The Origin and Goal of the Human Being

GA 53 — 2 March 1905, Berlin

Goethe's Secret Revelation III

“The New Melusine” and “The New Paris”

In the two previous lectures, I attempted to analyze the fundamental symbols in Goethe's profound fairy tales. We have seen how Goethe, like the mystics of all ages, expressed the truths he considered most profound in meaningful, colorful symbols.

Today, allow me to add two other fairy tales: “The New Melusine” and the so-called boys' fairy tale “The New Paris.” It might seem that there is something artificial and contrived in these fairy tales, but you will see, if you delve deeper into these images, that here too only an esoteric, mystical interpretation makes it possible to arrive at an explanation.

Goethe inserted the fairy tale of “The New Melusine” at a significant point in his “Wanderjahre” (1807). Anyone who delves into Goethe's mind will never succumb to the superficial view that this is merely a juxtaposition of images, like in a kaleidoscope, or a mere play with images. Instead, they will realize that Goethe was expressing his deepest inner feelings here.

A man tells the story of how, in order to develop his soul to higher abilities, he “renounced language insofar as it expresses something ordinary or accidental; but from this he developed another talent for speech, which has a deliberately clever and delightful effect.” Like this man, Wilhelm Meister himself has dealings with secret societies and is guided by mysterious leaders.

The man repeats and organizes the rich experiences of his life in his quiet mind. This is combined with imagination, which gives life and movement to what has happened. It is therefore a philosopher who speaks to us in this fairy tale, and at the moment when, at the end of the story, he feels the longing to develop his soul to a higher state, he also understands the ideals of the philosophers.

Let us now allow the main features of the fairy tale of the “New Melusine” to pass before our eyes, leading us deep into Goethe's essence.

A young man meets a strange woman in an inn who makes a great impression on him. He sees that she carries a small box with her and keeps it carefully. He asks if he can do anything for her, do her a favor. She asks him, since she has to stay here for a few days, to continue the journey with the box in her place. But he should always take a special room for the box and lock it with a special key so that the door cannot be opened with any other key. He departs. On the way, he runs out of money; the lady appears and helps him. He spends the money again; he believes that there might be something in the box that could be turned into money. He discovers a crack in the box, looks inside, and sees something bright shining in it. He sees a living room with a whole population of dwarves, including the girl. So it exists in two forms, outside in a large version and inside in a small version. He is greatly frightened; the lady appears to him again and he receives information about the box. The lady tells him that her true form is that of a dwarf.

This race of dwarves had existed long before humans, when the earth was still in a fiery state. It had not been able to survive because a race of dragons had waged war against it. To save the dwarves, a race of giants is created, but they soon side with the dragons, so that to protect the dwarves, who have retreated to the mountains, a new race of knights, or as it was called in the original version, heroes, must be created. Now dragons and giants stand on one side, and dwarves and heroes on the other. However, the dwarves are becoming smaller and smaller, so that it becomes necessary for someone from their race to come to the upper world from time to time to draw new strength from the realm of humans.

The young man wants to unite with the lady, and after a few other adventures, she tells him that he must become a dwarf himself. She slips a ring onto his finger, and the young man becomes as small as a dwarf and enters the world he saw in the box. He is now united with the lady. But soon he longs for the land of humans, so he obtains a file, saws through the ring, suddenly shoots up, and is human again.

At the end of the fairy tale, when the young man's longing to be human again awakens, Goethe makes an interesting remark that is important for understanding the fairy tale. He has the young man say: "Now I understood for the first time what philosophers mean by their ideals, which are supposed to torment people so much. I had an ideal of myself, and sometimes appeared to me in my dreams like a giant!"

Let us now see what Goethe wanted to say with this fairy tale. The dwarf race, created before dragons, giants, and humans, leads us on the trail. The dwarf people “are still as active and busy as they were in ancient times. In the old days, swords that pursued the enemy when thrown at him, invisible and mysterious binding chains, and impenetrable shields were their most famous works. But now they are mainly concerned with matters of comfort and adornment.” This refers to what mystics call the “spark” in the human soul, the human ego, which the deity placed in the human body. This human ego once had magical powers, secret magical powers; now it serves to make the earth subservient to humans in all works of culture; in all this, the human spirit, the ego, is at work.

