Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas

The Mystery Dramas by Rudolf Steiner are about the initiation journeys of single, specific individual people dramatically presented in artistic form.

Rudolf Steiner completed four Mystery Dramas, a fifth, which Marie Steiner wrote that the central event would take place at the Castalian spring at Delphi was already outlined in broad terms, but it came that with the outbreak of the First World War, no further elaboration of the draft was taken up by Steiner. Speculation has arisen that seven or possibly twelve Mystery Dramas would have been created in totality, in which flashbacks to earlier and earlier incarnations of the characters would be given, which would eventually result in a complete panorama of the spiritual and intellectual evolution of mankind.[1]

The Mystery Dramas, (as Steiner himself repeatedly emphasized contain nothing consummate), represent a germ-like beginning, - a new start in artistic and dramatic possibilities on the one hand, where a powerful impulse to revitalize the world of theater could manifest, and pointing a way forward in bringing spiritual truths in very vivid and concrete forms to the audience, on the other.

The titles of the four Mystery Plays of Rudolf Steiner are:

Introduction

Wolfgang von Goethe's Fairy-Tale as the basis of the Mystery Dramas: In 1907 at the Munich Congress, Rudolf Steiner had brought Édouard Schuré's reconstruction of the "The Sacred Drama of Eleusis" onto the stage. Two years later Steiner staged Schuré's "The Children of Lucifer". But something better in the artistic way spiritual truths were revealed, there was not time. Steiner was looking for a spiritual content and artistic form that could reflect the Consciousness Soul age. Initially he came up with Goethe's "Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily", which he wanted to bring to the stage in dramatized form, but the thing soon took on a life of its own. In the first draft of Goethe's Fairy-Tale as a play, the names of the characters involved are taken from the characters in the tale, but soon the fairytale characters gradually become independent stage personalities of flesh and blood, and other names had to be found, which should better emphasize their spiritual qualities. By itself, the action began to metamorphose, eventually resulting in a completely independent drama, but in which the reference to Goethe's fairy tale are still felt. On the left below, are the names from the Fairy-Tale, and on the right, the names in the first Mystery Drama:

Lily - Maria

Young Man - Johannes Thomasius

1st Irrlicht - Capesius

2nd Irrlicht - Dr. Strader

King of the Will - Romanus (Bronze King)

The old man with the lamp - Felix Balde

King of Feeling - Theodosius (Silver King)

Snake - The other Mary

Wife of the old man - Felicia Balde

1st Maiden - Philia

2nd Maiden - Astrid

3rd Maiden - Luna

Giant - Gairman (Gold King)

Canary - Child

Mixed King - Retardus

The Hawk - Theodora

In addition:

Hierophant - Benedictus

The Macrocosm - The Spirit of the Elements

Man - Estella

Wife - Sophia

Helena, whose prototype will prove later in the drama as Lucifer, has no precedent in Goethe's fairy tale and is a completely independent creation of Steiner's.

Anthroposophy and artistic creation

What Rudolf Steiner gave through his writings and lectures on spiritual knowledge, lives in a completely different and independent manner, and in a certain sense, as he says himself, full of life and more specifically in the artistic aspect of the mystery plays. They have emerged directly from genuine artistic inspiration and not a mere staged pictorial imitation of previously mentally formulated anthroposophic teachings. Both anthroposophical wisdom and artistic creation, draw Rudolf Steiner from the same source, namely the direct, conscious experience of spiritual reality. What Rudolf Steiner gave as anthroposophic knowledge, is a thought artwork, but where, according to the nature of thinking, necessary inherent in a general, and to a certain degree of abstract character. What Rudolf Steiner has put in his artistic Mystery Dramas on the stage, are representative of the thought life of its characters, and the spiritual realistic experiences of their individual lives. They do not lay claim to a universal validity. Therefore, they in no way conflict with the general laws of mental and spiritual training, but are nevertheless uniquely individual. To characterize the characters' as real and convincing, Rudolf Steiner could not go via the intellective instructional element, but directly from the creative need to emphasize in a form true to life itself. Steiner himself was often surprised by what came about, during the creative process of writing his own dramas. This is a basic feature of genuine artistic creation, everything else would be totally inartistic, merely a thought based abstract design. Rudolf Steiner noted:

