Goethe and the Present

GA 68c — 31 December 1907, Berlin

XXI. On “The Mysteries” by Goethe

Medieval Christianity has the three wise men from the East represent the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. Just as such things are linked to great truths in esotericism, so too is the illusion that one king is a Moor, the second a European and the third an Oriental. The three wise men from the East are connected with great cosmic truths. Just a fortnight ago, we said that Theosophy would restore to man direct perception, a correct understanding of what happens in the course of a year, so that changes show us how our spirit coincides with cosmic events.

Just as we do not see merely a physical movement when a human eye looks at us, but rightly draw conclusions about the inner state of a human soul from the outer gaze of the eye, so the theosophist realizes that in every thunder and lightning, in every breath of air, in every sunrise and sunset, only the physical expression of spiritual entities is to be sought. And just as everyday events give beings a sense of the beings behind them, so the regularly recurring phenomena of the year reveal the deeds of a divine spirit that works according to law. We see how the power of the sun grows more and more from spring onwards, how the sun regains its power from the shortest days, how it awakens the veiled life of the earth and lets it sprout anew, how the power of the sun is expressed in external deeds. From a certain day on, the power of the sun decreases again, the days become shorter and shorter. When the least physical power of the sun reaches us, life withdraws below the surface of the earth. Man can feel and experience that behind all the deeds of outer nature stands the spiritual creation of spiritual beings.

If he penetrates even deeper, the teachings that were cultivated within the mysteries tell him that not only does this take place, but that with the increasing solar power, the activity of the solar beings decreases, that at the time when the external solar power is weakest, another power increases. In the shortest time, another, a spiritual power is strongest. When the darkness is at its greatest, there is a light during the course of the year that shines most brightly; the traditions of the mysteries have always expressed this. Christmas is connected with the deep wisdom of the world. All legends tell us that the gods sleep at midday. There are regions where the churches are open all day, only closed at noon; this is based on the same premise. What Christian humanity celebrates as Christmas can only be understood from the mystery teaching. The disciple was shown the sun and the moon, as they alternate in their normal course. They were especially pointed out to the fact that during the night the earth itself veils the sunlight. At Christmas, in the deepest silence, the disciple is shown a transparent earth through which the sun can be seen. “To see the sun at midnight” is the ancient custom of Christmas. Those for whom matter is no obstacle can see through the earth to the sun on the other side, namely the sun beings. Contrary to the tradition that the gods sleep at noon, it was believed that the gods watch at midnight, because at midnight the spiritual light can be seen best. This should be done with particular solemnity at Christmas. We can understand that this has continued to have an effect into our time, since Christmas is in this season. Esoteric Christianity also sees a body in the sun, and just as man is not content to merely observe the body physically, so the Christian is aware that through the sun the body of a spiritual entity becomes visible and that Christ is the head of spiritual entities.

Now the physical fact that the moon reflects sunlight is an expression of a spiritual fact that underlies the physical one. Even in the Hebrew era, people said: Before the power of Christ works and creates in the earth itself, it works in an indirect way. The Jewish law before Christ was the spiritual background of the moon. As long as the people of the Earth were immature and not ready to receive the power of Christ, they had to receive the reflected light of the moon. Through Moses we received the law; the law was spiritual sunlight in the reflection of the moon. Initiates could see the power of Christ through the Earth at Christmas. With the coming of Christ into the Earth, the spiritual power of the Sun united with the power of the Earth, and that is the origin of the Christian Christmas. It celebrates the moment in the evolution of the Earth when man has matured to receive the inner sun, and now man should be able to see through the transparent Earth. What used to be a mystery festival became Christian Christmas. Now man should also feel the power of Christ in the daytime and in the Earth, not only in the sun. This says a great deal. People sensed the spiritual sunlight in the reflections of different religions and world views. These religions and world views represent the three wise men of the Orient. Now the time has come when the sun penetrates the earth as a unified force, when one should sense the basic power in all religions.

Then the religions arrive, led by a star, the star of Christmas. Only the wise men are shown the transparent sun, which is the star of Bethlehem itself and has led them to where Christ appears in the flesh. They bring gold, that is, their wisdom, which has taken on different forms; now the star has arrived that unites them. Frankincense is the symbol of reverence for the power that brings peace in all human deeds, opinions and questions; myrrh is the symbol of immortality, for the spiritual power of the sun. Through beholding through the earth, the disciple receives the realization, the inner guarantee of the soul's immortality. Furthermore, myrrh signifies resurrection and preservation. The establishment of Christmas on the shortest day — it has been moved slightly — is not an arbitrary act, but an expression of human development. The Christian tradition knows what a profound fact underlies this. During the midday hour the gods sleep, while at midnight the gods are awake. What works externally, physically, is indicated by the myth through the figure of John, namely, the physical power of the sun alongside the direct power of Christ. When the sun is at its strongest, the spirit is at its strongest. John's birthday is when the sun is at its strongest: I must decrease, but he will increase. From summer towards winter, the physical power of the sun, like John, decreases, and the spiritual sun, like Christ, increases. Those who work in the sense of the esoteric Christ have felt this idea of peace and harmony.