What is the box? A world, a small world, but a complete world. Man is a microcosm, a small world within a large one. The box is nothing but an image of the human soul itself. The human mind, the consciousness of the present, as we have come to know it in the fairy tale of the green snake in the old man's wife, is what creates images of the whole big world, images in miniature. What is it that is summarized in the human soul as the sum of thoughts? It is the spiritual spark. If we could look into the human soul, we would discover the spiritual spark that was ignited in the distant past in humans endowed only with a dull dream consciousness, with the seed of future stages. Preceding all physical states is this spiritual spark that glows in the human soul. Compared to the future greatness, the perfection of the human being, what lives in him today is only a seed, only something dwarf-like.

In the past, there were other human races; before ours, there were the Atlanteans, before them the Lemurians, and so on. In the middle of this third, the Lemurian race, the gift of the spiritual spark, of consciousness, occurred. The ego is the seed of eternity in human beings, which can rise to self-conscious life through human development.

This consciousness came from another world, so it preceded the origin of human beings and was there earlier than the other components of human beings (Kamamanas). This ego consciousness is still paired with passion today. The true philosopher strives to free the divine in man from the sensual, so that it becomes aware of its divine origin; Manas is freed from Kama. This liberated Manas then develops from within itself Buddhi, the consciousness of being in the divine world, in order to then strive toward Atma.

We know that this spiritual essence of man has passed through various forms. One of these states is referred to as that of the dragon. In H. P. Blavatsky's “The Secret Doctrine,” we also hear of fiery dragons as symbols of the time when man descended from his higher spirituality.

The passage through the crude physical form is represented by the giants. Human beings must be ennobled; they ascend to ever finer forms, becoming heroes and knights. These spiritual knights have always sought to form an alliance with the ideal of true humanity; they are to live in harmony with the dwarves. “And it turns out that afterwards, giants and dragons, as well as knights and dwarves, have always stuck together.”

Now it is said of the woman “that everything that was once great must become small and diminish; so too are we in the case that since the creation of the world we have been diminishing and becoming smaller, but above all others the royal family.” Therefore, “from time to time, a princess must be sent out of the royal house into the country to marry an honorable knight, so that the dwarf race may be refreshed and saved from complete decline.” For the younger brother has turned out to be so small “that the nurses have even lost him from his swaddling clothes and no one knows where he has gone.”

A ring is now brought — the ring is always a symbol of personality — and through this ring the dwarf becomes human and unites with the spirit knight.

How does the race of dwarves develop? By passing through physical humanity, through the various states of consciousness. How does the present consciousness develop further? Through the law of karmic human development. Let us first consider an example. The child learns to read and write; the efforts and exercises it makes in the process pass away; what remains is the ability to read and write. The fruit of its labor has been absorbed by the human being. What was initially external, spread throughout physical nature, has become a part of itself. “What you think and do today is what you will be tomorrow,” or as the Bible puts it: “What you sow, you will reap.”

We are the products of past times. Our soul would be empty if it did not gather experience from the outside world. How would the soul wither away if it did not learn lessons from the outside world?

If we really want to make the things we experience our own, we have to process them. This is the law of evolution and involution, through which we enhance our being. We must gather strength from our surroundings. We gather experiences in the outside world in order to make them our spiritual property. The spirit then processes the experiences it has gathered during moments of celebration in order to return to the outside world again and again. Our concepts would wither away if we withdrew from the outside world. It is a spiritual breathing process, a “give and take.” We develop our inner world outwardly and absorb the outside world. Goethe has portrayed this process of evolution and involution in a meaningful way in this fairy tale. This is indicated by the young man's words about what are called ideals. Ideals are what is not yet, what is to be realized in the future. What sets humans apart from everything else is the possibility of setting ideals for themselves, the possibility of moving toward a higher future. By giving reality the possibility of growing into a higher future, humans cultivate idealism.