"I pointed out when I was asked to interpret the poetry of 'Faust', that Goethe, when jotting his words down, not necessarily immediately knew all things in themselves beforehand. I can not give assurance that nothing of what I will afterwards build on this mystery, and which I still know that there is in it, I was aware of this when the pictures were created. The images thus grew out, like the leaves of a plant. Such a image previously characterized cannot firstly produce the idea and then implement it in an external shape. It has always been quite interesting, if it has thus become one form, and friends who have read the individual scenes, said it was very strange, but it's always different than you've imagined." (Ref : GA 125, S 103)

Individual paths in the spiritual world

Access to the spiritual world cannot on a general compulsory for all people will find exactly the same way. Although all are training paths necessary common principles, but they can only be trodden effective when doing the specific requirement of the particular people or their respective mating human group is considered.

In ancient pre-Christian times, when people still collective and more by the group spirit of their people were determined every people had basically his own path of initiation and successful he could ultimately only be undertaken within this particular human community. The Yoga of schooling differs markedly from the Eight Limb Path of the Buddha; the Persian inauguration takes a different route than the Egyptian Mysteries and these are again different from the initiation rituals in the mysteries of Ephesus, Eleusis and Samothrace. Again, a very different character had the Hibernia mysteries whose origins far back in the prehistoric period, but later intimately with the Christianity joined after the inner spiritual Check the Mystery of Golgotha same time as the events in Palestine had witnessed. In "The Portal of Initiation" is shown as just Maria in an early medieval incarnation came as Christusbote from the Hibernia mysteries to that tribe where John was living in female incarnation and where even the gods Odin and Baldur were worshiped.

For today, influenced by Western culture people all these ancient paths are barely passable. Even the Christian schooling, as in the Middle Ages to the early through modern times was maintained, can be pursued successfully by only a few people today.

The Christian path of initiation differs in that within this path a person not by his own vision for the realization of all other paths of reincarnation and karma may come and it was absolutely necessary that at least once a person went through an incarnation in which he of no knowledge former earthly life had - and that goes for the Christian Initiates:

"This man thought that was an incarnation of the only, this was necessary that some sections of the brain of the knowledge of the higher principles in man, Atma, Buddhi, Manas and of the knowledge of reincarnation. These were the people where the wine. Previously had been in everything temple worship only the water needed. Then, the use of wine was introduced, and even a divine being, Bacchus, Dionysus, the representative of the wine. The deep stone consecrated disciples, John, was unveiled in his Gospel, what the wine is for the internal development. At the wedding of Cana in Galilee, the water is turned into wine. man was so prepared that he did not understand the reincarnation through the wine. At that time, the victim water was turned into wine, and we . are again going to turn wine into water Who will go up into the higher regions of existence of each drop must contain alcohol (. Ref : GA 097, S 22 )

The Knights Templar, the "in the medieval scenes in the examination of the soul "play a central role, have gone this way, but in a more unconscious, unsystematic way by himself with tremendous depth of feeling in the descriptions of the Mystery of Golgotha have sunk, as especially in the second part of John's Gospel are given. And they have been doing apparently still certain basic round knowledge of the reincarnation of the human achievement - a sign that here before the forces of the upcoming new consciousness soul era in light and run out of time the feeling mystsischen initiation.

