Related drafts for the first, second, and third scenes

FERDINAND REINECKE: They want to give us a message that could be significant for us and also for those who called us. So it said in the letter they sent us. I have long been aware of the intentions of the spiritual alliance, which has hitherto kept itself strictly separate from us profane humans, and now considers the time ripe to come together with us. Until now, we were considered too immature to learn even the slightest thing about what it considers its secrets. They are supposed to solve the great riddles that torment the human heart and soul, and also to intervene in human history as the true impulses of progress. I am one of those who have always been averse to all mysterious striving in such matters. I adhere to sound reason, which is accessible to all people without a distinguished esoteric affiliation, and which, in constant progress, provides answers to the questions of existence and shows the goals of human striving. Until now, that spiritual brotherhood regarded people of this kind as mere instinctive beings who had to be unconsciously guided by the high insights of the initiates. It now seems to want to depart from its strict secrecy and seclusion. However, for special reasons, we will not be allowed to penetrate further than what they call the vestibule. I have appeared only so that no one can say that I am stubbornly resisting the hand offered to me. I do not have much confidence in what is to happen.

3rd CITIZEN: I am completely unaware of what lives in the souls of the spiritual brothers who now want to break down the barrier that has always separated us from them. But I know many who belong to them, and I have been able to observe the wisdom they conceal in the deeds they perform in their lives toward their fellow human beings. I saw only good revealed in such deeds. Therefore, the hidden reasons always seemed good to me. And so I must tell myself that we should feel joy about the present moment. There must come a time in human progress when what has been carefully guarded in the narrowest circles becomes common property. It is up to us not to let this moment pass us by in foolish self-sufficiency. We should gratefully accept the hand offered to us by those who, through the world plan, have become guardians of knowledge.

2nd CITIZEN: It seems to me that caution is the next duty here. The spiritual brothers probably think that in the future their secrets will have to stand the test of common sense. So they are wary. They want us to recognize them because they fear the power of their wisdom. If we can find that their aspirations are sound and their intentions wholesome, then they may come to us. But then their mystical glory will probably come to an end.

2nd CITIZEN: You speak as if two armies were facing each other here as enemies. We have long since received the spiritual teachings of the brothers in a form that they considered appropriate for the present human race. And they have brought comfort and strength to souls who longed to become acquainted with their origins. How could we not welcome with enthusiasm a closer union with the bringers of the light that shines in the depths of our hearts?

DOCTOR STRADER: In me you see a man who was not only averse to everything that comes from that side. I did not merely resist them with my reason. I suffered the most severe struggles in life because my nature was contrary to that of the brothers. But little by little, not only my reason had to acknowledge the good. I also came close, as a human being, to a person whose nature is deeply connected with everything that comes from this union. Although I do not belong to it myself, I believe I recognize what its goal means. However, I do not want to talk about my personal attitude toward it. I only want to indicate that, in my pain, I once detached myself from all intellectual dreams and have long since served human knowledge only where it has a creative effect in practical life. Thus, I believe I know how the spirit works in matter. And precisely because I understand this, I also believe I have the right to openly confess here that the union of the high spiritual knowledge that works on that side with the practical experience of life, which rushes from triumph to triumph in the realm of matter, can only be beneficial.

1. CITIZEN: It could only be beneficial if people like you wanted to take the lead in noble spiritual endeavors. As human beings, you would be able to speak openly to people. For although you may be superior to some in knowledge, you are connected to every human being by the foundations on which you build. You would not need to refer to hidden paths of the soul, which instead of leading to truth may only lead to error, because they rob the soul of its simple simplicity and first numb it, only to lull it into bliss with its own dreams instead of with knowledge.

2. CITIZEN: So spoke those who always sought the truth but did not want to endure the efforts that open the gate to truth for us. Few people would think of throwing themselves into the water without being able to swim. Yet everyone wants to live in the realm of knowledge without first treading the paths of knowledge. It seems to me that faith that entrusts itself to those who choose the spiritual realm for their life is better than faith that serves only its own opinion in vain overestimation.

4th CITIZEN: Man owes it to his dignity to choose his own soul as the sole judge in matters that bind him to spiritual worlds. Those who follow a leader other than the one who speaks to the depths of their hearts will soon lose sight of their true selves. Who can guarantee that they do not secretly and unconsciously harbor a human inclination toward a human leader, deceiving themselves into thinking that they are following the spirit when only earthly feelings are speaking?