Goethe also beautifully expressed this truth in the fairy tale “The New Paris.” In this fairy tale, Goethe speaks of himself. It appears at the beginning of “Poetry and Truth.” Shortly before, in “Poetry and Truth,” the young child Goethe seeks to approach “the great God of nature, the creator and sustainer of heaven and earth” by building an altar to him. “Natural products should present the world as a mental image, above which a flame should burn, signifying the human mind looking up to its creator.” The boy lights the flame of the incense candles in the light of the rising sun. But in doing so, he damages all sorts of things and comes to the conclusion “how dangerous it is to try to approach God in such ways.” We have seen in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily that Goethe was convinced that the only way to approach the deity was for man to awaken the abilities slumbering within him. In the “boy's fairy tale” he also points to this path.

This fairy tale begins with Goethe describing how, as a boy on Pentecost Sunday, the god Mercury appeared to him in a dream and gave him three beautiful apples, one red, one yellow, and one green. They turned into precious stones in his hand, and he saw in them three female figures for whom, at Mercury's behest, he was to choose three worthy young men.

As he gazes at them in amazement, they disappear; a fourth female figure appears, dances on his hand, and, as he tries to catch her, strikes him on the forehead, causing him to lose consciousness.

When he awakens, he dresses festively to go visiting and comes to the gate, where he finds a strange doorway in the wall. It has no key.

A man with a long beard opens it from the inside; he resembles an Oriental, but makes the sign of the cross, showing that he is a Christian. He shows the boy the garden, which is wonderfully beautiful. From the bushes, the birds call out clearly: “Paris,” “Paris,” then again “Narcissus,” “Narcissus.”

Then the new Paris sees an even more magnificent garden behind a kind of living wall. He asks if he may enter. The old man allows it, after he has taken off his hat and sword. Led by the old man's hand, he sees even more wonderful things. Behind a lattice of swords and partisans, he sees an even more beautiful garden, surrounded by a canal. Now he must first put on another garment; he is given a kind of oriental costume. Three strange ropes are shown to him as a warning. Now the swords and partisans lie across the water and form a golden bridge, and he steps inside. On the other side, he is met by the girl he had dancing on his hand and who slipped away from him. She leads him to the three ladies from the apples, who are dressed in the appropriate robes and play certain instruments.

The female figure, whom he has recognized as belonging to him, refreshes him with fruit. He is enchanted by the wonderful music. Then he and the girl begin a game with little soldiers. Despite the warning, he and the girl become enthusiastic; he destroys her fighters; they throw themselves into the water, which foams up, the bridge on which the game was taking place breaks apart, and the boy finds himself soaked and thrown out on the other side.

The old man comes, threatening with the three ropes that are to punish those who abuse his trust. The boy saves himself by saying that he is destined to bring three worthy young men to the three maidens. He is now politely shown out the door. The old man points out various landmarks to him so that he can find the gate again. The importance of their position in relation to each other points to medieval astronomy.

When the boy returns, the gate is no longer there, and the three objects, the table, the well, and the trees, are in different positions in relation to each other. But he believes he notices that after some time they have changed their position in relation to each other, and so he hopes that one day all the signs will come together. He concludes significantly: “Whether I can tell you what happens next, or whether I am expressly forbidden to do so, I cannot say.”

The fairy tale, written in 1811, shows in every line that we have something deeper to look for in it. It is not for nothing that Goethe linked it to the legend of Paris, not for nothing that he changed it so much. The legend of “Paris and Helen,” the Trojan War, is well known. Paris is to give the apple to the most beautiful of the three goddesses; in return, he wins Helen. Goethe reverses the situation: there are three women, later four, for whom the new Paris must choose the young men. The boy is led into a kind of mystery, it is enclosed three times, he must fulfill ever new conditions. A kind of war game develops, a reflection, not a real war. Let us now follow the fairy tale step by step.

By describing the content of the fairy tale as originating from the god Mercury, Goethe indicates that he perceives what he experiences in this fairy tale as a message from the deity. Mercury tells the boy that he has been sent by the gods with an important mission.