"Words are powerless to describe what lived in the souls of such people, in those souls who dutifully never allowed to waver, and also when a three times greater power externally on the physical plane counter stood them were not allowed to escape, but calm they had to await death, the death that they would endure to secure the existence on earth the momentum is assumed the Mystery of Golgotha. That was intense life of the whole people with the Mystery of Golgotha. And if such intense life in appropriate rhythms in human souls so happens that it is in is in the whole kosmischirdische flow of forces, then develops from such life Major, mind you: Major I say, when such a consciousness in posing with a certain rhythm innerlichmystisch into what is outward. , then you can certainly experience many things that puts his own soul with the divine spirit in context. But something else, More effective is developed when such inner experience, combined with the outer historical development, now placed at the service of this outer historical career is. What the regaining of power should be done on the Holy grave at that time in the service, which should be in accordance to what remained in the memory of the Knights Templar souls. As a result, a special mystical life, more and more able to act for the world by those who belonged to this so-called religious orders than other religious orders developed. Because if lived in such manner just in connection with the life of Environmental mystical, then flows to what is experienced mystical, in the invisible, in the psychic powers of the human environment into it, objectively, is then not only internally in the soul of man, but acts in history, more in historical becoming. Such mysticism is not only emotionally experienced something for the single human individual, but it is Seelisches; objectively designed powers that previously were not there in the spiritual flow that carries humanity and keeps born, which are then since. If man his day's work has shown strength with his hands or with his other tools work, he represents something external, material things into the world. With such mysticism, such as the Knights Templar, they have developed, Intellectual be placed within the Geisttum the earth. But because this happened, the man was really a stage further brought in their development. The Mystery of Golgotha was previously seen as through this experience of the Templars at a higher level and experienced. It was now something because this Mystery of Golgotha, which was not there before. The souls of the Templars but had achieved something special.

Through this intensive exploration of life in Into the Mystery of Golgotha these souls had acquired the power to truly achieve the Christian initiation through this historic event. This Christian initiation, they can reach as it is described in our scriptures; but here the Templar this Christian initiation was achieved that the outer deeds and enthusiasm, who lived in the outer deeds, the souls of the Templars out wearing so that these souls, apart from the body, out of the body in the spiritual career humanity mitlebten, penetrated, soul and spirit penetrated the secrets of Golgotha. Since much has been experienced not only for the individual souls, but for humanity. . That is the important thing, which is what is significant". (Ref : GA 171 S 196ff)

The Knights Templar but it also had all the temptations by the adversary powers relive the necessary accompany every spiritual development, no matter which way you go, and also there is always the very real danger of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic temptations to fall. These experiences are dramatic and it takes courage to face them. The Mystery Dramas describe such experiences again and again and they yearn to be displayed according dramatically. The need for mental training prudence must be newly reclaimed from this experience at any stage of development and over again.

"But they did, because it is so everyone who looks into the spiritual world, they had all the trials, all know the temptations in fact, the rise because of the human heart, when man the good divine spiritual forces approaches. All the enemies that appear there from the subordinate spiritual kingdom out and want to give people diverted to evil, the act of good, who want the people entice the instincts, the desires, the passions, the emotions can, but especially also may act in mockery and hatred and contempt and irony of the good, all the powers that could be called as the Knights Templar had met them. And they had in many, many them holy hours those inner victories, the man can achieve when he passes by seeing the worlds that lie beyond the threshold of the sensible world and that must be overcome in order that man may recover after overcoming with crisp forces in the spiritual worlds him reasonable." (Ref : GA 171 S 199f)

Therefore, also said Rudolf Steiner golden rule of any spiritual training :

"And this golden rule is: if you try to take a step forward in the knowledge of secret truths, as do three at the same time forward in the perfection of your character for the better." (Ref : GA 010, S 65)

This rule must be strictly observed to any mental training increasingly necessary all powers of the soul, and the negative, which can grow to very worrying phenomena characterized by comparatively harmless Läßlichkeiten:

"Even by the low development of the astral body ., which has caused an elementary teaching the theosophical teachings, as she started bekanntzuwerden, appeared very strange phenomena For example, a student, the cashier was, is gone through with the money, people who previously were peaceful, were contentious. This is related to that, the bad aspects of the character to be pushed out with the little occult development, which flows from the theosophical terms, otherwise if nothing is done." (Ref : GA 098, S 31)

