The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920

GA 277b — 8 November 1919, Dornach

30. Eurythmy Performance This performance took place especially for the workers on the Goetheanum construction site; Rudolf Steiner had previously shown them around the building. The start of the

1. Eurythmy Performance This performance took place especially for the workers on the Goetheanum construction site; Rudolf Steiner had previously shown them around the building. The start of the performance was delayed because the lights went out, so Rudolf Steiner improvised a lecture until the light came back on. The program was the same as for the performance in Zurich on October 31, 1919, see p. 194. Dear attendees! I would very much like to give you a warm welcome in the light, if there were light here. But since we don't have any light yet, allow me to warmly welcome all of you who are here today and do us the honor of being our guests. It is always a special pleasure for us to see guests here, even now, at a time when our building cannot possibly be finished for a long time yet. For what will be necessary for the endeavors that this building is to serve will be the interest of our contemporaries, the interest in that which, as we believe, is being sought by a real human need of the present through that spiritual movement that this building, the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science is to serve. For many people today, spiritual science and knowledge of the spirit as such are still somewhat dubious concepts. Since what we will present to you as a sample of our eurythmic art, insofar as we receive light, is connected with our spiritual endeavors as a whole, I would like to briefly introduce some characteristics of these spiritual endeavors. Here, through everything connected with this building, we will attempt to reintroduce a real knowledge of the spiritual worlds into human culture. I say a real knowledge, because many people admit that the world can be traced back to spiritual causes, which can be believed. But here it is not a matter of giving mankind some kind of creed - we are not thinking at all of giving some new religious or other creed - but what is to be attempted here is a real knowledge of the spiritual life, which is present in the world just as much as the outer life of the sense world. However, my dear attendees, the time is behind us – and for many people it is still present – when it was considered the hallmark of an educated person if they could say, out of their supposed conviction: Yes, man cannot achieve anything of a spiritual nature through his knowledge; man cannot, through his knowledge, come to prove that he really carries a spiritual soul within himself that is connected to the spiritual-secluded that permeates the whole world. To a certain extent, this was the conviction of many people, especially in the age that is considered the scientific age, which we have left behind and which, as I said, still exists for many today. The time will come when this view must be accepted as something very general. Of course, many people today will still either doubt or treat with a certain amount of scorn when one speaks of knowledge of the spirit. But those who have followed the paths of spiritual knowledge, which are being sought here, know that everything that wants to fit into the development of mankind will initially find opponents, people who ridicule it, and that it will then, when it gains popularity, be taken for granted. And as something taken for granted, the realization of the spiritual world will be accepted in a relatively near future. The human being, as he is born into the world, can perceive the outer world through his senses, which he calls nature, the outer world that offers him minerals, plants, animals, the world of stars above him, the world of the sun and moon, and so on. If a person seeks nothing throughout his life but what can become him, if he simply lets himself go, does nothing further to develop something deeper in his being, then he will naturally have to come to a rejection of all spiritual science. However, a certain, I might say reasonable modesty of mind is required to recognize the science of the spiritual. It looks strange to speak of this reasonable modesty to people today. For today's people, especially if they have learned a little something, they think they are extraordinarily clever. But one need only think about how a five- or six-year-old child stands, let's say, in front of a globe or a map: at most, they will run their hand over the globe, try to tear the map apart, and the like. It cannot be said that the child knows how to use this map properly. But if the child is then developed, if the forces that are not yet present in this five- or six-year-old child are brought out of its inner being, then the child — after ten years, let us say — knows quite a lot to do with this map or this globe, knows how to unravel what it sees on it. I mention this only as an analogy to show that it is not entirely foolish to say that the whole world around us, with its stones, plants, animals, stars, sun and moon, is initially so similar for a person who is simply left to themselves as they are born and grow, as the map or globe is for a five-year-old child. One can see something quite different in the world, in so-called nature, if one is able to see beyond what the five-year-old child sees when he picks up the map and [gap in the text], which simply arises for the human being by itself. And that it is possible for people to undergo certain developments that enable them to see much more of nature than they would be able to see without these