Goethe always insists that the states of human consciousness are represented by women. In this fairy tale, there are also four women who appear to the boy at the very beginning, as if sent by the god Mercury. Significantly, the first thing Mercury gives him is apples. The apples turn into beautiful gemstones, one red, one yellow, and one green. The three gemstones then become three beautiful female figures whose dresses are the color of the gemstones. However, they float away from the boy when he tries to hold on to them. But instead of them, a fourth female figure appears to the boy, who then becomes his guide.

In the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily, Goethe also refers to four states of consciousness of the human soul through four female figures. In the fairy tale for boys, these four women are characterized even more intimately by the mystical colors they wear. If we want to understand the nature of these women and the colors they wear more closely, we must look at the states of consciousness that humans currently have and those that they can acquire through the development of their soul forces.

Humanity today lives on Earth in the mineral cycle; through its physical body, the human being is related to minerals. All substances found in the physical human body in chemical compounds — whether salts, types of lime, metals, and so on — are also found outside in nature. The human soul lives within this physical human body. Passing from incarnation to incarnation, the human soul lives again and again a life between birth and death in a body that it receives at birth or even at conception. In each incarnation, the human soul has a wealth of experiences to go through. It becomes richer and richer as a result. One could also say that it becomes purer and purer, because the soul, which originally lived in raw instincts and desires and then reappears in a new body within a cultural world, lives differently in this cultural world than it would, for example, within a body belonging to a wild tribe. Now the human soul lives in Kamamanas, that is, in a spirituality that is still used to satisfy human instincts and passions. But more and more, the longing to ascend to a higher spirituality also arises in the human soul. In occultism, this state of the soul is represented by the color red, which is illuminated from within — that is, not a dull red — but a light red, radiant from within; in the knowledge of initiation, red signifies consciousness of the astral world. When human beings increasingly draw the content of their souls, the inner life of their souls, not from what their physical environment provides them, but increasingly kindle an inner, spiritual life in their souls, this life of the human soul is symbolized by the color yellow, again a light, radiant yellow.

When a person has reached the point where they no longer live in their narrow-mindedness, when they feel connected in sympathy with the whole world, when they feel as if they are rising up into the universe, then this state of the human soul is described in occultism by a shade of green, a light green. This is the color that the human soul shows in the aura when the individual consciousness pours out into the whole world.

Thus, these women, who are also precious stones, are symbols of what the boy should make of his soul. The connection to these soul formations is established by the present consciousness, which guides and leads us to all knowledge. It is symbolized by the fourth figure, the little figure that “danced back and forth” on the boy's fingertips. This is the ordinary mind. Through its present consciousness, the human being ascends to higher things; it forms the guide into the sanctuary. Only the fourth state of consciousness, represented by the girl, is already present; the other three are only present in potential, yet to be developed. There is something that emerges in the soul like a memory; something lives in the soul that points back to earlier states. In particularly solemn moments, man penetrates these earlier states of the soul. The young man has been given a special task by Mercury. Goethe refers here to his mission. He remembers earlier initiations.

The fairy tale now tells how the boy is miraculously led to a place he has never been before — indeed, a place he has never seen in his otherwise familiar surroundings. An old man approaches him and leads him into a beautiful garden; first he leads him around an outer circle within the garden. Birds call out to the boy, especially the chattering starlings; “Paris! Paris!” call some — and “Narcissus! Narcissus!” call others. The boy wants to go deeper into the garden and asks the old man for permission; the old man grants his request on the condition that he take off his hat and sword and leave them behind.

The old man then leads him by the hand closer to the center of the garden. There he finds a golden gate. Behind it, the boy sees gently flowing water, revealing a large number of gold and silver fish in its clear depths. He wants to go further to find out what the heart of the garden is like. The old man agrees, but only on new conditions: the boy must change his clothes. He is given an oriental robe, which he likes very much. He notices three green ropes, each twisted in a special way, so that they appear to be tools for a not very desirable use. When he asks about the meaning of the ropes, the old man says that they are for those who abuse the trust that is placed in them here. Now the old man leads him to the golden gate; there are two rows of golden spikes, one outer and one inner; both lower themselves toward each other, forming a bridge over which the boy now enters the innermost part. Music sounds from a temple, and when he enters it, he sees the three female figures sitting in a triangle; the wonderful music sounds from their instruments. The little guide is also there again and takes care of the boy.