This poem is so great, the deepest trait of Christianity, of esoteric Christianity, lies in it. A pilgrim is sent to the monastery with a special mission. Twelve individuals are found there, with a thirteenth at the top. Brother Mark is led through many regions and his character is described to us. This is deeply significant, we are told, which forms external intellectual power, education and training. Brother Markus comes close to his goal after many wanderings. He strives for serious wisdom training. [That lonely, strange wanderer does not possess the science of the mind, but he does possess wisdom that speaks as if from children's lips. It is the wisdom that speaks through the transformed science. He speaks from the naive feeling of his wisdom, and it does indeed sound as if it comes from children's lips.] We must again take re-embodiment as our starting point. A person who has learned much in a previous life, who has a world of ideas and content for contemplation, will then be re-embodied. These ideas do not have to appear in the form of ideas. He seeks serious training in wisdom. [His wisdom is a mature and transformed knowledge from previous embodiments. He has not learned much new knowledge in his present incarnation, but he has accumulated wisdom from previous lives.] Now it is love, kindness, compassion, and

Brother Mark appears not as a sage who has learned much, but as a mature sage who has learned in previous incarnations; whose wisdom has become gold. At the entrance to the monastery, which he enters, he encounters a strange symbol that is supposed to represent the meaning of life to him: a cross entwined with red roses. He sees the sign of the cross, professed by so many people, entwined with roses. Note the wording in this sentence, it is a password of the Rosicrucian:

Who has joined roses to the cross?

[This may suggest that Goethe was a Rosicrucian initiate. The cross represents the three lower bodies of man, the physical, the etheric and the astral body. In his life, man should overcome those qualities of these three bodies that have come to him from outside. They should be transformed within him through his ego.] By the fact that his own ego can say to itself “I am”, he transforms these three bodies. [For he who does not have this dying and becoming remains only a dull guest on the dark earth. The lower bodies are represented in the black cross.] Man transforms these lower powers and qualities, not as a form of self-mortification, but as instruments of his own ego, purified, cleansed, transformed into powers of his own ego. He kills what was originally in him and lets it rise again as a young, fresh power – his higher ego, which is the ruler over the lower powers. The mortified bodies – the black cross – in the mortified original Tree of Life as three representatives and a fourth: sprouting life. [The four beams of the cross are made of the wood of the cypress, the cedar, the palm and the olive tree, and they touch at one point.] Cypress is the physical body, palm is the etheric body and cedar is the astral body, which has been overcome; olive tree, which permeates the three lower bodies as with ointment, as with oil, as that which rejuvenates and gives birth again.

[Esoteric Christianity sees in the rosary on the cross the Christ Jesus, through whom the lower nature in man is purified and raised to a higher level.

When man looks at the sprouting life, not yet penetrated by passions. still asleep, only a dim consciousness, is plant green. Where it rises up to the I in the astral body, where the I expresses itself, there the green plant sap becomes red blood. [Red blood, the color of roses, is the symbol of the I. As long as the green plant sap still wells up through the leaves, it announces to us the pure, chaste plant substance. The penetration of the body with passions, desires, instincts causes the emergence of red blood. In man, the pure plant substance has been permeated with desires and passions. Thus man has bought his higher consciousness, through which he perceives as he perceives today: by permeating the plant substance with desires and passions. He will purify his ego again, he will regain the chastity of the plant. [In the course of time, the ego must gradually restore the pure plant substance. Thus, man with his red blood must, as it were, become pure plant substance again. As long as this remains green, it sleeps.] In the future, the red blood will no longer be the expression of his lower instincts and desires, but of his higher self. The red roses on the cross signify both the color of our blood and our pure plant nature. It creates myth-forming power similar to wisdom. In the power that emanates from Christ, the ego is led upwards to become pure, chaste plant substance again. In the red flower we see the purified, refined ego. There is a beautiful old myth: the bee, as it goes to the red rose to suck, so it went to Christ Jesus to suck from the wound. [The devil hates red roses the most!] He wants the blood in the fist. He hates the purified blood that has returned to the red rose.

In the poem, we have twelve representatives of different religions united in the leading, great brotherhood of humanity. [A thirteenth leads them because he overlooks and encompasses all the individual religions] in order to flow out from here into the whole world. Just as the three kings come to the harmony in Bethlehem, so the twelve send their spiritual rays out into the world. And one leads. We see here the threefold higher nature of man, the rays emanating from one point.

Markus is admitted to the monastery and he is united with the eleven to become twelve.