To note that today is much more important than in ancient times. The mystery of evil, the fifth of the so-called seven mysteries of life relates more particularly to our present consciousness soul age . Rudolf Steiner has often pointed out that today everyone, really everyone is capable of the worst atrocities. And if so often the puzzles question is asked how people such abysmal inhuman atrocities as they so often reported in the media, may be capable, the question is really the wrong question. Important and illuminating would be the answer to the question what the vast majority of people deratige deeds not penalized, even though they were their capable. Rudolf Steiner speaks it out with shocking clarity:

"All people are subconsciously since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period, the evil inclinations, the inclinations to evil. - Yeah, just in it there is the occurrence of the people in the fifth post-Atlantean period in the modern culture period to receive in the inclinations to evil, radical, but spoke very correctly, the following can be brought to expression: The one who crosses the threshold to the spiritual world, makes the following experience: There is no crime in the world to which not every man in his subconscious insofar as he is a member of the fifth post-Atlantean period, the tendency has the tendency has;. whether the tendency to evil externally into the one or in the other case, an evil act, that depends on quite different conditions than on the slope". (Ref : GA 185, S 110)

You can not take that finding weighty enough: Everyone has today in the tendency to gruesome crimes that can only imagine yes love even beyond our imagination far! Since all the Luciferic temptations to vanity, to the glory addiction, yes to addiction in any form at all, and above all, a boundless egoism, which already is becoming the secret religion of our time. Since, however, are especially today also all the cruelty behind which ultimately Ahriman is: the obsession with power, lust for power, to destroy, to kill and torture - and from here it is only a small step to the beginnings of black magic, There were of course many of these phenomena in earlier times not just a small degree, but under very different conditions. The individual was then basically always the seduced, and his guilt was that he struggled with too little force against the adversary powers. Much of it still appears after and many current phenomena can be interpreted in this way. What but today all newly added, is that the single individual can itself become potential source of evil now. In each individual begins, quite unconsciously, the will to wake for evil. We are now at that threshold at which the us previous spiritual beings were that, that is their ego development, have their human stage undergone on previous incarnations of our earth, but their development goal could not quite reach and thereby became adversary powers. Thus, on the old Moon certain Luciferic adversary arose, and even earlier, on the ancient sun, certain Ahrimanic powers. Today there is a danger that the man himself becomes the adversary power!

In fact, now not begin until the time when the person on their own initiative can be really nasty. That is the price we have to pay for the necessary freedom. And it is also a sign for the intervention of higher adversary powers by which the polarity of Lucifer and Ahriman and therefore evil itself undergoes a tremendous increase - and we are only at the beginning of this development! These powers are said by Rudolf Steiner Asuras. Sura (from " Surya ", the Hindu Sun God, which is about the Greek Apollo equivalent) means in Sanskrit "beings of light". The denial or the description to the contrary by the prefix a- expressed. Asuras are therefore "enemies of the beings of light". Of this also leads in the Apocalypse of John called Sun Demon "Sorat" or Surat. The Asuras grow in our present time to dangerous adversary powers approaching, the people of black magic to seduce. Sexual rites play a major role and all kinds of targeted physical and mental torture and violence. These forces have played as Steiner emphasized a key role in the defeat of the Knights Templar in the 14th Century. The Asuras act directly into the consciousness soul of man, and thereby engage directly as a kind of counter-I human I to:

"And in the time that will come now, will sneak into this consciousness soul and thus into what we call the human ego - because the ego goes on in the consciousness soul. Those spiritual beings, called the Asuras The Asuras are at a much more intense force develop evil than even the satanic forces of the Atlantic or even the Luciferic Spirits of Lemuria.