These are the three realms of existence into which the boy is gradually led by the old man. He comes from the world of everyday life into the first realm, the astral world, where he finds the animals calling out to him. But he wants to go further and further into the center of existence. Something in his soul urges him to develop — to ascend ever higher. He has brought the predisposition for this ascent with him since birth; for he has come from a world in which he was a spiritual-soul being into the darkening of this spiritual-soul being by the physical world. But the urge toward the spirit has remained awake in his soul — it points out to the soul that there is something it remembers in the solemn sun-filled moments of life. Then the memory of earlier stages of existence also emerges, and with it the realization that these stages have given rise to a mission for the present stage of existence. The boy feels that this mission is based on experiences from his earlier incarnations. “I once received the consecration” — he has brought this consecration with him from earlier stages of existence. The memory arises in him of a former initiation he received in a previous life. There, too, the Master took him by the hand and guided him from stage to stage. There, too, he had to perform the symbolic act of laying down his hat and sword. He had to lay down everything that connected him with the everyday life of the physical world. This is what anyone who ascends to become a chela, a spiritual disciple, must always do; he must do it within himself. That is why such a person is called a “homeless person”; he has laid down what ordinary people call their home. This does not mean being torn out of life; he stands firm in his position, but his own life is removed from the world that surrounds him.

Then, if he wants to be guided further by the Master, he reaches the second stage; he must change completely – lay aside all the clothes of his present existence. He is dressed in oriental clothing. This is an indication that all impulses for humanity to attain ever new wisdom have come from the Orient. (Ex oriente lux.)

Now the boy in his oriental clothing is gifted with what in the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” the old man with the lamp is as the ancient wisdom of the human race, gifted with a soul capacity for remembering ancient states of initiation – he is led to the stream that separates the soul realms from the actual spirit realm. The stream of passions, the astral world, is not raging and roaring, it is “a gently flowing water, which in its clear depths revealed a large number of gold and silver fish, moving back and forth, sometimes gently, sometimes quickly, sometimes individually, sometimes in shoals.” This is an image of how, once a person has brought the astral world within themselves to rest, they can find valuable insights in this world instead of raging passions.

Swords lie across the stream that separates the astral world from the inner, spiritual realm. Man must sacrifice that which he otherwise has for his protection. That through which he remains in his separateness, his personal ego, he must sacrifice; it must become a bridge to cross over into the spiritual realm. Human beings must experience “die and become.” Two rows of swords lean toward each other and form the bridge over which the boy crosses, an inner and an outer row. This is an image of how a lower and a higher self-consciousness must unite in order to enable human beings to cross over into the spiritual world.

Now we can also see why this boy's fairy tale bears the name: “The New Paris.” It is Paris of whom Greek mythology tells that before his birth, his parents were frightened by the prophecy that the boy who would be born would consume everything with his fire. He is therefore abandoned after his birth; a bear nurses him for five days. He grows up and, after many adventures, is rewarded by being married to Helen. Helen, however, is synonymous with Selene—the daughter of the light of wisdom. Selene is the symbol of the moon. Thus, in Greek mythology, the marriage of Paris and Helen represents the union of man with the consciousness that is to lead him to ever higher levels.

Narcissus is the other word that the chattering starlings called out to the boy. Narcissus is said to be the son of the river god Cephissus and to have been conceived in union with a nymph. Narcissus is therefore also of supernatural rather than earthly origin.

It is also said that he once saw his reflection in the mirror of a spring. This delighted him so much that he could not stop staring at himself. He rejected all the enticements of a nymph who approached him, completely absorbed in his own image.

Narcissus is a symbol of the human ego, which wants to remain in its own self, in its own particularity. If a person remains closed in their ego, hardened in their ahamkara, if they cannot escape their own small human existence, if they only ever look within themselves, in love with their own ego, then they cannot transcend themselves, then they lose the awareness that their ego has its true home in a spiritual world, then they cannot ascend with their ego to this spiritual home, he remains “a gloomy guest on the dark earth.” He cannot then develop the higher consciousness within himself that leads him upward; he must wither away. Only he who can unite with the higher feminine in his soul will ascend through this. Paris marries the daughter of light, Selene-Helena. Narcissus, however, is in love with his own nature and rejects union with the spiritual being who approaches him as a nymph.

