Richard Wagner and Mysticism

GA 92/1907-12-02/p016 ·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.

I shall here repeat certain teachings of Spiritual Science which will help you to understand these things. We know that the world evolves and that in the course of its evolution certain beings are continually destined to be thrust down. There is a law of which we learn in Spiritual Science, namely, that every stage of higher evolution is connected with a fall. Later on, compensation is made, but for every saint, a sinner must arise. Strange as this may appear it is nevertheless true, because the necessary equilibrium has to be maintained. Every ascent involves a descent and this implies that at a later stage, the powers of the being who has ascended in evolution must be used for the redemption of the other. If there were no such co-operation between beings, there would be no evolution. Thus is the flux of evolution maintained. And a picture of one human being sacrificing himself for another reminds us of the mysterious link that is created by the ascent of the one and the descent of the other. Such truths can only be expressed with the greatest delicacy. Richard Wagner realised and understood the mysterious thread that binds soul to soul, and when we study the fundamental features of his works we find that the mystical life is the source of them all.

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Cite: GA 92/1907-12-02/p016 · edition English