Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 21 September 1912, Basel

51. “Paths to Weimar”

Address at a literary meeting on Friedrich Lienhard

[“Temple of fulfillment”

On the red wall the blue dome arches;
And in the blue are stars woven in gold.
Twelve masters stand in the round pillared building
And direct their gaze from afar
Thirteenth, who before the altar gray
In the silver robe of the leader stands
And gathers twelvefold strength in the Giver.

So the sun runs through the signs of the zodiac
And has twelve special powers donated to it,
To send them further into the world;
Thus power is exchanged with power at all ends
Of the cosmos and of small human life;
And no little one shines and works in vain -
Every star can reach the sun's goal.

Each for all - and for each all!
Rhythmic is this wonderful hall:
For each of these lightly curved bows
Is drawn over each master's head,
Who pauses marmoredel beneath him;
The room is filled with a breathy wave
Of soul-powers clarified strong and tender.

Whoever enters this sun temple spell,
He is impressed by the double seven
The symbolic columns that surround the hall
Surrounding all around with evenness;
Like a dove he feels hovering above
Of the white domed window's round section:
And the holy ray falls on the altar.

The only imagined may take shape here,
Fulfillment dwells in this building's roundness;
The distant urge calms in peace,
And the earthly wound heals.
Escaped from nocturnal forces,
The consecrated one sees the place destined,
Where heavenly recovery awaits him.

And he sees the original form of all things,
The world's confused play becomes harmony;
The blood of the cross presents itself as roses,
On which from the skylight crystal-clear
A sound falls, sound of the melody of the spheres,
That fills this high space with beauty
And softly envelops every hard edge ...

You have long been drawn to this temple,
You long to look inside and pray.
Only you still turn to rose beds
The outer world along the taxus wall
And are not free from what sounds outside
And that temple's existence thunders down -

When you have matured, you will enter it.

“Christ on the Tabor”

Beyond the tribulation,
Sparkling with the power of grace,
Standest thou, form of the sun,
And into golden light there transforms
Transient suffering.
So you are beyond
And yet within reach:
For we,
As often as we emerge from the waters of tribulation
Emerge as you emerged -
Sun-embraced we stand with you,
Armored in gold, transformed into light.

Look, this is how you once stood,
When you walked in the shells of the earth,
Foreshadowing the glory to come,
Great on Tabor.
Converse with thee
Exalted masters of primeval times:
Elijah and Moses.
But beneath you, in shadow and heaviness,
Slumbered alleys and markets of men.
Then out of thee came
The earthy, the eternal light:
As for a bath thou didst cast off
The coverings of the earth,
The rabbi, the Galilean
And on the Tabor stood
The sparkling God-man!
Stepped out of the covers and stood,
Stood like a pillar of sacrificial flame
Tall on the nocturnal Tabor!

Then they approached, sparkling like you,
The great ones of ancient times,
Emerged from veiling clouds of light,
Became form and stood in splendor
On the summit of Tabor.
And they exchanged with thee the radiant speech,
Greeted you from the blessed,
Filled the enraptured disciples with flaming power
And stepped back again
Into the mysterious moonlit night.

But you, Master, and your disciples
Silent, luminous; knowing smiles
On a brightly shimmering countenance,
Walked down again to the dark people.

My dear friends!

At the present moment you are all certainly deeply moved by the two wonderful poems that have just resounded to your souls, and if we reveal anything in the true sense [as] theosophical-artistic, we may well say: Something like what has just resounded to our souls belongs to genuine, true theosophical art, theosophical poetry. If you allow these poems to have an effect on you, a thought can come to you that is as liberating, redeeming as it is comforting, encouraging and uplifting: From an independent side. the poet of such poems has been driven by his soul to be with us for our deep satisfaction, to feel and sense with us in our gatherings the spiritual life of the present - and that is what we may call the theosophical life. And the thought that can come to one as liberating as it is encouraging and redeeming is that precisely such art is - the word sounds abstract, but let us feel it - real proof of the inner spirituality of the life of our time, of what is spiritually demanded in the deepest sense of theosophical feeling and theosophical thinking.