When the boy is called “Paris—Narcissus,” he is faced with a choice: What do you want to carry within you, the nature of Paris or the nature of Narcissus? Everyone who wants to become a chela, a spiritual disciple, is faced with this question. Everyone must choose for themselves the path they want their soul to take.

The boy chooses the path of Paris, in accordance with the urge that has been working in his soul since a previous incarnation; he wants to become “the new Paris.” If he chooses the path to initiation, he must therefore also learn about the so-called dangers of initiation. These are symbolically represented by the three ropes. In the initiation schools, the ropes that are placed around the student's neck represent various symbols. Among other things, they represent the threefold nature of human beings in the world. That which arises from this threefold nature of human beings constricts around their necks when they break the trust placed in them during initiation.

Since the boy wants to become “the new Paris,” he is allowed to be led across the bridge by the old man who guides him. He enters the second circle, which is surrounded by the stream, the water of the astral world. There he finds a wonderful garden that seems to him like a reflection of heaven on earth. And in the middle of this magnificent garden, he now sees the innermost center, a temple surrounded by porticoes, from which heavenly music emanates. He has arrived in the realm of the spiritual world, which reveals itself through sound: in the realm of the creative word of the world, which resounds through the world in the harmony of the spheres. Here he finds again the three female figures who were first sent to him by the god Mercury.

The image that the boy now experiences expresses what a person can experience when they have reached the stage of initiation. At this stage, a person is able to receive messages from higher worlds.

The woman in the red robe first turns to the boy; when the red stone is given to a person, it gives them the power to gain insight into the spiritual world. This is the first stage of initiation. The second stage is not merely imagination, but life in the spiritual world. Here, the human being still feels like a special being, a spirit among spirits, but still separate. They feel, so to speak, like a note that has not yet entered into the symphony. This stage is represented by the woman in the yellow robe.

Then the human spirit learns to fit into the harmony of the spheres, it learns to feel itself as a member of the spirit world, like a note that resonates in the symphony of the world. Then the human being attains the green stone; this is represented in the image by the woman in the green robe. The fairy tale says of this woman in the green robe: "She was the one who seemed to pay the most attention to me and direct her play toward me; only I could not understand her . . ., but however she behaved, she won me over little, for my little neighbor . . . had completely captured my attention . . . and when I clearly saw in those three ladies the sylphs of my dream and the colors of the apples, I understood that I had no reason to hold on to them."

The boy feels that, even though his initiation gives him insight into those high, creative realms of the world, he will still have to work his way into life in them. First, he must still come to terms with his little guide, the fourth woman, the human mind.

This happens through a war game. The fairy tale says: The little girl led the boy to the golden bridge, where the war game was to take place. They lined up their armies. Despite the warning, he and the girl became enthusiastic, and the boy defeated the little girl's army, which “ran back and forth and finally lost itself against the wall, I don't know how.”

The Paris of Greek mythology is the cause of the Trojan War, which symbolically represents the downfall of one race of mankind and the rise of a new race in which the ego in each individual human being is to unfold its effectiveness. The “new Paris” remains the victor in a battle that is actually a game, that is only the image of a battle that has no external reality. This war game between the human mind and that part of man which carries within itself the consciousness that it descends from the divine is not something that has external reality; it is something that lives only in the spirit, which is such that it takes place as if in the mirror image of a spiritual event in the human soul. It is not in life, but in art that Goethe should proclaim the higher things he beholds. He should speak in mental images, in images.

After the battle is over, the boy meets the old man, his first guide, again, and now the awareness of his own deepest being is so firmly kindled in him that he can call out to the old man the words that will henceforth live within him. “I am a favorite of the gods!” he calls out to the old man. But he still wants to live with what he asks of the old man as a reward: he wants his guide, the little creature! As a seeker of knowledge, he wants to lead his life in such a way that, for the time being, good human reason will be his guide.

