The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 31 December 1921, Dornach

Address on Eurythmy

Dear attendees!

I took the liberty of saying a few introductory words about eurythmy, as a truly visible language, at one of the last performances. Today, please allow me to add a few more thoughts.

Insofar as eurythmy aims to be a truly visible language, it is based on an inner lawfulness of the human organism that has been studied through sensory-supersensory observation – just like spoken language or at least singing itself. Therefore, in eurythmy, every single movement of an individual or of groups of people arises from the nature of the human organism, just as the movements of the larynx or other speech organs that underlie sounds arise from the nature of the organism. And just as language cannot be perceived as anything other than an invisible revelation of the soul within the human being, so too can eurythmy be perceived in the same way.

The human organism is so constituted that the form we encounter in it, when viewed impartially, always reveals at the same time what can become of this form in terms of movement. When we grasp a human hand or arm, we cannot understand the form of the arm or the form of the hand if we regard them merely as static forms. What is in a quiet form can only be understood when the arm undergoes a movement. It is as if the resting form is, of course, the movement that has just come to rest. And movement is something that must emerge directly from the resting form. But it is precisely this that makes it possible to bring forth something like a language from the resting human form through movement, which is already grounded in the form itself in its entire essence. And from this point of view, eurythmy becomes something like a moving sculpture.

What is sculpture, which captures the human being in its tranquility? It is basically the outward expression of human silence, of human quiet reflection, of that state in which the human being is most within himself, most at one with himself, in which he withdraws his being most from the world. Therefore, sculpture can really only be represented in such a way that it is set apart from the living human being and presented to the world in a different material. The tranquility that most represents what sets the human being apart from the world can be realized in a material other than the human being itself.

In the way in which the human being speaks, he is thoroughly connected with the world everywhere. They are devoted to the world, and as speakers they cannot separate themselves from the world. Nor is this the case in visible language, in animated sculpture, in eurythmy. What human beings represent there are actually the laws into which they can place themselves when they devote themselves to the universe. Since they cannot detach themselves, but must place their whole being within the universe, they must represent themselves. And in eurythmy, even more than in mimic or dramatic art, the human being is a direct instrument of their own artistic creation. Therefore, eurythmy — I have already emphasized recently that it is still in its infancy, but it will be able to develop further — can develop further by becoming more and more the actual stylistic art for what human beings reveal when they are devoted to the universe. And this is most evident when the human organism is freely devoted to the higher, spiritual world.

Therefore, one experiences that the naturalistic representation of any dramatic scenes can be done relatively easily, even through ordinary mimic art, through what immediately occurs to the human being as a gesture that accompanies what is now being expressed linguistically as a soul experience. But if one wants to vividly express the higher experiences, the connections of human beings with the spiritual-supernatural world, then one needs a higher level of symbolism. And for this I [or rather] we will give an example today that will depict one of the scenes from my mystery drama “The Awakening of the Soul.”

These “mystery dramas” should by no means be taken as some kind of symbolized soul or spiritual processes in an abstract way: in them, everything is really seen immediately as it stands. And it is, if I may use the expression, pictorially conceived, like a stage play, even though it leads everywhere into the supersensible world. Therefore, in these “mystery dramas,” in those places where the human being rises up into the supersensible, the eurythmic-artistic is already fully felt in the conception—and the eurythmic expression can reveal itself there as something self-evident.

The scene that will be presented today in the first part of our eurythmic performance shows one of the main characters — Johannes Thomasius from my “Mystery Dramas” — standing, as it were, before his own inner being at a special moment of human self-knowledge. Various things now appear, not in the form of allegories or symbols, but in the form of truly spiritual figures, spiritual characters, various things that are also intimately connected with the human being.

First, one sees the spirit of Johannes' youth. [For those] who, in the real, true sense, come to self-contemplation, to self-knowledge, when they have reached a certain age, [for them] their youth stands before them as something objectively separate. And they must perceive what they themselves once were in their earthly life as if it were another person, albeit one who has remained youthful, as if it were a person with their own destiny. Real, profound self-knowledge based on destiny comes about through such objectifications of one's own inner being.

The fact that this comes about through self-knowledge is particularly illustrated by the fact that Johannes Thomasius also confronts himself, seeing his own being as his double, what takes place between what is within us—one might say, when we place ourselves outside ourselves: in order to get to know our own life as if it were someone else's—what actually takes place there takes place between Johannes Thomasius and his double. However, such experiences can only be had once the divide that separates people in ordinary life from the actual supersensible realm has been crossed. If they were not sufficiently prepared, people would not be able to experience these supersensible realms without a certain shock entering their souls. That is why it is rightly said that people cross a threshold when they want to enter the spiritual world.

When we feel, for example, what people might experience when they enter the supersensible world in deep, dreamless sleep, what separates us, what separates us as a spiritual element in our organization, but which is just as much outside of us as anything else — because we are not usually conscious of it — this is called the guardian of the threshold. It is this Guardian of the Threshold that one must encounter on the same path that leads to true self-knowledge and to something like seeing one's own youth. There one also becomes aware of what is in every human being, namely the forces of Lucifer and Ahriman.

Human beings are actually in a state of equilibrium between two opposing spiritual powers: One wants to carry them away, one might say, to heavenly heights, wants to take them away to indefinite spiritual worlds, unburdened by the heaviness of existence, unburdened by earthly fate, to penetrate into them, in a sense to lead only their head into them. The other force is the one that constantly chains them to death, to the earth, that brings them down beneath themselves, beneath their own human nature. It is the same force that physically leads us toward death, that leads us, for example, to mock and scorn humanity, that drives us, so to speak, into the Mephistophelean. Something of this Mephistophelean nature—which is the same as the Ahrimanic—is in all of us, causing us to become worse than we are.

This, too, is an objective power. And those who become acquainted with the spiritual world learn to recognize it as an objective power. Johannes Thomasius has gone through many vicissitudes. He has arrived at a certain stage in his life's journey. He was deeply connected to two other figures: a sage who appears as Benedictus in the “Mystery Dramas,” and Maria, who has a close relationship with the spiritual world, to which Johannes Thomasius has attached himself. But for those who connect with other beings in these stages of human development, there always come moments when they must return to themselves. And a deeply significant moment of destiny is the one when Johannes Thomasius returned to himself, the moment depicted here in the self-contemplation. After he has had this self-contemplation, those with whom he was closely connected, Benedictus and Maria, now appear before him. He gets to know them in a new way, just as we continue to develop and discover ever new secrets in every human nature.

And such an experience, reaching to the innermost secrets of human soul and spirit development, can, if it is to be represented externally, really only be represented in this stylization, which is possible through eurythmy.

This and many other things are made possible by what is possible as a stylistic principle through this language, this visible language, which is revealed through eurythmy and which comes not only from the head and chest organs of the human being, but from the whole human being and his or her full relationship to the world. This is precisely what convinces us that eurythmy, however imperfect it may still be today, will certainly be capable of perfection and that, as I said last time, once it has been developed further, it will be able to stand alongside its fully-fledged older sister arts as a fully-fledged younger art form.