1. CITIZEN: Those who follow such objections will always help to block the sources from which humanity's progress flows. The opponents of the leaders of humanity who wanted to lead the new age out of the dark Middle Ages drew on such thinking. The nature of resistance is changing; today, people do not light pyres or torture geniuses, but they resist them in other ways. The spirit of gloom remains the same, it only changes its forms.

FELIX BALDE: Allow me to say a few words as well.

In a long life, I have endeavored to find a path for the soul to the heights of the spirit. What the human spirit strives for in the realm of the senses and what now makes him a proud being through his mastery of nature: viewed from a high spiritual vantage point, it is only a path walked by the blind, who unconsciously follow the dark forces of their goals. And even the treasures of knowledge revealed to the common mind are only groping in dark realms. The soul must descend into deep shafts if it wants to reach the point that can reveal to it how human beings' ant-like work must be integrated into God's goals. I myself have struggled through my own strength, so that in humility I may believe that I have been allowed to see some rays of light. But when I was allowed to measure what I myself had found in the sun that shines from that spiritual union, it became clear to me that he had taken over the primordial wisdom of the human race from lofty predecessors and had been given the calling to transmit it appropriately to later generations. He will therefore best understand what Thomasius's deed means for true spiritual progress. And since it is in the spirit of the present that the manner in which Thomasius is allowed to proclaim high teachings must not remain restricted to the narrowest circles, the association is only doing its duty when it wants to combine its forces with yours.

1ST CITIZEN: We would only have to look at ourselves in shame if we wanted to take the same position on Thomasius's actions as these initiates want us to. They will always make us feel that only they themselves recognize the true value of what has happened, and that we must stand in the antechamber of their wisdom in order to present, in their sense, the heralds of a spiritual message that conforms to their goals.

DOCTOR STRADER: Many words are being exchanged here that do not seem worthy of the great task before us. Thomasius came to the work that is now to bring such tremendous light in a strange way. At the beginning of his present earthly life, he was not devoted to science. As a creative artist, he wanted to reveal his soul. Through a spiritual current deeply related to that which now wants to raise its voice for him, he was led to a work that, free of prejudice, like a miracle. I saw him at work on pieces that dismayed me, because at that time I could not gauge the sources from which his talent had been bestowed upon him. For him, however, all this was only a preliminary stage. He needed the inner strength that artistic sensibility bestows in order to achieve greater things. He left art behind and immersed himself in the study of nature, so that after ardent effort, everything that humanity has so far achieved in terms of insight into the secrets of nature was revealed to him. In his soul, artistic skill married with knowledge, and the deed was born that is now to flow like a mighty stream of spiritual power into human souls. Is not the effect of Thomasius' deed already prefigured in his life? It comes from deeply mysterious sources: must it not also find its way to the people from whom it itself originated through the power of those sources?

1. CITIZEN: The fruits of the new tree of wisdom do not truly reveal themselves in a way that can inspire us to become eager cultivators of its further development. People who look beyond the threshold they cross in death with pious faith can, in the consciousness of being a child of God, destroy many selfish impulses within themselves on earth. The prospect of recurring earthly lives makes everyone strive only for their own perfection; the bonds of blood and custom, which are believed to be only temporarily imposed by the great book of destiny on human beings, are loosened. Everywhere where Thomasius' new message is now spreading with stormy strides, it is spreading confusion about human feelings and human opinions.

2. CITIZEN: And unfortunately, one must recognize more and more every day how quickly this light is spreading. Where once, in warm feeling, the heart approached the spirit in piety and the soul, sensing eternity, bowed down, now cool calculation of a mad striving for perfection strangles the heart and mind. The simple joy of sensory revelation, in which people once absorbed God's life within themselves, is now shunned as the great deception. And when life appears dark, many today cast off the burden, thinking that repetition must bring something else. I have had to witness all this again and again with a shudder wherever I found the new teaching.

3. CITIZEN: That is precisely why we must ensure that the new message penetrates people's hearts with genuine power. That it must lead souls to what is right is proven by its very nature. If it still brings disaster, the reason lies in nothing other than the weakness of human beings, which has grown in the dullness of life that has surrounded them until now. Those who do not think with their heads alone, who feels permeated with the new light and its power with his whole being, knows that no source of soul life can dry up, no power of enthusiasm for true beauty can wane, no gift of true virtue can be lacking, when the noble revelation of truth fertilizes the field of human life.

FERDINAND REINECKE: Already the bearers of wisdom announce their coming to us. Let us see what they will grant us poor fools from their treasure of light.