I cannot go into Friedrich Lienhard's poetic idiosyncrasy from a theosophical point of view today because of the shortness of time, which I would certainly like to do and will probably do on another occasion. But I wanted to hint at the feelings that are presently well in all souls with a few words at this moment, hint at them for the very reason that I particularly feel that when such spiritual work resounds in my soul, [then this shows the] justification, the necessity of our theosophical movement. And because this side and this justification of the theosophical movement appears to me particularly often in such moments, I am therefore only expressing a very sincere feeling when I speak of the heartfelt and deep joy that has come to me through the fact that the poet Friedrich Lienhard himself has spoken to us today in a large circle of our theosophical friends. And you will not attribute it to me personally, because I believe [that] something objective can come [into it] if I, starting from the personal, I would like to say, just as the words give me at this moment, choose the transition to what I would like to say to you at this moment.

I would like to say that in some ways I was able to, was allowed to, shake hands twice with our revered poet Friedrich Lienhard along the way - along the way that is as natural to me, as natural to him. My dear friends, some of you know that I tried - in reference to the great classical period from the end of the century, from the beginning of the nineteenth century], which Friedrich Lienhard has just held up so exceptionally vividly and succinctly - to speak of [illegible words] the things of spiritual life in reference to this period. That was already in the eighties of the last century, and then came what I have to call, not just figuratively but in the true sense of the word, “my path to Weimar”, the path to Weimar, which led me to work in Weimar itself, in this Thuringian city of poets, for six and a half years, doing my work in the Goethe and Schiller Archive every day, with some exceptions.

Back then, people lived in a different way in classical Weimar than they had a century earlier. People lived what had been a century before - and again in connection with this century - the aftermath, they lived it in their memories. Of course, I cannot speak of the details of this memory, I cannot speak of the characteristic feelings that ran through the soul at that time, when Schiller's handwritten works came before one's eyes, which Schiller allowed to flow into the intellectual life of the new age. I cannot speak of the feelings that ran through the soul when that manuscript lay before the eye, of which you have just heard that it was only completed shortly before Goethe's death as the second part of his “Faust”.

It is something quite peculiar when [one], I would like to say, lives intimately in a living culture of memories of such a great time. And one certainly lived intimately at that time, intimately connected - [including] myself - with the sometimes extraordinarily meaningful, already significant documents, let us say, of Goethe's studies of nature, those great powerful studies that show the contemplation of nature elevated to the theosophical higher philosophy of mind, indeed spiritual contemplation. It is strange to pursue [this] - and was [it] even more so then than now, when these things are all in print, which at that time were all only available in manuscript - to pursue these memories of this great time of the modern evolution of humanity. I cannot, of course, go into details, but perhaps I can point out one or two things in a few strokes - because they seem to me to be complementary, although I [only] want to indicate to what extent they seem complementary to me - [to] what Friedrich Lienhard said in concise strokes about the eighties [illegible words], as he said at the end of “Faust”. It seems to me obviously complementary. Now, however, times have changed with regard to [illegible words]. But if we remember the word in [illegible word], then we pick up where we left off. In the nineties of the last century, it still brought in something that made this memory alive, which in this way connected the story with that of [the] greats of the eighties who have been named.

In the splendour of Goethe's soul, in the light of Goethe's spirit, there lived, as we know, from her youth, that romanticized orphan who became known to the German people and to German literature under the name of Bettina von Arnim. The son-in-law of Bettina, who in her correspondence with Goethe - which is truer than readers today believe - [who] published it under the title “Briefwechsel mit einem Kind”, the [son-in-law] of that brilliant creator of a Goethe monument, this son-in-law of this Bettina was Herman Grimm, who [illegible word] also pursued, and this man devoted to Goethe was like a memory of him when he came to Weimar.

And I myself have been able to say yes [illegible words], and that I have been able to spend pleasant hours [with] what Herman Grimm [told] in conversations that I was able to have with him alone; in conversations through Weimar to Tiefurt, [as] there he spoke of the great [plan], [and] so did not come [illegible words]; which [illegible words] so conceived and which made the times of this Goetheanism come alive, [that this is] the imagination which [illegible words] comes through the times and which still [gives] them the powers which come through individual men.

