9. Interpretations of Fairy Tales

The circumstances he seeks are there, but distorted by the external physical world, where things appear completely transformed. In the physical world, we do not have the forces in their true form at all. But in the transformed glass king, the personality that can point him to where he should seek his wife appears to him in its true form. He has been transformed by the opposing forces of the external world. And these forces assert themselves through that which entangles human beings in external world conditions. The glass king is completely entangled in external world conditions. This has changed him inwardly from what he could actually be. Human beings have things in their karma that are actually like injustices, that disturb them like an evil buzzing fly. All of this is revealed in the image, which is based on truth. One must imagine the whole situation: how, through the forces stirred up in the king, it might be possible to find what lies behind the physical appearances. When his soul forces are aroused within him and he directs them correctly, the king finds what the external physical forces conceal from him: his “wife.” An external appearance takes place, some event, let us say a courtship, but it does not take place under ordinary circumstances, but under circumstances where someone comes together with a spiritual guide, such as the hermit is for the king, who awakens deeper forces within him. This leads the person to the forces through which everything in the physical world appears untrue for a while, and which they need if they are to be enabled to see the truth. Thus we see how external circumstances are the basis, but how other states of consciousness, which bring about true seeing, are also present.