2nd MASTER OF CEREMONIES: Dear friends, the signs of the times herald significant things. We, who feel called to be guardians of the forces that guide the course of human life, stand today at a turning point, and no less so do you, with whom we now have the task of uniting. Until now, the streams of work that lead humanity toward its goal had to flow separately in the course of time. Some of our human brothers did not know the foundations on which the soul must build if it wants to bind itself to the realm of the spirit. Many streams of light descended into their dull spiritual lives. And many believed that they knew the essence of that on which their faith depended. This essence itself had to be kept safe in the sacred places of consecration, where those who could bear the burden of the heavy trials of life could see the higher light. This is now to change. All people who are well-disposed toward the light of the spirit should be able to participate in the first degrees of enlightenment. This is how it is arranged in the plan of the world's progress.

1. PRAECEPTOR: My brother was allowed to announce to you the serious work we now face. It is not only our own will that we want to make a covenant with your souls today. We are following a revelation that speaks to you as clearly as it calls us to action. Until now, the threshold of our sacred place has been strictly guarded. A strong guardian had to stand before our gates. We had to keep away those whose souls were not yet prepared to approach the source of the Spirit in a genuine spirit of consecration. For outside our places there was no spiritual power that could create in souls that sense which can be a mediator for the highest light of truth. Since Thomasius can show the soul the way with all the means of our time, every heart is able to feel the urge for that consecration which true wisdom needs if it is to flow into human beings. Thomasius can unite you with us. We see it in the thinking of the world spirit; you can also perceive it if you follow your true sense.

THE GRAND MASTER: We feel ourselves to be guardians of ancient wisdom light. It was first entrusted to humanity shrouded in thick veils. It could be felt as dark impulses leading to the right. Humankind had to find itself in darkness before it was allowed to see its true origin. Only in this way could its nature be guided by its own power toward virtue, beauty, and wisdom. It would have had to drown in the foreign spirit if it had been spared the search. Only those who were willing to forego the happiness that springs from earthly spheres for the sake of human salvation were allowed to approach the source of the spirit. We do not say this out of arrogance that we may count ourselves among such people. We would only have to thank the grace of higher spiritual powers who chose us as their instruments. You will find it difficult to believe us now. But you will find faith when you realize that through many lives we had to let the treasures of the soul, which are to form your wealth in the future, dry up uncultivated. As much as appearances may conceal this, we were only allowed to guard the treasures of the temple because we proved ourselves indifferent to the gifts of the world. Thus we may approach you as brothers find brothers. We possess what you lack and what you shall become when your souls find their way back to the realms from which they sprang. Human souls today stand before times of great decision. And what Thomasius has accomplished is destined to significantly change the face of the spiritual striving of all people. The new science, which everyone can learn, incorporates the high spiritual light that until now could only be revealed to human beings who had struggled through hard trials and become familiar with the nature of the hard, to which we were appointed as guardians. That a man of Thomasius' kind must come one day: we have known since time immemorial, since our souls dwelt in bodies on earth in days long past. And our spiritual eyes were fixed on the moment when our mysterious signs would be imprinted in general forms of knowledge. The moment has come: it must also be recognized by human souls = knowledge of this kind can become yours if you come to yourselves in the right sense.

FERDINAND REINECKE: May a simple human child, who has always been far from the threshold of your place of wisdom, be allowed to ask why this place needs protection, what Thomasius can proclaim. If it is the truth, it will find its way. Even if it must do without such protection. One will only truly recognize its power when it must prevail on its own.

2nd PRAECEPTOR:
You can only speak in this way,
Because you are unaware of the confusion of the world's course.
Genuine truth has its own foundation;
But whether it can find its way into human souls,
That does not depend on it alone,
These souls must take care of that.
The truth may be ripe at a certain time,
But without mindfulness,
People may pass it by.
Then it may be for a long time
That the light is hidden,
And people remain in darkness to the detriment of the world's progress,
Longer than they should according to the world's plan.
That the eyes of the spirit should be sharpened,
To make people powerful guardians
Of the new light,
It is necessary that the strong impulses,
Which only the breath from our temple
Is able to awaken,
Carry enthusiasm in human hearts.