Herman Grimm, who was truly devoted to Goethe and still lived entirely in Goethe's tradition, who was not a man of the new age, was again something quite different from the memories that are erected by the fact that the Goethe, Schiller and other relics are piled up in the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar. Herman Grimm was something completely different again. One could be confronted with the symptomatic when he passed through Weimar - it was at the time when he was working on the [illegible word] treatise on “Tasso” - in order to [view] scenes from the “Tasso” manuscript. I have seen [other] scholars who have come here rummaging through Goethe manuscripts, [gap in transcript] sitting over the [manuscripts] day after day. Herman Grimm spoke of how he had just been working on his “Tasso”, had the manuscript of “Tasso” handed to him, sat down, opened a few pages, looked at them for about three minutes, then pushed [them] aside. “Aha,” he said; that's all he took from the manuscripts, that was all his immediate philological work. Really no more than three minutes. He lived Goethe's time and Goethe's activity and took no pleasure in manuscripts and abandoned relics. It was therefore also he who, as I said, connected with the memory of Goethe that came over from those eighties into our time. At that time, when I myself was allowed to [illegible words] [illegible words] classical memories, [illegible word], many other things also had an effect.

But above all, something that Friedrich Lienhard described, described in reference to Goethe, Schiller, not Hölderlin, Novalis. And something true had an effect [in] - what I would like to call - this peculiar Thuringian isolated island, [in] this seclusion: on a small and large scale, one was connected to something that had actually died out in the [illegible word] sense. But it was a memory, a living memory, something that really showed you back then: the way things used to be before and at the beginning of the ninetieth century was gone.

You could also feel this painfully. I spent a lot of time with the director of the Goethe-Schiller Archive, who dedicated almost his entire life to another classical memory, the Herder memory, because he is the editor of the great philological Herder edition. Sometimes, although there were also other moments, it was precisely in this man, in this director of the Goethe-Schiller Archive, that you could feel the isolation of immersion in the great age, the [illegible words]. And I know that many explanations would be necessary if I were to use this word here and explain it, but I will use it. Perhaps some will then also understand the “consuming” nature of memory, the consuming image of a great time on posterity, which could not so easily bring itself to clarity about certain things and [which] could then also become so careless - in the following and staggering back - to give up this immediately great past. That is why it was so deeply painful for me when - it was a long time after I had been in Weimar, I still remember the hours I had spent with Suphan - the news came that this man, who was lonely in his memory, who on the one hand had only [illegible word] tenderness, was then so attached [to what] confronted him from the relics of the Goethe-Schiller era. And the other, which you can understand if you knew the man well: There were moments [illegible word] of immensely meaningful love and devotion to the Weimar Grand Duchess Sophie, the editor of the great Weimar Goethe edition and the founder of the Goethe-Schiller Archive. There is something haunting about being buried in the relics. For this man, the death of the Grand Duchess [Sophie] was a great loss. And it was as if at that moment [the] knowledge [of] what one can feel as the memory or as that which [lived] in the memory of the great time of recent evolution [was] connected with it, when then in 1911 the shattering news came of Suphan's suicide, which [illegible words] brought things inwardly into their context; [One can sense much through such symptoms about the consequences, about the developmental impulses of the time, of our time, which probably lives out its deepest, most significant forces where it often closes itself off more deeply, more isolated from all external activity.

And when I was already within the positive theosophical movement, I was struck - I would like to say, my memories of my path to Weimar flashed back to me in a very deeply blissful way - by those beautiful, those so significant booklets “Paths to Weimar”, which Friedrich Lienhard published for a time. What did they contain, these booklets! They contained, one might say, everything beautiful and great from various pages of the archives, which in our present day can lead the soul to everything great and glorious that can be presented as directly related to the great classical period of modern evolution.