The evil that men brought the Luciferic spirits at the same time with the blessing of freedom, they will strip off everything in the course of Earth time altogether. The one evil that brought the Ahrimanic spirits can be stripped in the flow of karmic law. But the evil that bring the Asuran powers is not to atone in such a manner. Have the good spirits given men pain and suffering, disease and death, that he, despite the possibility of evil can develop up the good spirits have the possibility of Karma against the Ahrimanic powers to compensate the error again - against the asuric spirits will not be so easy in the course of earthly existence. For this asuric spirits will cause what is taken from them - and it's the people deepest, innermost, the consciousness soul with the ego - that the ego merges with the sensuality of the earth. It will be torn out piece by piece from the ego, and to the same extent as the asuric spirits set in the consciousness soul, to the same extent man must on earth leave pieces of his existence. This will be irretrievably lost, which is addicted to asuric powers. Not that the whole person needs to fall to them, but pieces are in the spirit of people cut out by the asuric powers. This asuric powers are announced in our age of the Spirit who rules there and could we call the spirit of bare life in the sensuality and forgetting all real spiritual beings and spiritual worlds. One could say that today it is only more theoretically that the asuric powers to seduce men. Today they pretend to him many times that I be a result would be the mere physical world. Today, they seduce him into a kind of theoretical materialism. But they are in the course - and this promises to be more and more by the wild passions of sensuality that descend more and more down to earth - the people's views undunkeln against the spiritual beings and spiritual powers. The human being is to know nothing and want nothing to a spiritual world. He is getting more and more not only teach that the highest moral ideas of the people are just more embodiments of the animal instincts, he will not only teach that the human mind only a conversion of what the beast is, he will not. only teach that man is not only related to its shape according to the animal that he is descended also all its essence by the animal, but man will make with this view seriously and live like this". (Ref : GA 107 S 247ff)

If it is still not everyone commits a felony, the lies less in the superior moral forces we already our little earthly personality have incorporated, but it is the wise leadership of our destiny, in conjunction with our higher self conducting powers that keep us from, Mentally aspiring people, even insiders are particularly at risk because their rapid development requires that they have to prove themselves faster and more often - and can also fail.

Our present consciousness soul age has brought many changes. People are compared with earlier times, more individual, but also become more selfish, being in this respect in the last three or four decades, a significant additional development thrust is to notice. This is reflected in the Rosicrucian schooling invoice on which the anthroposophical spiritual training builds. In its basic writings and lectures, as in " Theosophy ", in" The Occult Science "and" acquires How to Know Higher Worlds? "could Steiner that way at first only very generally draw. Such general rules are necessary and can be helpful, but not enough to trigger a real spiritual development. More specific, but that also less universally binding descriptions Steiner gave in " The Threshold of the Spiritual World "and" A path to self-knowledge of man." In the whole individual and therefore also very concrete, vivid and highly dramatic form of the path of individual is exemplary spiritual disciples in Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas drawn.

"No soul is in the same position as the other. Therefore, it is basically also the way into the supersensible worlds up to each soul an individual, one which depends on whether the relevant soul to the starting point. You can not say when you want to talk in the right sense: it must, after the normal principle directly every soul by making the ascent into the higher worlds, initiation, therefore the need like not only in short brochures or - yes would be easier - to give instructions. so and so it should make the soul to awaken the faith that one could, if you follow these rules, climb under all circumstances in the same way as any other soul in the higher worlds. Therefore, the predicament of such things. Therefore especially I have tries, "A path to self-knowledge of man" to show in the little book something that is individual and yet every soul may be useful. But that's why there was also the need, the variety and variability of the initiation pathway to show. And without wanting to provide explanations themselves as somehow beyond what has been done, I would just like to point out how the needs of the three figures showed that in the three mysteries Try - "The Portal of Initiation", "The audit of the soul "and" The Guardian of the Threshold "- before your soul draw near as Johannes Thomasius, Capesius and Strader. They show you the way of the first steps to initiate it were in three different aspects. It can be said of any of these ways, he is better or worse than the way of the other; but it must be said of each of these paths that he had to differ according to the karma of the respective individualities. One can only say: a soul, which is just as Johannes Thomasius, or what it is like Capesius must just go such ways as they have been tried, not theories, not didactic, but to show in figures. Therefore, the need to show such figures. And more and more necessary and required it will be away out of the belief that you get along with a few rules about these things, it will be increasingly necessary to point straight to spiritual areas of the teaching staff adhere to the Framed. Because the relations of the worlds are so varied, so the paths of the individual personalities must be varied. If, however, only to come to seriously take certain personalities or beings of the higher worlds in the eye and to assess their interest in the people, then you must certainly feel the need, these figures show alive, to represent them in their diversity, not merely to give definitions of them. In our time, it is especially for those who seek spiritual knowledge, important figures such as Lucifer and Ahriman, which one always encounters on the way to initiation to take one eye just in their Vielartigkeit, in their variability. This will show how strange the relationships and linkages of a world with the others." (Ref : GA 138 S 105f)

