual way  
Which transforms human life, and makes to rise  
From hidden gulfs of soul the energy  
Which feeds the springs of life within ourselves.  
That which awoke from out his inmost soul  
Abides in every man. And since from him  
I gained this revelation, I do count  
As chief amongst the many sins of life  
To let the spirit's treasure grow corrupt.

I know henceforth that I must search and seek  
And nevermore allow myself to doubt.  
In days gone by my vanity of thought  
Could have enticed me to the false belief  
That unto knowledge man aspires in vain;  
And only failure and despair belong  
To those who would lay bare the springs of life,

And were all wisdom to unite in this,  
And were I powerless to reject the claim  
That human destiny demands of man  
That he shall lose his individual self  
And sink into the gulf of nothingness,  
Yet would I make the venture unafraid.

Such thoughts would be a sacrilege to-day,  
Since I have learned I cannot win repose  
Until the spirit treasure in my soul  
Hath been unveiled to the light of day.

The fruits of work of lofty spirit-beings  
Have been implanted in the human soul,  
And whoso leaves the spirit seed to lie  
Unheeded and decay, he brings to naught  
The work divine committed unto man.  
Thus do I recognize life's highest task;  
Yet when I try to take one single step  
Across the threshold that I dare not shun,  
I feel my strength desert me, which of yore  
Did pride itself on elevated thought,  
And sought the goals of life in time and space.  
Once did I reckon it an easy thing  
To set the brain in action and to grasp  
The nature of reality by thought.  
But now, when I would search the fount of life  
And comprehend it as in truth it is,  
My thought appears as some blunt instrument;  
I have no power, no matter how I strive,  
To form a clear thought-image from the words of  
Benedictus, though his earnest speech  
Should now direct me to the spirit's path.

*(Resuming his reading.)*

‘In silence sound the depths of thine own soul,  
And ever let strong courage be thy guide.  
Thy former ways of thinking cast away  
What time thou dost withdraw into thyself;  
For only when thine own light is put out  
Will spirit-radiance show itself to thee.’

*(Resuming his soliloquy.)*

It seems as though I could not draw my breath  
When I attempt to understand. these words.  
And ere I feel the thoughts that I must think,  
Fear and misgiving have beset my soul.  
It is borne in on me that everything  
Which hitherto was my environment  
Is crumbling into ruin, and therewith  
I too am crumbling into nothingness:  
An hundred times at least have I perused  
The words which follow, and each several time  
Darkness enfolds me deeper than before.

*(Resuming his reading.)*

‘Within thy thinking cosmic thought doth live,  
Within thy feeling cosmic forces play,  
Within thy will do cosmic beings work;  
Abandon thou thyself to cosmic thought,  
Experience thyself through cosmic force,  
Create thyself anew from cosmic will.  
End not at last in cosmic distances  
By fantasies of dreamy thought beguiled.  
Do thou begin in farthest spirit-realms  
And end in the recesses of thy soul.  
The plan divine then shalt thou recognize  
When thou hast realized thy Self in thee.’

*(Becomes entranced by a vision, then comes to himself and speaks.)*

What was this?

( *Three Figures, representing soul forces, float round him.*)

*Luna:*  
Abundant power is thine  
For lofty spirit-flight;  
Its sure foundation rests  
Upon the human will.  
Its temper hath been tried  
By sure and certain hope.  
It hath grown strong as steel  
By sight of future times.  
Thou dost but courage lack  
To pour into thy will  
Thy confidence in life.  
Into the vast Unknown  
Dare but to venture forth!

*Astrid:*  
From cosmic distances  
And from the sun's glad light,  
From utmost realms of stars  
And magic might of worlds,  
From heaven's ethereal blue  
And spirit's lofty power,  
Win mightiness of soul;  
And send its radiant beams  
Deep down within thine heart;  
That knowledge glowing warm  
May thus be born in thee.

*The Other Philia:*  
They are deceiving thee  
This evil sisterhood;  
They seek but to ensnare  
By trickery and guile.  
Thy gifts so seeming fair  
Which they have offered thee  
Will vanish into air  
When thou wouldst hold them fast  
With all thy human strength.  
They lead thee on to worlds  
Inhabited by gods,  
Where thou wilt be destroyed  
If thou mak'st bold to rise  
Into their cosmic realm  
With thy humanity.

*Capesius:*  
It was quite plain that here some beings spake—  
And yet it is most sure that no one else—  
Beside myself—is present in this place.  
  
So have I but held converse with myself  
And yet that too seems quite impossible  
For ne'er could I imagine such discourse  
As here I listened to—  
  
Am I still he was before?

( *From his gestures it is plain he feels unable to reply ‘yes.’*)

Oh! I am—I am not.

*The Spirit-Voice of Conscience:*  
Thy thoughts do now descend  
To depths of human life  
And what as soul doth compass thee around  
And what as spirit is enchained in thee,  
Expands in cosmic depth,  
From whose fulness quaffing  
Mankind doth live in thought  
From whose fulness living  
Mankind illusion weaves.

*Capesius:*  
Enough ... Enough ... Where is Capesius?  
You I implore ... ye forces all unknown ...  
Where is Capesius? Where is ... myself?

