Richard Wagner and Mysticism
GA 92/1907-12-02/p023
·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.
Now just as human beings have developed Ego-consciousness, so too must the Nibelungen. The Nibelungen knew that they possessed the old universal wisdom and they now forged the Ring which thence-forward surrounded them as the Rising of Egoism. This shows, albeit in brief outline, how true realities stream into the world of phantasy and imagination. Gold represents the remaining vestige of the ancient wisdom flowing through the mists; the wisdom-filled Ego builds the Ring which gives rise to the struggle for existence.—Such is the deeper truth underlying the myth of the Nibelungen.
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