HILARIUS:
According to a mysterious law,
Spiritual plants must be nurtured
By forces from which they sprouted.
Thomasius stood at the time when in him
As an artist, the first gifts stirred,
Which, transforming themselves, made him the creator
Of the far-reaching words of wisdom,
Connected with a spiritual current
That is close to our work.
The man who was once the leader of that circle,
The guardian of the threshold,
Who cherished his friend Thomasius in his midst,
Has already withdrawn for many years
Into greater solitude,
Devoting himself to higher sacred service.
It has now been entrusted to us by him
To nurture the fruit in Thomasius,
Whose seed he once prepared.
Thomasius' message would soon disappear
From the minds of men,
If, removed from that spirit
To which it owes its origin,
Had to work alone.
It could only arouse
People's curiosity for a short time,
Before falling into oblivion.

1st MASTER OF CEREMONIES:
We, who through many earthly lives
Feel connected to this dear man,
Who, from the fountain of his wisdom,
Wanted to guide your thinking,
We know that it is not human words alone
That guide his tongue, but rather
Inspiration from higher spiritual realms,
Which he has to reveal in a solemn manner.
Therefore, everyone should praise as good fortune
Those who hear him and vigorously
Follow his instructions.

FERD. REINECKE:
The people he has summoned
To hear his instructions
Will probably have different opinions,
As will we, who stand outside your threshold,
How we should behave.
Allow us, therefore, to withdraw,
To deliberate on what we deem best,
That we may do our part.

DOCTOR STRADER:
But I, who already feel close
To your threshold,
Grant that I may remain a while longer.
The wise member of your covenant
Will himself speak before you,
To proclaim to you
How I intend to sacrifice my services to you.

2nd PRAECEPTOR: Sublime Master, the man
Who stands before you, after struggling through a difficult life
Has exchanged the path of pure science
For practical work.
But in his work
The power of his acquired wealth of knowledge
Has proven itself fully.
He has succeeded in solving a great mystery of life
In the most daring way.
The spirit of the new age
has undermined human freedom.
They had to live in masses,
crowded together and surrounded by dangers,
in machine rooms. Much thought
has already been given
to how human work
should be organized in a humane way.
The brave Doctor Strader
Has now, through his power distributor,
Ensured that the age of the machine
Must come to an end.
And free as individuals, all people
Can utilize the blessings of nature's forces for the good of the whole
In separate homes.
The man who has thus been able to transform the dark side of technology
into light,
wants to stand valiantly by our side,
as we want to carry the light of the spirit into wider circles.

DOCTOR STRADER:
The paths I had to walk through life,
first through pain and then in bliss,
Have led me to recognize
How only the deeds of the great Thomasius
Combined with your sacred temple treasure
Can grant blessings to the age
Into which humanity must now enter.
So let me be in your midst,
To offer my modest services
With yours to give for the salvation of mankind.

HILARIUS: My mind's eye recognizes in you
The man who will be able to fill the place in our midst
That I have had to see empty for so long.
To the brother who spoke for you,
Let it be entrusted to prepare your soul
To cross our threshold
In a manner befitting his dignity.

2nd MASTER OF CEREMONIES:
Thomasius will now appear in our circle
Following the words we
Have addressed to him. He will be accompanied
Maria, with whom he is reunited in friendship
After the bold victories of his life,
Having long had to avoid her
for spiritual testing.

(Thomasius and Maria enter, the latter in deep despondency.) —

1st MASTER OF CEREMONIES:
In the name of those spiritual beings
To whom our brotherhood is dedicated,
We requested your presence, Johannes.
It was foretold in the signs of the world
That in these times something important
Should take place that would give our paths
A new turn should take.
When we heard of your spiritual achievement,
We had to recognize that not only
The general approval of the outside world
Should be given to it, which has indeed happened so abundantly.
It became clear to us that in our consecrated work
It must be worthily incorporated.
Through you, the great feat of the spirit sprouted meaningfully from general science;
It must henceforth be counted among those
On whom the temple of consecration imprints its seal,
To show how the spirit that flows from above
Unites with that which comes from below.

HILARIUS:
My son, what you have accomplished,
The seal of ancient sacred science
Must be bestowed upon him,
And it will be carried
By the mysterious power of our sacrificial service
The spirits who are the masters of our temple,
To high thrones that reign in the realm of the spirit
And also in the realm of nature.
It flowed in the mother soil of humanity,
What we entrusted to hidden paths
In the course of the earth's becoming.
And your well-prepared soul,
It was allowed to fetch it from the human realm
As fruit that we must recognize from our seed
From true wisdom.
The heart that turns powerfully to you from the guardian of this temple
At this moment,
It belongs to a soul
The wisdom of the gods of the spiritual realm
Has wanted to open by grace.
Therefore, take as a message from the spirit realm,
What my mouth has to say to you.
The world will welcome your work
Through its own strong essence
But not only that, through all the powers
Which can lend to the work of our temple.

