Richard Wagner and Mysticism
GA 92/1907-12-02/p009
·1907-12-02
·
English
MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Sechzehn Vorträge, gehalten in Berlin, Köln und Nürnberg in den Jahren 1904, 1905 und 1907 (Hörernotizen)» (Sixteen lectures, given in Berlin, Cologne and Nuremberg in 1904, 1905 and 1907 (listeners' notes)). The volume's subtitle as given in the publisher's description, mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 92); the 2022 catalogue's subtitle omits it. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
Such words must not be analysed by the intellect. We should rather try to live into their mood and atmosphere and then we shall begin to realise how deeply Wagner's soul was steeped in Mysticism. To a certain extent Wagner was aware of his particular mission in art. He was not one of those artists who think they must ‘out’ with everything that happens to be living in their soul. He wanted to realise his destined place in evolution and he looked back to a far remote past when as yet art had not divided into separate branches.
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