developments. This is precisely what spiritual science, as referred to here, is meant to prove. Anyone who shares the point of view of this spiritual science knows very well why so many people reject it. What is necessary is that one admits: a person can develop beyond what he achieves simply by being born as a human being; then things become spiritually visible, soulfully visible to him that he cannot see without this development. Now, it really takes something to undergo such a development. I have described in various books what it takes for a person to undergo such a development, through which, to use Goethe's word, his spiritual eyes, his soul eyes, open. What is described there, ladies and gentlemen, is something that every person can go through relatively easily if they just have patience and stamina and take the time to do so. Of course, one will not always be able to make great discoveries in the spiritual world, but these spiritual discoveries, these discoveries in the spiritual world, can always be made by individual contemporaries. And the book 'How to Know Higher Worlds' is not written in order to, I would say, enter the spiritual world with full sails, but it is written to give one an inner strength that otherwise really does lie dormant in the soul, an inner strength to comprehend what the spiritual researcher can really find in the spiritual world. So we have to distinguish between two things: firstly, that there really can be people who are able to make certain discoveries in the spiritual world that are intimately connected with human life. Of course, not everyone will be able to make these discoveries, but anyone can, if they just use their common sense and then observe what is said, for example, in my writing on How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds. Anyone can really understand what spiritual science claims. Of course one could say: Yes, then there will be a few individuals who penetrate into the spiritual world; the others will only be able to learn the truths that are valuable for human life from such people. — Especially in this day and age, one should understand the significance it has for human life that it is precisely this way and that it will actually perhaps become more and more so in the future. Today we are talking about the fact that a certain social life must spread among humanity. But social life, that means living together, living with each other, means living in such a way that what the individual produces is accepted by the other, is valid for the other, that we human beings should work for each other, live for each other – but people should not only work for each other materially, but also spiritually. And a true social life will develop precisely because there will be individuals in the future who will undergo that which leads to discoveries in the spiritual world, and others who will only acquire that development through which one can understand what the researchers of the spiritual world have to communicate. But what the researchers of the spiritual world have to share is of immense importance for human life. Humanity would gradually come to no longer recognize the spiritual at all if there were no spiritual science in the present and for the future. What currently prevents the great damage of a lack of knowledge of the spirit from occurring is that spiritual knowledge still exists from ancient times, even if it was in a different form from that which can be found today in enlightened humanity. Today, humanity works with them as with an heirloom. Without spiritual knowledge being truly gained, man cannot really advance in physical, material culture either. I would like to make this clear to you by means of a comparison. Consider, for example, the many tunnels in Switzerland; these tunnels could not be built today without the foundation provided by the art of engineering. Indeed, this art of engineering is connected with the fruit of solitary thought work by people who, at the time, did not think they were producing anything like tunnels. But the tunnels could not be there, and much else could not be; everything that surrounds us today - not at this moment, but otherwise today in the world - as electric light, everything else that surrounds us in the present, you see, it could not be there if it had not taken its starting point from the thoughts of lonely thinkers. But these thoughts – one does not believe this today, one thinks that the thoughts of the practical world simply grow out of human brains, but that is not the case – the thoughts that have been conceived could only be conceived because humanity had an old spiritual heritage. A person who receives no spiritual inspiration from a spiritual world cannot actually work spiritually for the outer material culture. People today just do not see this because they do not recognize it in the whole context. Our material culture would disappear, nothing new would be added to it, and the old would also gradually disappear if real spiritual progress could not take hold in humanity. But real spiritual progress is only possible if real spiritual knowledge becomes more and more widespread and if the prejudice ceases, which has been increasingly asserted, especially in the age of enlightenment: that actually only the one is a clever person who does not believe in the spiritual and the soul. So it is a matter of exploring the spiritual world, that apart from our world, which we see with our eyes and touch with our hands, there is a spiritual world. Now, in recent times, more and more people have felt the need to gain knowledge of the spiritual world, but they have satisfied this need with