1. PRAECEPTOR:
   Thus, in the minds of many people,
   A new age will surely blossom,
   And new goals can be pursued,
   What humanity strives for on earth;
   For what paralyzed so many powers,
   Uncertainty about many mysteries of the soul,
   Will have to give way to the strength of the soul,
   Which, fully aware of its origin,
   Will be able to joyfully incline itself to creation.

THOMASIUS:
You have a victor, O high bearers of wisdom,
In me, who after many heated struggles
And years of mental effort
Has erected the proud edifice of knowledge,
And found it defended first
By the spirit of inquiry of my own soul
And now by the confession of many people.
Finally, raise up as a member of your temple treasure
You, this my work.
Blinded by such abundance of light,
It seems to me that only astonishment is fitting
Before what the power of the mind, through me,
A weak instrument, wanted to achieve.
And truly, if anything in the vast universe
Could drown out the voice of my own heart,
The words of the high master
Must be able to do so, who just now
Spoke to me so fatherly.
But in truth, man alone
May approach this temple.
Therefore, it befits me to do something else
Than to ask for your high protection.
For know that the accomplisher of the work,
Who found countless confessors,
To whom you wish to give consecration:
He stands as a renegade of his own message
In this hour before your judgment seat,
And with his own soul's contradiction
The terrible realization unites,
That here in this place recognition
May find what to the creator
Can only appear as error. —
As long as the work held me in chains
And I was driven from conclusion to conclusion
Rushing toward the deceptive goal,
The structure appeared rock-solid to me.
And it remained so for a long time,
After the work was completed.
Had it been otherwise, I would have understood
The effect
That emanated from my message.
But only late, when the numbness had faded,
The creative forces poured over my self,
And I faced myself again,
Then the resistance could awaken,
Which showed me in my own being
Quite clearly what an illusion
Had sprung from the spirit,
Which believed itself so secure, yes, that
The world could still hold firmly together at this hour.
The world, for which my edifice of knowledge
Was to provide a firm foundation
And which, from the depths of its being
In times when the spirit enters spiritual spheres
Can rise to conscious vision
Appeared in its own essence
And true form before my soul.
Oh, how different everything was there,
Than it had been drawn in my soul's delusion
In the well-constructed edifice of knowledge.
There I had to see
How error stands in relation to truth in reality.
Death is not only the destruction
Of the physical being that envelops the core of man,
It is also the destruction of what, as truth,
The shell with its senses can ever conceive.
And when the man will one day appear
Who brings true images of what
Lies beyond the threshold of death,
Then it will not be through harmony
with all that reason recommends,
the reality of the spiritual realm before the soul,
it will be through its conflict
with all that is temporal that the eternal being
will be brought to life in the heart.
You imagine yourselves to be the messengers of a higher world;
you want to have received from ancient times
A knowledge of the original forms of beings.
By entrusting it to the signs
That come from the realm of time,
You have already married it to delusion and delusional beings.
You have entered the realm of deception
And have the true essence of being,
That was once bequeathed to you,
Transformed into a caricature even more distorted
Than those dull human souls
Whom you wish to guide as leaders.
If delusion had departed from my errant soul at the right moment,
I would have found the strength
To proclaim to the whole world:
To cry out to the whole world:
O Avoid, O people, the error,
Which with glitzy arts
Creeps into your souls. —
Before I could, I received word
That your protection is with my message.
I hurried to my friend,
Who knew best
How I should find myself in this cruel hardship,
That your light of wisdom would shine brightly
Over my deception.
With words of wisdom deeply rooted
My noble friend met me,
But only a dark certainty seized me
The certainty that I had deceived myself,
And since my evil art had succeeded
In deceiving you too, that
In all the wide world the pillars of truth
Stand on rotten ground.
The compulsion that drives me here
To tell you freely that you too
Can only walk in darkness,
It takes more from man
Than spiritual spheres can ever give him.

2nd PRAECEPTOR:
Oh, what is happening, our master's
Illustrious head is darkening;
What affected us so terribly,
How can it also break his strong power?

1. MASTER OF CEREMONIES:
   There is no doubt, the clarity of mind,
   It has fled from Thomasius
   And now stands before us, bewildered,
   He who drew from the deepest sources of knowledge.