*(Once more he relapses into a reverie.)*

*(Enter Benedictus. Capesius does not notice him at first. Benedictus touches him on the shoulder.)*

*Benedictus:*  
I learned that thou didst wish to speak with me,  
And so I came to seek thee in thy home.

*Capesius:*  
Right good it is of thee to grant my wish.  
Yet it had scarce been possible that thou  
Shouldst find me in worse case than now I am.  
That I am not this moment on the ground  
Prostrate before thy feet, after such pain  
As even now hath racked my soul, I owe  
To thy kind glance alone which sought mine own,  
So soon as thou didst with thy gentle touch  
Arouse me from the horrors of my dream.

*Benedictus:*  
I am aware that I have found thee now  
Fighting a battle for thy very life.  
Since I have known full well this long time past  
That thus it was appointed us to meet.  
Prepare to change the sense of many words  
If thou wouldst understand my speech aright,  
And do not marvel that thy present pain  
Bears in my language quite another name—  
I call thy state good fortune.

*Capesius:*  
Then indeed  
Thou dost but heap the measure of the woe  
Which casts me into gloom's abysmal deeps.  
Just now I felt as if my real self  
Had flown afar to cosmic distances,  
And unfamiliar beings through its sheaths  
Were speaking here. But this I took to be  
Hallucination, spirit mockery,  
And mourned that thus my soul could be deceived:  
This thought alone kept me from breaking down.  
Take not away my right thus to believe,  
The only prop I lean on; tell me not  
My fevered dreaming was good fortune; else  
I shall be lost indeed.

*Benedictus:*  
A man can lose  
Nought else but that which keeps him separate  
From cosmic being. When he seems to lose  
That which in dreamy fantasies of thought  
He misapplied to labours purposeless,  
Then let him seek for what has gone from him.  
For he will surely find it, and withal  
The proper use to which it should be put  
In human life. Mere words of comfort now  
Were nothing more than clever play on words.

*Capesius:*  
Nay—teachings that by intellect alone  
Are comprehended, thou dost not impart.  
Bitter experience has shown me this.  
Like deeds which lead one on to lofty heights  
And also cast one to abysmal depth,  
Thy counsels pour a stream of fiery life  
And also deathly chill into men's souls.  
They work at once e'en as the nod of fate  
And also as the storms of life and love.  
Much had I sought and thought in earlier days  
Before I met thee; yet the spirit's powers,  
Creative and destructive, I have learned  
Only since I have followed in thy steps.  
The turmoil and confusion of my soul,  
Caused by thy words, was evident when thou  
Didst come within my chamber. Oft I felt  
Much pain whilst reading in thy book of life,  
Until to-day my cup of woe was full.  
And so my agony of soul o'erflowed,  
Spilled by thy fateful words. Their meaning swept.  
O'er all my soul unrecognized, and yet  
Like some elixir they revived my heart.  
In such wise wrought they in the magic worlds  
That all my clarity of sense was lost.  
Then ghostly phantoms made a mock of me,  
And words of import dark I seemed to hear  
Issue from my distraught tormented soul.  
I know that all the secrets thou dost guard  
For human souls may not be written down,  
But that the answer to men's doubts may be  
Revealed to each according to his need.  
So grant me that of which I stand in need;  
For verily I must indeed be told  
What robbed me of my senses and my wits  
And compassed me with magic's airy spells.

*Benedictus:*  
Another meaning hides within my words  
Than that of the ideas which they convey;  
They guide the natural forces of the soul  
To spirit-verities their inward sense  
Cannot be understood until the day  
On which they waken vision in the soul  
That yields itself to their compelling power.  
They are not fruitage of mine own research;  
But spirits have entrusted them to me,  
Spirits well skilled to read the signs in which  
The Karma of the world doth stand revealed.  
The special virtue of these words is this,  
Unto the source of knowledge they can guide.  
Yet none the less it must be each man's task,  
Who understands them in their truest sense,  
To drink the spirit-waters from that source.  
Nor are my words designed to hinder thee  
From being swept away to worlds that seem  
To thee fantastic. Thou. hast seen a realm  
Which must remain illusion just as long  
As thou dost lose thyself on entering it.  
But wisdom's outer portal will be found  
Unsealed to thine advancing soul so soon  
As thou dost near it with self-consciousness.

*Capesius:*  
And how can I maintain self-consciousness?

*Benedictus:*  
The answer to this riddle thou shalt find  
When, with awakened inner eye, thou dost  
Perceive before thee many wondrous things,  
Which shortly will be found to cross thy path.  
Know that a test path been ordained for thee  
By lords of fate and by the spirit-powers.

*(Exit.)*

*Capesius:*  
Although their meaning is not clear to me  
I feel his words at work within myself.  
He hath appointed me a goal; and I  
Am ready to obey. He doth not ask  
For stress of thought; it seems that he desires  
I should press forward with exploring feet  
To find the spirit-verities myself.  
  
I cannot tell how he was sent to me;  
And yet his actions, have compelled my trust;  
He hath restored me to myself once more.  
So though at present I may not divine  
The nature of the spell that shook me so,  
I will not shrink from facing these events  
Which his prophetic vision hath foretold.

*Curtain whilst Capesius remains standing*