quite unsuitable means. And when you hear today that there is something like our anthroposophical movement, which is erecting such a structure, then very many people say: Well, that's something as obscure as the spiritualists; they seek the spirit with all sorts of mystical means. No, my dear ladies and gentlemen, everything you can hear in the world today as spiritualism, as false mysticism, is most vehemently rejected by our spiritual movement. We have nothing to do with any obscure things, as they are often practiced today to explore the mind and which are also passed off as scientific. We are dealing with something that is just as clear and sharp as science itself. We are dealing with something that is as clear and sharp as that by which a Copernicus, a Galileo, a Giordano Bruno have worked in more recent times. We are dealing with something that is indeed spirit and soul, but we are using the methods of thought that have just celebrated their great triumphs in science. You see, until the time when such minds as Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno were active at the beginning of modern times, people looked up, saw the vault of heaven above, , the blue vault of heaven, the blue, like a blue glass dome placed over the earth, the stars painted on it; and what was outside, that, people said, well, that is the eighth sphere. But that has become quite different when such minds as Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno have worked. Then people have finally realized: Up there, where the apparent blue firmament appears, there is in fact nothing, although our eyes see it. Due to the limitations of our own vision, a blue vault of heaven appears to us; this is due to the fact that we cannot see further. But space is infinite. And what appears to be painted on the vault of heaven is what is spread out over infinite expanses of space. Now, in terms of space, that has been overcome. Today, it is considered foolish to believe that there is a blue glass dome up there as a firmament and that the stars are pinned on it. But it is still true for many as a sign of enlightenment when they say: Oh, we can't know anything more about man than that he is born of a father and a mother and then dies again; we can't know anything beyond that. Just as people in the Middle Ages said: Up there, there is a boundary, the blue firmament – so people still often say about knowledge: There is a boundary, birth and death, that cannot be seen beyond. It is just as untrue that one cannot see beyond birth and death as it is untrue that one cannot see beyond the blue firmament and cannot think beyond it. And just as it would be considered a sign of a limited mind today to see the blue firmament up there as something fixed, so in the not too distant future it will have to be considered a sign of a limited mind to say: You cannot recognize anything that extends beyond birth and death. Man carries within himself the eternal powers of his existence. And if he really develops these eternal powers of his existence, then he will be able to point beyond birth and death just as Giordano Bruno pointed beyond the firmament. He will be able to point beyond birth and death in such a way that one can know: Just as the stars are embedded in infinite space, so our own human existence is embedded in immeasurable time. We were there before we were born and we will be there after we die. Of course, for many people today this is a belief, but in the future it will be knowledge, it will be insight. And to this degree of maturity, that this will become insight, that this will become something that a person can know in the same way that he knows, say, arithmetic and geometry, a movement such as this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is to contribute to this. And this is not achieved through some external events or external experiments, but by working on oneself, by awakening that which otherwise slumbers within oneself, and by becoming aware of the eternal forces within. In the moment when people dared to think beyond the firmament, in that moment they were happy to recognize space as infinite. In the moment when they will have the courage to research beyond birth and death, in that moment they will know their own soul as eternal. You see, with this I am just sketching for you in a few words what an extensive science is, what such an extensive science is that one might say all other sciences can be fertilized by this spiritual science. Only when we are able to delve into this spiritual science will certain riddles that weigh heavily on people's minds be solved. And much of what is sought today – we believe we can seek it out on the basis of the old assumptions – we will only be able to seek it out when we are able to delve into the spiritual science meant here. I would like to draw your attention to one thing, dear attendees. It was a long time ago, more than a century and a half, that the theory was formulated that our entire solar system emerged from a primeval nebula. A primeval nebula was there, so it was thought, rotating, turning. This is called the Kant-Laplace theory. The planets formed from the sun, these planets then orbited the sun and so on, and over long, long periods of time, the planets, preferably our Earth, would have formed – which, at least initially, is what was thought to be the case – plants, animals, and finally man and so on. Yes, there are indeed individual minds that have recognized the utter folly of this much-admired view of nature. The great art writer Herman Grimm once spoke very beautifully about this Kant-Laplacean theory. He said: People today imagine that they can