[Brother Markus receives the deepest instruction in the monastery. The poem characterizes the thirteenth, the leader of the assembly.] The thirteenth is presented in his essence as one who is exalted in his soul, in his heart the various confessions of the world are balanced. [At his birth a star shone, signifying the spiritual sun that he had seen at his initiation. It is the same star that shone for the Magi from the East at the birth of Jesus Christ.] A vulture comes down and dwells peacefully among the doves. Peace is the atmosphere that spread at the birth of this person. A strange saga is told about him in his youth: as a boy, he overcame the vipers, that is the lower nature of his being. In previous lives, he had acquired the strength to overcome himself. The viper was wrapped around his sister's arm. This sister signifies his etheric body, which in the case of males is female] — You know that the etheric body in the male sex is female, that is, always in the opposite sex. The astral body wraps itself around this — the adder, the snake, and he overcomes this, which wraps itself around his sister — around his etheric body. The boy practices obedience in the outer world. At first he submits to what the parental home demands with a certain humility and devotion. He is now allowed to go out into the world, and finally, by the right of his birth, he may take the lead in the order. [By the right of his birth he is placed at the head of his order, which is something deeply significant.] The twelve represent the different religions of humanity. Each of them [experiences a moment in its development when it feels it has come closest to the truth]. Each has something special to tell, as a special relation to the thirteenth. [On this point, the twelve are particularly close to the thirteenth.]

At an important moment, Markus enters the monastery: the thirteenth is preparing to leave the monastery to enter a higher level. [The thirteenth of the old men wants to ascend to the highest region of the mystical. He no longer needs to undergo physical embodiment. To do this, the twelve others should mature so that they can then manage without the thirteenth.

There are thirteen chairs in the hall, symbolizing the spiritual work of the thirteen, and Brother Markus is shown around. The task of each is symbolically depicted in a sign above the chair. Above the chair of the thirteenth is the cross of roses. The thirteenth, Humanus, is a mediator for harmony and peace, which are differentiated in the world. The various religious denominations, which are in conflict, find each other here at a higher level, so that the power is not lost, but flows out into the world. To the right and left of the chair is the fire-colored dragon. [The fire dragon is the lower astral nature that must be overcome; and the hand in the bear's jaws means the ego of the human being, which is embraced by the lower, destructive nature, but through which stage one must pass as a mystic. We also find the meaning of this symbol with the war god of Central Europe, with the hand in the jaws of the wolf. This symbolizes the time when the word was sunk into man's inner being. The power of the word through which man develops. Here [the deep meaning is expressed that work must be done]. Because many a person looks at what is being done that is more important than the physical work for the overall development of humanity. What is done from the spiritual centers is invisible. The twelve have experienced the joys and sorrows of life, and now they are gathered for a different kind of work – another door is closed by a curtain. [The twelve men no longer work here in a physical way, but in a higher spiritual way. Through their own perfection, they are working at the same time on the further development of humanity.]

Mark is received in the forecourt and waits to enter the innermost part. Brother Markus has only gained a glimpse into the astral realm, but there is a hint that in due course he will also get to know the spiritual world. At first he saw only images and colors of it. The spiritual worlds, on the other hand, resound in the spiritual tone, in harmonies of the sound of the spheres. After his sleep, he hears three blows and in between a light flute sound. This is to be regarded as a symbol of the harmony of the spheres. Furthermore, he senses the gradual awakening of the threefold higher nature of man. Thus he is initiated to finally become a member of the higher cosmic world himself. Only then does he actually feel accepted into the great cosmic sound. The birth of the higher man through the power of the roses takes place, [symbolically represented by the three youths. They signify the birth of the three higher parts of the human being. The power of Christ brings us up to the true self as the highest level of mystical-spiritual development]. The greatest bliss that a person can achieve is Manas, Budhi, Atma. Through this, he becomes a member of the great cosmic secrets of the development of the earth.

Today, on New Year's Eve, our greetings go from soul to soul, from heart to heart, and when we embrace these impulses, our greetings contain something of the goals of the world principle. One year follows another in the steady progression of time. Reflections such as today's should fill us and remind us that not only years go and come, but that these are stages, to ever higher and higher ascent of the individual and of all humanity. We feel that this is not repetition of the same, but ascent with goals within life with the true, genuine perfection of humanity. Let us let our souls be filled with these reflections and thus feel the impulse of the genuine New Year's greeting, which is struck in our souls by the Christ principle, as a greeting that embraces all humanity.

We want to help each other to ascend, we greet each other at every turn of the year. We want to work together, in theosophical brotherhood, to ascend the path of human perfection. Then the sound of the New Year's Eve bells will contain something of the harmony of the spheres. There are customs and traditions, and when we connect the soul with these customs and with the sound of the New Year's Eve bells, we say: We want to be helpers to each other in the forward climb of humanity to its highest goals.