One thing all intellectual training pathways in common: they serve and served never mere spiritual edification and satisfaction of spiritual longings, not even the most remote locations in worship of the divine world, but they demand a radical transformation of man, which leads also required by most dramatic existential crises but ultimately makes it more efficient to deal with the practical tasks of everyday life. Transformation of man is in this spirit that always also transformation of the earth. Mental development is nothing theoretically-Reflective, Secreted from life, but pure life practice - but only to those their fruits in real life on earth it can be measured.

"There can be no spiritual knowledge which would not be included in the laboring life." (Ref : GA 099, S 18)

In past time to take part in the mysteries but a select few were reserved. They worked in secret and strict secrecy was paramount duty. It was considered dangerous to put the knowledge and the power to transform the earth into the hands of immature people and secret treason was punishable by death. That was also justified because just immature, underdeveloped people had at that time still on certain atavistic mental ability, which, coupled with the mysteries of knowledge inflict great harm could have. Some hold still on these principles firmly, but they are no longer appropriate. The old instinctive forces have dried up and the wisdom of the Mysteries can now only use, which has achieved an appropriate level of maturity. The spirit of wisdom can not be betrayed, even if you pronounce it very public today. Who is immature, is they do not understand and maybe even smile, but he can not use it. Danger arises only if a close, closed group maintains "secret" knowledge and abused for gruppenegoistischen purposes. Today's mystery must prime of their lives and in the full light of the public and they also require no separate, hidden temple more. As early as in Goethe's fairy tales indicated, the hidden rock temple went up to the Temple of the Sun in principle accessible to all. He is not tied to any particular place, but to find anywhere together is a freely formed, but karmically-knit group of people to a common spiritual quest. This attitude also lives in the Rosicrucian covenant, in " The Guardian of the Threshold will be shown. " Twelve still unconsecrated those reincarnations of 12 farmers from " The test of the soul "are, therefore, should join forces with those of the of Hilary Hilary combine guided Mystenbundes. Hilary is as the reincarnation of the Grand Master of the Mystic Knights of the Federal " Examination of the soul thought. "

This principle to realize the mysteries midst of life is not only shown in Steiner's dramas, but it lives in them as an effective impulsierende force. Abstract schemata of cognition path will not find it in vain. The four mystery dramas show not only exemplary and specifically the schooling, but they are, especially if you operate autonomously framing accustoms himself into it, even a human for each feasible, contemporary and practical life of schooling that makes the individual needs and requirements for clearance and but at the same time provides a reliable spiritual guidance. The dramas are also in this sense not ready Consummate what Steiner has indeed repeatedly stressed, but they invite a freely by the performer and the audience in the immediate representation and active witnessing the sitter and individual, but by no means arbitrary, again and again continued to be re-designed and characterized at the same time to work on their own development. The text itself when embarking on him at ease and without klügelnden mind, provides the necessary thereto, concrete source of inspiration, which prevents you doing in unreal fantasies loses.

Artistic creation process of drama

Inspiration and imagination as sources of artistic creation:

The mind must be silent in the artistic design process. The words arise directly, without the thinking here intervenes, from the inspiration from the spiritual hearing the words and then condense on to the image, the mentally -watched image for imagination .