assume, on the basis of some, especially this natural science, that once such a primeval nebula was there, and out of this primeval nebula, through agglomeration, that which we admire on earth today formed itself. And then, that is also said, after again immeasurably long periods of time, all that is on earth will perish, fall to the sun and so on. —Herman Grimm says: A carrion bone, around which a hungry dog circles, would be a more appetizing sight than this so-called scientific achievement. In the future, people will not understand, he says, how such a scientific delusion could have taken hold in our time at all, how it could have attacked people at all. You must just consider, my dear attendees, what is actually meant by such a thing. It means a great deal, because people today who are taught by our much-vaunted science consider it a superstition, something thoroughly backward, if one does not swear by the existence of this Kant-Laplace nebula. Now, I know very well all the reasons that such people put forward, who swear by this Kant-Laplacean primeval nebula. I also know that it is quite understandable that when someone speaks as I do, it is portrayed as madness, and that under certain circumstances one can be regarded as a limited mind or even as a delusional person. But one only becomes capable of judging these things when one really penetrates into what is meant here as spiritual science. For it turns out that just as man does not arise out of matter at birth, but as he, as spirit and soul, only connects with matter and as he, after passing through death, emerges into the spiritual world as a spiritual entity, so that which we today recognize as our earth did not emerge from a material primeval nebula, but our planet, our earth, emerged from a spiritual state, is spiritual. That is what preceded all material things. Today, people are investigating how spirit develops in matter. In truth, all matter has developed out of spirit. And you get refined, purified concepts when you engage with what is meant here as spiritual science. You see, what people today recognize as matter, as the material world – what is it? I would like to explain this to you again by means of a comparison. Imagine you have a large basin in front of you, in which you see pieces of ice; you do not see that there is also water; I assume you could not see the water. You then see the pieces of ice. You don't know, if you only saw the pieces of ice – I mean, if you had never heard of this thing, only saw the pieces of ice – you would not know that this ice is nothing more than what has emerged from the water, what has emerged from the water through condensation. This is how the outer man behaves in relation to the material world. He looks at this material world and believes that it exists in its own right. This material world has in fact also come into being through condensation, condensation of the spiritual, just as ice has come into being through condensation of water. And in that, somewhere in the way I have indicated, man discovers the powers within himself that allow him to see the spiritual, to perceive the spiritual, in that moment he sees all matter as a condensation of the spiritual. All matter ceases to have an independence. And that which we have to recognize as earth, as material earth, with all material things on it, has emerged from a spirit-earth and will in turn transform back into a spirit-earth, so that we recognize that the material is an intermediate state between spiritual states. I am more or less just describing the results to you; of course, I cannot show you in a short consideration all the methods that are just as reliable as those used in the observatory to gain knowledge of the external material stars or those used in the clinic to get to know the human anatomy. The methods, insofar as they are practiced here, are entirely spiritual methods, but they lead to the realization of that in man which, being of a spiritual-soul nature, is connected with the spiritual-soul nature of the world. You see, by becoming aware of his spiritual nature again, man attains a certain inner security, a certain inner center of gravity, I might say. Today there are still many people who are quite rightly convinced that the soul-spiritual passes through the gate of death and then remains in a spiritual world. But little thought is given to the fact that when a person comes into existence through birth, he comes from the spiritual world. What he receives from the material world is only a covering of what comes from the spiritual world, comes down from the spiritual world. And just as one must say: what remains after death is a continuation of the physical life we led on earth, so one can also say: what is here on earth between birth and death is a continuation of a spiritual life that we have led earlier. But if that is the case, then it follows that our attitude towards a person will be quite different from the way we would treat that person if we only believed that the person came into being at birth directly out of the material world. Just think what it means to look at a developing child from the moment of its birth, to say to oneself: with each day, with each week, with each year, the spirit that has come from the spiritual works its way out, working its way through the material limbs. If this becomes the real principle of educating and teaching people, then you can see what influence can really be exerted on pedagogy, on the art of education. In this respect, what we call spiritual science can already be used today. We were recently able to set up a project in a town in southern Germany that is intended to serve the