And in a fine, meaningful selection, which has a quality that I will characterize in a moment, these booklets brought to Weimar what can pave the way for people of the present day. One might have wished that many souls had sought out these booklets, these “Paths to Weimar”. These “Paths” were drawn in a very special way, in a personal way - using the word in the spiritual sense - that is, in such a way that the person who brought these selections and these depictions showed you through the whole memory of how he brought them, how intimately personally connected he is with all the details, how intimately his whole soul carries every detail, how intimately an artist and poet of the present reaches out to the modern soul with these “Paths to Weimar”.

And if one looks up from these “Paths to Weimar” to the poems of Friedrich Lienhard - and the progress, so to speak, of theosophical thought has repeatedly brought it with it, [so that] [illegible word] much could and probably will be pointed out, especially from our paths; our thoughts have led us to point to the significant [works] ‘Wieland’ and also to the quite unique novel-poem “Oberlin”.

But I could mention many, many things. I would just like to encourage you to spend a lot of time with these poems. You will absorb much that is beautiful, great and glorious, which will flow into your soul, and all this will be borne by a feeling, by a thought, by the thought of how true it is that we place an aura of the spiritual, from which we draw directly, over our present sensory culture, which has so often been emphasized. Are such poems, which in a natural way unite the poet with our movement, not living proof - and now I will come to this from an Eastern expression, poetic imagination - of how this spiritual aura hovers around us like a grace and is there? Like living proof of spiritual life in the present [we must take] what prepares the poet [for] this. After Weimar, I myself [illegible word] had to take the path into the direct theosophical movement, given by what came naturally to me, I could and was allowed to reach out my hand to the poet Friedrich Lienhard.

Now, when the individual booklets reached me through his kindness, the “Paths to Weimar”, [the] blissful memory of my own path to Weimar, I may well express my heartfelt satisfaction that I may reach out my hand to the poet Friedrich Lienhard on Theosophical paths, since he has found the path to Theosophy after the path to Weimar, and [may] create the moment again [in] my own memory, I have [illegible words] memories of the path to Weimar, of the path to the Theosophical movement, and if I may express my very special joy, it in particular [illegible words], is that poetry is united here [in it] with spiritual knowledge in such a free way, without probably striving for anything dogmatic [...]. We will not only say that we receive theosophical poetry when, for example, the words of the Bhagavad [Gita] ring in our ears, but also understand our task in the present as a genuine theosophical poetic feeling when we are allowed to hear something like what we were allowed to hear today.

The significance of these poems lies in the fact that they were created out of the living spirit, which could be sought after those of the 1980s had become a memory in the development of recent evolution. Yes, then came the materialist period, then came the eighties of materialism; these eighties were actually also the years that I myself spent in Weimar [gap in the transcript]), when everything that incorporated the purely magical and the aesthetic [of] idealism [illegible word] was still just a memory. But everything will come to life again, it will come to life through the fact that the man of the present draws from the same living sources in a new memory, just as those classics themselves drew from the living sources of life according to their time. How much more theosophy lives in “Wieland the Blacksmith” than Schiller or Goethe, for example, were able to put into their poetry in a paraphrased sense in their time. dear readers! How [much] more precisely and precisely does Theosophy live in these [poems]. So we can say: it is precisely such places as we have today that are able to write into our souls the very uniqueness, the special, the effervescence of the spiritual words from the spiritual heights in a comforting, encouraging, liberating way. I wanted to tell you that once. And well, it was [meant by] me, I would like to say, more to empathize with you, to speak to you about these moods at this moment, than to direct your thoughts in a more [illegible word] higher way to [the] great solitary man sung about by Hölderlin.

I was more inclined to do so, and so you must forgive me if, starting from a personal point of view, I put forward a thought at this moment that I had already intended to put forward before these two poems were read to us here. It only occurred to me to speak these words to you just as the last lines of Friedrich Lienhard's two poems had faded away, and there will be an opportunity to speak about this aegis in connection with our lectures, and so you will also hear [some] of what I wanted to say to you; but I also had to speak something to you once under the inspiration of the moment, as it was in my heart.