THOMASILTS:
Oh, if only that were so, but I feel
That what human wit calls clarity of mind
Was never more strongly mine
Than in this hour of difficult decision.
I must not spare you now either.
Through me, the whole world will learn
How the appearance of supreme wisdom
Reveals itself to its own creator as error.

HILARIUS:
So this too shall be a deception,
What has been shown to us over many millennia
In this spiritually consecrated place!
Away — as long as in our souls
A spark of such doubt lives,
We are unworthy to wear this garment.

(Exits with his brothers.)

MARY:
What was impossible has happened
In the course of the world's becoming must remain,
Whoever has walked even a part of the way
In faithful striving,
Which leads to the realm of spiritual beings.
John, the time was too short
When, after a long separation,
We were allowed to find each other again in love,
To confide in me what happened
In your sorely tried soul.
And to read with the eyes of the mind
In your soul, too great was the blow That struck my power of vision.
You must confide in me what
You must confide in me what
has opened the abyss in your soul.

THOMASIUS:
Know then, when I made the decision
to surrender myself to Lucifer's guidance,
it soon became clear to me
what consequences such an act would have.
I was soon able to descend into the deepest shafts of my being
and recognize
what my destiny had given me the power to do.
I discovered how artistic sensibility,
combined with research and the power of thought,
can be used to build a solid structure of the mind,
which my visionary powers had given me.
And such knowledge is always inseparable
From the urge to use all one's strength
To accomplish what one's strength is sufficient for.
So I acquired the treasures of knowledge
With righteous greed and serious diligence,
And as if guided by high spiritual powers,
I recognized what I should accomplish,
If a structure of thought were to arise,
That could find belief among the powers of our time.
And like a creative fever
It came over me.
Weeks flowed by like hours
In the pursuit of research, which carried me
Full of enthusiasm.

MARIA:
Through such guidance it becomes clear,
How in the world plan of evil power
Is used in the service of good.
The inclination, my friend,
Implanted in you by creative powers,
It entered those paths that belong to Lucifer,
For there were desires in your soul,
Which found expression in spiritual deeds.
And through one of those hard trials of the soul,
Which are destined for human beings,
You were seized by the pull of the leader
Of all forces of desire; but within you
Good was well laid by other powers.
Thus, in your soul, what is good
Has arisen, which the enemy of humanity
Wanted to steer toward evil.
Thus, within the human being,
The victories that the forces of good
Must achieve over the forces of evil
Are accomplished,
And field by field is wrested from the adversary
So it seems to me that your deed
Proclaims the victory of the wise powers,
To whom we were once united,
And who did not abandon you,
Even when you wanted to follow their opponents.

THOMASIUS:
So it might seem, if everything
already familiar to you, what I have experienced.
But it is only half of my fate.
When I was allowed to direct the gaze of the spirit
into past earthly lives,
I recognized myself as the brother of the woman
who appeared to you and me in this life
as a seer with strong gifts.
And what I had not even suspected before,
It arose after that spiritual stage,
Through which I knowingly allowed myself to connect with the master of desire,
With elemental force
In my soul. When I was deeply immersed
In my work, it often manifested itself
As wild haste, but when
My soul, weary, had to seek rest,
Then I could discover that the old bonds of blood
As the deepest love for Theodora
Had taken root in my soul.
As long as the work kept me busy,
I was numb and could believe
That the longing was meaningless.
But now that I have completed my work,
It is clear to me that this inclination
To see through its essence, fear prevents me.
I had to see how, through the bonds of fate,
The woman I long for
Is united with the man who, through her,
Was able to find his path in life.
May I doubt that future lives
Will preserve such a strong bond.
In accordance with my own teaching
I should look at the situation with a confident gaze;
But I tremble in cowardly fear
When I have to fathom the consequences of my inclination.

MARIA:
Thus man stands before the threshold of a strict guardian;
He shows him what, before the encounter,
Escapes the gaze through wise providence;
He releases the impulses of the soul
And lifts them into conscious being.
We approach him and learn everything
What slumbers within our being.
It must be the fate of the initiate
To live on fearlessly with such knowledge,
Which remains hidden from ignorance.
I see you, O friend, standing before this guardian.
Oh, if the powers of our wise guide
Were now inclined toward you,
To keep you far from those terrors,
Which are the consequences of true self-knowledge.

THOMASIUS:
O this being, which so eerily
Shows me myself,
I have seen it often, it is within me
And guides my life's goals,
Hidden from my will,
When it works in my earthly brain.
Am I a weakling if I
Want to compare myself to it?