purposes of our spiritual science as an art of education. In Stuttgart we have set up the Waldorf School, a primary school that, on the one hand, is intended to serve all the social demands that are now being made, where only consideration should be given to what a person is as a human being, but which, on the other hand, should also serve as an example of a real educational art for the future, from a true knowledge of the human being, educating the human being from the sixth to the fifteenth year, especially during the school years, so that at each particular age level – the seventh, ninth, eleventh, fifteenth year – consideration is always given to what is revealed by human nature. Only in this way can all the powers of human nature be truly developed. I will only hint at this. Because we are now so fortunate as to have light again, we will try to get to our eurythmy presentation as soon as possible. It is this that allows us to carry out practical experiments today, and it is a great and profound satisfaction for me to be training a college of teachers for this school, a college of teachers that is developing a true art of education based on spiritual science. An art of education that takes into account the whole human being, not just the physical part, that takes into account the human being as body, soul and spirit. And you see, it is the case that what can penetrate the human soul through spiritual science is able to offer people a completely different support than what is often prevalent today as a materialistic attitude. Mankind will yet be able to convince itself of this. The intention here is not to indulge in idle play with all kinds of supposed sciences, but to honestly and sincerely serve the very demands that have taken root in numerous human souls today. It is just that people have not yet realized what kind of longing is actually in them. Instinctively, people today are already striving for such spiritual knowledge. Everything that this building represents is intended to serve this spiritual knowledge. The entire artistic design of this building is such that it is clear at first glance that it represents a new spiritual movement, something that must come among people if culture is to truly progress, not regress, and remain backward with what has come up from ancient times. Now, I wanted to characterize for you with a few words the honest and sincere striving for a knowledge of the spirit, which is meant here, according to that side, which many people today still believe is some kind of delusion. But, my dear attendees, when the first railroad was built in Germany, from Fürth to Nuremberg, a council of physicians was asked for an expert opinion on whether such a railroad should be built. And the medical council said – this is not a fairy tale, it is a true fact, it happened in 1837, so it is not even a hundred years ago – the medical council said that no railroad should be built because the people who travel in it will ruin their nerves and become very ill. But if there are people who are willing to travel on the railways, then at least high wooden walls should be erected on both sides so that those who live near the railroad will not suffer from concussions. Yes, my dear attendees, this is not a fairy tale, this is a verifiable report from a learned society. Of course, today you can ask numerous materialistically minded people whether what is being done here at this School of Spiritual Science should be done at all? And these learned people will give the verdict today: it should not be done, because people could, I don't know, lose their minds as a result. This is just as well founded as the medical report of that Bavarian Medical Council in 1837, which believed that people would become ill from the railroad. If you listen to people who think like that, you won't get anywhere at all. Those who today reject the kind of intellectual progress meant here should be put in the same boat as those who, when Columbus wanted to equip his ships to sail out into the wide world, said: It's madness to sail out there! Where could you get? He just discovered America, and if he hadn't gone out, America wouldn't have been discovered. Imagine how different the world would look today. Of course, there are many people today who say: It is pure madness that is being done there. But there will come a time when this madness will be seen as something that was very necessary for the development of humanity. Of course there are many people who say: You cannot eat and drink what is offered as spirit. From a certain elementary point of view, they are right, but from a deeper point of view they are not. For that which is done for the outer material culture of mankind can only be done in the right way if mankind knows how to behave spiritually. But humanity can only behave spiritually if it can truly penetrate into the spirit. Here, we are not only talking about the spirit, but the spirit is to be truly recognized. Not only is it said, 'There is spirit in the world', but the spiritual methods are to be understood in such a way that one can say with conviction and certainty: Our Earth did not emerge from a Kant-Laplacean primeval nebula, but from a spiritual state of being, and returns with us all to a spiritual state of being – and much more. You see, what we want to offer you as a piece of the artistic work that is being done here, as a sample of our eurythmy, is basically something that can only be offered if you understand much of what is otherwise only viewed materially, what is otherwise only viewed with the outer senses, if you understand it from the point of view of spiritual knowledge. Man speaks