"Not true, I must mention the experiences that I have made in the designing of my drama itself Therefore I can say. Therein lives no idea, but everything which you will hear now recited and declaimed, was heard to but mentally heard it sounds immediately here. - So it is not about to grasping a thought that will be implemented only in words, but it is the contemplation of that what you will hear now presented to the watch just in the same way inside sounding and internally themselves creatively as it comes to representation. It has nothing to do with such a representation, as only that which occurs internally so in looking to write off externally." (Ref : GA 281, p 11)

"I have always been something very unsympathetic when the came one or the other and my Mystery Dramas has been interpreted in symbolic or other intellectual adequately, and has all sorts just carried into the minds of. For that which lives in these Mystery Dramas is, except for the single sound out imaginatively experienced. The image stands as image and was always there as an image. And it never would have occurred to me himself, some put something mind Excessive based, to then transform into the picture." (Ref : GA 281, p 69)

Language of drama

The Mystery Dramas require special treatment of the language that Rudolf Steiner later in collaboration with Marie Steiner held courses for language design has explained in detail. An important aspect of this is that everything on the physical plane happening, a very vivid, highly contoured consonantal language demands, while texts that refer to the morally Relgiöse, a more musically - vocalic require speech. But if you want the action in the spiritual world lead up, so you have to come to a synthesis of these two forms of language:

"So the picture that there is going to be the seventh of my mystery drama will be well regarded as the image of mental, but because of the physical man through acting pulses" The Portal of Initiation. "Now if you not from any fantasies or from a nebulous mysticism out symbolically or allegorically or something else is such representations of the supernatural, but if they are from the real experiences of the supernatural world out, then one is forced to resort to very different ideas than are those who are otherwise in physical life to has to use. In physical life these ideas fall apart, which relate to the moral and religious life. They have a more unformed character, have a character of abstractness, the non-intuitive. In contrast, those other ideas that relate to the nature, have a vivid character that gives them sharp contours and so on. Those who have a sense of how in the contoured Listen word apart from the formless word of the more musically sentient word, he will notice the transitions from anywhere inside this plastic on the inside musical words. If you but forced up out the action in the spiritual world, in a sense, consider a synthesis. You must find it, where dissolve the plastic of the word, that they do not lose as plastic, but they must still bring meaning that they both immediately musically. A plastic-musical speech must take hold, because you do not have to do it with the disintegration of the morally religious and the course-physical, but with a synthetic coincident series. And so you are because in this scene, which now comes to the recitation, hear basically from a completely different inner life of ideas out is presented as the ordinary of everyday life, or than that of the ordinary drama. There is talk of a life of ideas out and displayed, which contains a that which is natural, elemental forces of nature, elemental Naturkraftungen, and what also has moralischethische importance of these elemental Naturkraftungen. The physical is morally the same time, the moral is brought down into physical imagery. You can not tell the difference in this sphere between what is happening physically, and what is happening ethically, because the Ethical takes place in the form of physicality, the physical takes place in the areas of ethics. But this requires a special treatment of the language, and this treatment of language can not help but be such that they do not go out in such an artistic representation in the slightest more of the thought." (Ref : GA 281, p 10f)

Rehearsals

Few actors who were involved in the first performances of the Mystery Dramas, were trained actor. The Steiner appeared not so important; was much more significant that within this tight-knit community grew a very special community spirit that Steiner has described as an example of the anthroposophical work, perhaps for the human interaction at all:

"He who has seen such performances, perhaps does not always think the fact that it takes a long time what last sight presents itself in a few hours, really stands on the stage. And the way how our dear friends here in this place worked together to bring the work into being, they may be referred to again and again for the anthroposophical work, perhaps also for the human interaction as a model in a certain sense. Especially because it would oppose a real anthroposophical sense, in this work in any way to command. As progress is only possible if the individual friends with their hearts are full of it, in a very different manner than could ever be the case on a similar artistic field. And this full-while-being, not only in the few weeks that are available to us to prepare for the performances, but this full-while-being, this free cordial interaction, it took years to pass." (Ref : GA 122 S 16)