THE DOUBLE:
So Thomasius will let the paths
Of his life unfold,
As I must want them to in him.
I work in him,
Without him knowing it completely,
And what he can know,
He must always accomplish,
What I mean in him.

LUCIFER:
You stand before the throne of the guardian of light,
Whom they call the master of desires
In the realm of earthly existence.
If I want to negotiate with Thomasius,
I turn to you.
He will want nothing else
Than what my will
Can effect in you from time to time.
You wanted to unite yourself with Mary.
A powerful urge draws you to her.
But you walk in earthly existence
and imagine yourself to be Thomasius,
so you tell yourself in human dreams
that you are connected only in spirit
and not through urges.
Thus you deceive yourself through the delusion of light
about the nature of darkness [yourself]
Within yourself.
Where light works in earthly delusion,
There I may grasp being,
For the truth of my being
Is only reflected in the earthly realm
As delusion.
As long as you wish to connect yourself to Mary
In such a way,
I can impress upon your soul
The miracle of the most sublime spiritual beauty.
I have no power over her.
She is connected to my enemies
With secure soul bonds,
And when she has served me
In all that radiates from her
Into you,
Then she may go into my enemies' realm
With her own soul.
There she will lament for eternity
The lost work she has done for you.
But you will shine as king in my realm
As a result of her work.
But she herself you must
Miss at your throne.

MARIA:
So it seems to your nature,
You ruler in the realm of desires,
And where you rule, you are right.
But you do not count the powers
Of my soul in your worldly reckoning,
Therefore I myself have appeared before your throne
As your adversary's faithful servant.
And the purpose of my coming shall be
To proclaim to you what lives in my soul
And what you cannot see
Despite all your spiritual eyes;
What must therefore become your message.
You will spare yourself
The further pursuit of John's soul,
When you learn
What lives in my soul.
When I once stood in a spiritual vision
Before the world tree,
Which in human sense lives as a symbol
Of good and evil,
And felt myself
As in the heart of the mother of life,
Listening to your tempting voice,
I made a solemn vow to my soul.
I have come to know the high bliss That can bring a person
By entering the high worlds of wisdom.
I know that whoever has felt the joys of knowledge
Once in the true light,
No other pleasure can compare with these;
Therefore I also know
That no renunciation can ever be harder for a human being
Than that of the desire for knowledge.
But I know from Benedict's high teachings
That whoever strives alone for perfection
But I know from Benedict's lofty teachings,
That those who strive for perfection alone
And immediately stifle in the bud
Any pleasure in the knowledge they have attained,
The power that consumes such pleasure
In one's own self,
Can flow into that gift
Through which we can bring another person
In their pursuit of knowledge,
When we try to send our own spiritual content
Lovingly into the soul of another.
So I will continue to help John;
Not that he may attain for himself
The summit of the highest wisdom,
But rather that he may succeed
In becoming human, in eradicating the selfishness
which has entered into all striving for knowledge
through your calling.
I know that Johannes alone
would have to struggle for a long time
if he wanted to detach himself from you.
But I offer him the sacrifice
that Benedictus has interpreted for me,
and so the struggle will be easy for him.
You proud ruler of the realm of desire,
You must now choose
Whether you want to prolong the struggle for his soul
For so long,
Until my power grows to its full strength.
Since I am sure of my will,
You will not be able to achieve anything
But waste your power in a war,
Which may last a long time,
But can never yield you victory.

LUCIFER:
If I only had to fight you
And John alone,
Then it would be so.
And since unreasonableness is not my way,
I would give you back
Your protégé's soul at this very hour.
But know that my spiritual adversaries
Must, according to a strict plan in the becoming of the world,
Place a burden on the soul
That bows to my kingdom.
Theodora, whom you in this earthly life
With the gift of clairvoyance
And who in a past life
Was Johannes' blood relative,
She hangs as such a burden on his soul.
Now I do not have the powers
That command the blood,
As long as life flows in the blood,
But I may well command
Over the death of blood.
John's being is so deeply connected to Theodora
That his life's ambition must be paralyzed
If I can kill Theodora.
And I will tune the tones of the world so
That to the extent that you
Remove John from me,
He must draw closer to Theodora.
He will find the urges ever growing,
Which chain him to her.
And I must succeed.
At the moment when I must see
You snatch his soul from me,
I will let Theodora perish in the realm of the dead.
That will mean the death of his soul.
You may then go to your gods.
You will abandon him
And what his spirit has achieved
Will be incorporated into my kingdom along with him.