through his larynx and its neighboring organs, tongue, palate, and so on. We turn our attention through the ear to what is heard by listening to the person. But while we speak, the larynx and its neighboring organs are constantly moving without being seen, at least in the layout. Even physics knows that there is movement involved. For while I am speaking to you here, the air in the hall moves in certain patterns. Through the same spiritual vision that allows one to recognize the spirit in nature and in man, one also recognizes the spiritual that underlies human language. This spiritual can then be applied to the movements of the whole person, as we do here in the art of eurythmy. And so today you will see people moving on the stage who are not moving in movements that we have thought up, oh no, but when you hear a poem recited, when you hear artistic language, then the people up here make the same movements with their whole bodies that they otherwise perform when they speak the thing. Only otherwise one listens to the spoken language, to the sounds, to what can be heard. Here, language is visible. But the same movements that are otherwise performed are brought to view here through the whole human being. They get to know, I would say, the whole human being like a larynx that has come to life, language that has become visible. And art is always that which arises from the fact that certain secrets of nature are revealed. We named this School of Spiritual Science the Goetheanum in honor of Goethe. He said, “When nature reveals her secrets to us, we long for her most worthy interpreter, art.” This is especially true when we stand before a human being. Oh, there is so much that is mysterious in the human being! When we bring forth that which invisibly underlies language through the movements of the arms, through the movements of the whole person, through the movements of groups of people, then that which lives as such a great miracle in human language is revealed. People tend to overlook, especially today, the great miracle that underlies natural existence everywhere. Those who get to know the miracle that the human larynx and its neighboring organs are, and who try to awaken what lives in the larynx and its neighboring organs, what is preserved as a miracle in the individual human being, can understand that Goethe actually expresses it: for by being placed at the summit of nature, man sees himself again as a whole nature, which in itself has to produce a summit again. To do so, he elevates himself by permeating himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art. And when he makes an instrument out of himself and reveals what can come to the fore for his own limbs, then very deep natural secrets, spiritual secrets and secrets of the soul come to light for the immediate human perception. What is practised today in schools as gymnastics is merely thought out of the body; one day eurythmy will take the place of gymnastics. This eurythmy will be spiritualized gymnastics, inspired gymnastics. People will not only make those movements in gymnastics that they do because the anatomist, the physiologist, the scientist tells them that it is physically healthy. One will realize how health also originates in the soul and spirit and how the human being actually makes soulful movements, spiritualized movements. And one has already seen it when one has said, in relation to Waldorf school education, that wherever a lesson is only devoted to ordinary gymnastics, and the other lesson is devoted to eurythmy with the children, for example, , one could see how the children are in the process, how they feel enthusiastic about the fact that they are now making movements that are not just thought out of the body, but that are thought out of the spirit and soul. Even in this small part - it is only a very small part of what we mean by our spiritual science, but it also shows what we want: spiritualization and ensoulment in all areas. And so I ask you to consider what is offered here as a beginning. Everything must first be perfected. Take it with forbearance as a beginning, but one can already see from it where, I would say, the path leads. It leads to a real spiritual culture that can bear fruit in all areas of life. And now I would like to show you, my dear audience, a small sample of this eurythmic art. You will see how the whole human being performs the movements that are otherwise not seen but only heard. You will see a visible language and you will hear how, at the same time, the music expresses through sound what you see on the stage through the movements of the human body. You will hear the poems recited, which express through language that which you will see on the stage through the movements of the human being: language made visible. You will recognize it as something that is to be brought forth from nature, from the mysterious depths of the human being. And so I ask you to take what is only a beginning with indulgence, just as our building is only a beginning. For we believe that if people show interest in these things, what is being done here will increasingly lead to more and more, so that what is still regarded by many today as only something foolish , fantastic, will one day be taken for granted as true art, something that is necessary for every human existence and will be recognized as a spiritual light because people will need it. After a short break, we will now present two short scenes from “Faust”: “Midnight”. This second part of “Faust” is, as you may know, Goethe's most mature work of poetry. The manuscript for the second part of “Faust” was only completed shortly before Goethe's death, and