Then he is outside. The old man "pointed to some objects on the wall, across the path, while at the same time pointing backward to the little gate. I understood him well; he wanted me to memorize the objects so that I could find the little gate again, which closed behind me unexpectedly. I now took good note of what was in front of me. The branches of ancient walnut trees towered over a high wall... the branches reached up to a stone tablet... but I couldn't read the inscription. It rested on a corbel, a niche in which an artificially crafted fountain poured water from bowl to bowl into a large basin that... disappeared into the ground. The fountain, the inscription, the walnut trees, everything stood vertically above each other.

The boy stands outside; looking back, he remembers the experiences of his previous incarnation, and at the same time he looks ahead to a moment in the future. This initiation, which he remembers, is followed after some time by a second one; the initiation of wisdom was once followed by the spiritual initiation.

The image of the tree, the tablet with the inscription, the fountain from which the water flows, is clothed in a symbol of knowledge that found expression in the Middle Ages in ancient astrological mysticism. It gives the boy a glimpse into the future: when the same constellation of stars occurs again, the same one under which you have now found your way to the place where man is initiated, when the constellation of stars repeats itself for you in the future, then the gate will be opened to you anew — then the initiation will be repeated for you at a higher level!

He looks forward to a moment of reality when he will experience what he experienced as a prelude to initiation. He looks to a distant future in which he will enter the world and represent what he has experienced in previous incarnations.

A certain constellation of stars was present at the moment when he was initiated. These signs must be repeated if initiation is to be possible at a higher level. Then the gate will be visible again, and it will depend on permission whether more can be said about what happens next.

This subtle mood, the intimate forces at play, all this must be taken into account when talking about this fairy tale.

As we can see, Goethe also depicts the evolution of the human soul in these two fairy tales. In his “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” he expressed his conviction of a soul development that is valid for all human beings in colorful, rich, vivid images. In these two fairy tales, “The New Melusine” and “The New Paris,” he presents the initiation into the higher mysteries to our soul in a way that was appropriate to his own nature. An individual path of soul development of Goethe's own soul is presented in these two fairy tales. All his later spiritual striving — in the spirit appropriate to Goethe's soul — is particularly contained in the “Boy's Fairy Tale.”

In a fragment, “The Journey of the Sons of Megaprazon” — begun in 1792 but never continued — Goethe also wanted to depict a path of development for the human soul. This fragment also points to the greatness of what he had to say, and here too he refers to a constellation of stars. “Venus” and “Mars” are the last words that have been preserved for us.

A father sends his seven sons on a long journey to strange lands that have not been discovered by others. These are the seven fundamental parts of the human being referred to in theosophy. The father gives these seven sons his blessing: “Happiness and prosperity, good courage, and joyful use of your powers.” Each of the seven sons has received his own gifts from nature; he must now apply them and seek his happiness and perfection through them, each brother in his own way. This fragment, “The Journey of the Sons of Megaprazon,” was also intended to depict the journey to the spiritual land of ancient wisdom, which human beings can reach if they develop what is germinally present in the fundamental parts of their being, if they attain higher states of consciousness through this development. A fragment of the plan for the spiritual journey into the spiritual realm shows how Goethe wanted to depict this journey.

Thus, we have taken only a few brief glimpses into Goethe's innermost being and discovered more and more wisdom and truths that shine through his wonderful poems.

It is therefore understandable that his contemporaries looked up to him as a guide to unknown worlds. Schiller and a few others recognized, or at least sensed, what lived within him. But many passed him by without understanding. Germans still have much to do to exhaust what is revealed in their great minds. Otherwise, the words Lessing spoke about Klopstock will apply all too well to them:

Who would not praise Klopstock?
But will everyone read him? - No.
We want to be less exalted
And more diligent in our reading.

Our great minds want to be recognized, then they lead to tremendous spiritual deepening.

They also lead to the worldview represented by theosophy. Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of those who sensed what lived in Goethe's soul, welcomed the first translation of the Bhagavad Gita in 1823 with the deepest understanding. “It is worthwhile,” he said, “to have lived so long in order to absorb these treasures.”

Thus, those who learned from Goethe were prepared for the theosophical worldview.

There is still much to learn from Goethe!