THOMASIUS WITH MARY BEFORE LUCIFER —

LUCIFER TO THE DOUBLE: I see you at Mary's side; what lives in your soul will not be able to leave her. My spiritual adversaries have implanted strong impulses in your being — which draw you to her; but they have well ensnared your spiritual eye with deception; so it seems to you that you are connected to her in spirit = that gives me strength for my work = you will not want to break the bonds with Mary, for you will not want to kill yourself — you will reinterpret her in a spiritual sense, and thus you will be lost to me —

DOPPELGÄNGER: I see the conflict thus
Condemned for long earthly times;
For I must follow Johannes's mind,
As long as Maria can influence him.
Admittedly, this mind is only deception,
But the deception is reality
In the realm of the passage of time.
But I am drawn to the other side
Into your sphere of high lords of light,
For if I followed the urges
That chain me to Theodora,
I could never feel free as a spiritual being
In the universe;
I would be only a member of that entity
Who form themselves into the body of the world, your adversaries.

LUCIFER:
The true light of wisdom appears in you,
When you recognize me thus.
I do not want to make you a servant
In my own being;
You would become that in the realm of my adversaries.
I am the free son of the mighty prince of the world
and need nothing for the completion
of my own being
but the sight of such beings
who, fixing their gaze upon me,
desire within themselves to be like me.

DOUBLE:
So I feel, like the wisdom
Which belongs to my soul son
John as a human being,
Must always slander you.
To make me a limb on the body of the gods,
Your opponents strive,
As hands are limbs on humans,
Since you lead me to nothing else,
But to freely imitate you in your essence
And to belong only to myself as my own being.

MARIA: So you do not see how you now
Want to decide to bind yourself.
Sublimity in proud beauty's splendor
Shines from the sun-eye of the ruler of desires,
As from the deepest depths of the worlds.
Such a being comes from the fire of the soul
And is related to the fire spirit,
Which blazes in the soul of man,
And easily ignites one another.
Reflect, you father of my soul mate,
How higher must appear to you
The dignity that belongs to leadership,
Which I can accomplish for you in the name of my gods
At your side.
Johannes Knowledge is the gift of the good gods.
It is only a seed in this time
And therefore needs the care of the powers of the spirit,
But the seed will transform itself into fruit
And then shine freely in the realm of the spirit.
And freedom shall be yours in the future
Of a kind that does not yet exist.
The freedom that blossoms for you in this realm
Is of a lower kind,
As the world of old has long since produced.
It can entice you because it already exists.
But if you recognize your true power,
You will incline yourself toward those worldly goods
That are yet to come in the future.

DOUBLE:
I am powerfully drawn to the familiar,
And if I am to decide on goals,
I can only do so with those powers
That I possess and do not first have to find.
But the other being approaches me,
Which, together with you, inclines itself toward my soul.
It shall reveal to me
What it can become for me.

THEODORA: From the heights of good spirits springs
The light that may illuminate my soul.
I have never fought for powers
To open the eyes of my inner spirit.
I see such striving only in those people
Who follow only their thoughts with cold hearts.
And the spirit flows icily from them
Into the uniqueness of my being.
This is how I felt at the side of that man,
To whom the high powers of the spirit have assigned me
For the course of one earthly life.
I know that in Straders' being
I had to resolve the heavy worries
That plunged his soul into darkness.
But I am also aware that this
will only last for a short time.
That a lasting bond with Johannes
will connect me to him was revealed to me long ago
and is significantly indicated
in the blood ties of past earthly days.
We were born of the same parents
as a symbol of our bond for eternity.

BENEDICTUS:
We stand here on the ground of the spiritual realm,
Which lies beyond the realm of earthly existence.
And what is reflected on earth only as thoughts,
Is revealed here as strict reality. —
As the fruit of his spiritual training, Johannes has been allowed to bring
bring the best earthly knowledge to mankind.
And if such knowledge alone
could bring salvation and blessing to the world,
the way in which he proclaimed his knowledge
would have to prove itself effective in the long term.
But this knowledge alone is meaningless.
It works through those forces that unfold in man
As his personal life unfolds.
Johannes' message mysteriously works
With this, his soul being itself on people.
Therefore, the message will only bring salvation
If he can find the way in the spiritual realm
That is appropriate for the proclaimer of good wisdom.
His work will be ruinous to earthly life,
When Theodora's life expires.
The spirit before us is capable
Of erasing this life from the realm
In which it alone is capable of working.
And this work of death has already begun.