the second part was only published after Goethe's death. It can be said that the “Faust” poem actually accompanied Goethe throughout his entire life. Perhaps the very first scenes of the first part belong at least almost to the very first poems of Goethe. And again and again in the course of his long life, Goethe took up the “Faust” poem and only completed it in his very old age. The story of the creation of Faust is a particularly good example of what it means to live through a constantly evolving life. We know that even today there are still people who take great pleasure in dwelling only on Goethe's youthful works, which were actually written entirely within the sphere of ordinary life. Goethe then went on to create works at various levels, with each level becoming more and more mature. When Goethe was in Italy and was able to see great works of art, he believed that he had truly penetrated the essence of art. And he spoke the great, beautiful, meaningful words at the time: “I have now come to know the art of the Greeks and believe that the Greeks proceeded according to the same laws when creating works of art as nature itself, which I am trying to grasp.” Goethe himself knew how he matured more and more into an ever higher conception of art. Therefore, it must touch us strangely when we see how there were contemporaries of Goethe who repeatedly rejected the first parts of Goethe's “Faust” when Goethe had written his “Iphigenia”, his “Tasso” and his “Natural Daughter”, which he himself regarded as much more important works of art than the first part of “Faust”. There were many who said: Well, Goethe has just grown old, he can no longer keep up with himself. - People didn't know what the problem actually was, namely: they could not rise to the level of Goethe and therefore repeatedly pointed back to what Goethe had written in his youth. The same thing happened long after Goethe's death, for example, that a great esthete, even people whom one can certainly appreciate from a certain point of view, the so-called Schwaben-Vischer - V-Vischer because he wrote with V - who wrote thick volumes of art history and who, despite being an important scholar in art, repeatedly said: Yes, the first part, that is a real work of art; but the second part of Faust, that is a cobbled together, glued together concoction of old age. You see, one must point out such things, because there are people among the great connoisseurs – well, you see, just as there are upper-class daughters, there are upper-class philistines, and although I do hold the Swabian Vischer, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, in very high regard from a certain point of view, when it comes to “Faust” he is still an upper-class philistine. He even tried to write another part of Faust II. And it must be mentioned that Goethe himself often had a bitter resentment about the people who did not like his later poems – “Faust II” was published only after his death, but it would have been the same for him – for example, “Tasso”, his “Iphigenia”, his “Natural Daughter” and so on, and repeatedly rejected them in favor of the first part of his “Faust”. Then Goethe said:

They praise Faust

And what else

In my writings

Brings forth

The old Mick and Mack,

That is very pleased,

It means the pack of ragamuffins

You would no longer be.

Goethe would probably have said the same if he had known what Schwaben-Vischer or other scholars thought of the second part of his “Faust”. In the first part of “Faust” - with the exception of those scenes in which he also ascends with the world of human feeling into the supersensible, in order to depict human life in the following - as beautiful as the Gretchen scenes are in the earthly sphere, in the second part, indeed, to penetrate into the supersensible world itself, to point to the world of spiritual experiences, one must say that it is difficult to present this second part of “Faust” with ordinary means and to present the highest experiences of man on the stage. Anyone who has seen a lot of things, like me – I saw the charming adaptation of the second part of “Faust” by Wilbrandt at the Burgtheater in Vienna in the 1880s, in his unique, charming directing, and then saw many other things on the stage, for example in Devrient's mystery adaptation of “Faust” with Lassen's music and so on – but you can always see: the means of the stage, you see it everywhere, they are not enough here. Now we have already tried to tackle various characteristic aspects in our eurythmic art performances and the two small scenes where Faust is approached with regard to those inner experiences that Faust has with these soul forces and forces of destiny. This is something where human life is definitely raised into a higher sphere. And here one can say: Goethe wanted to bring much, much more into this poetry of his life, according to his imaginations. But this must also be brought out in the right way on the stage. It cannot be brought out by ordinary theatrical means. Now we take the help of the art of eurythmy, the presentations that I described to you earlier and that you have seen in a few rehearsals here. We then present the scene 'Faust' at 'midnight', where he experiences all the depths and horrors of life. Of course, what Faust speaks must be presented with the usual stage means; but then, when these four figures, the four grey women, namely worry, appear, eurythmy should be used to help, so that what Goethe so beautifully and mysteriously into his “Faust” poetry of the deepest human soul impulses and experiences, so that this comes out through the very art that seeks to develop and reveal itself out of human nature.