The text of his dramas began to write down Rudolf Steiner frame by frame immediately before the start of rehearsals. "It would be nonsense," he said, "to write a drama before it is a performance." And so he wrote late into the night, nor the text that should be practiced in each case the next day. Something similar must have made Shakespeare and his theater troupe. Rudolf Steiner proves to be a brilliant theater practitioners. Plenty of sleep could not find Steiner at that time and was often his bed untouched, but he was always in a fresh, lively mood. Alexander Strakosch wrote:

"Rudolf Steiner days and - as mentioned - even the nights were filled with intense activity, but it was not that scary excess of work and worry, as in recent times, but there was to him the harmonious exhilaration, which confers artistic creation if it can unfold acting. He was not forced from the outside by people or circumstances or oppressed by worry. All were eager to carry out his instructions to follow his suggestions." (Ref : Strakosch)

Of course, had to Rudolf Steiner, before he could write the plays, design a basic concept, which the action should follow, but the actual text originated from the direct experience of the rehearsals. Initially, the performer had the texts that were neatly written legibly in pencil, write off even more. Maximilian Gümbel-Seiling wrote in his memoirs to the rehearsals with the Munich mystery plays:

"In the morning appeared Dr. Steiner and read us each from his notebook the newly created image before. Sometimes we wrote for this magazine itself from our roles. The pencil writing was clear and distinct.Soon, Dr. Elizabeth Vreede underwent the trouble to write off the final scenes for us on the typewriter. He read with restrained pathos, but clearer characterization. During rehearsals, he was frugal hints. He rarely did it before us on stage. But then you got the impression of a specific personality and noticed that it gave him pleasure to give his characters posture, tone, gesture." (Ref : Seiling)

Later, the whole was more professionally organized by an apprentice printer on time by 5 clock in the morning picked Rudolf Steiner's template and customize practically still wet signatures handed in time for the start of rehearsals. How then proceeded rehearsals, it was Alice rock in her memories of the rehearsals for "The Soul's Awakening painted a vivid picture":

"At 10 clock in the morning all participants met in the sample space a. First, Rudolf Steiner read with strong intonation and dezidiertem Emphasize the rhythm the night New Weathered before. Then he handed the still-pressure wet text to the support of the different roles and let him read so often and play until the various people had coordinated. He led the work in such a way that he never broke the players and the "improved", but the same scene over and over again auditioned and auditioned with all facial nuances and play as often left until it was satisfied with the actors is essential to him seemed about to send the mood, the atmosphere of an image -. mightily it looked like he read the two images in the realm of spirit He imagined while reading in a chair and swinging rhythm of the verses. felt the listener supported in the cosmic space. The soil was a quasi gently pulled out from under their feet, while the pentameter with tremendous force, greatly elated while then poured in bright conditions." (Ref : rock)

The same reports also Oskar Schmiedel of the samples to the " Portal of Initiation ":

"A particularly strong impression did when Dr. Steiner played for individual roles, he did so with a histrionic art and power that made it difficult for the players to reasonably comply in their own representation is very memorable to me for example.. as Rudolf Steiner played for the scene in which Strader stands in front of the painted image of Thomasius Capesius. With a forcefulness played Rudolf Steiner that all of us, we were able to see this, were shocked and a deep silence prevailed after a long time in the hall". (Ref : Schmiedel)

That by the gradual process of developing the dramas of rehearsal to rehearsal and could be no ready-made production concept is clear. If even the drama itself originated from day to day, so had to outgrow itself directly from the living specimens events even more direct. The artistic inspiration for the piece himself and for his dramatic conversion on the stage here flows from a source that is opened by the joint action and perception during rehearsals.In this sense, the actors, the actors, the stage painters and other helpers are quite active creative mitbeteiligt at the conclusion of the work, which was eventually brought on the stage. Through active community of people always higher spiritual forces may reveal than is possible by an individual - even if he is a high initiate. This does not diminish the power of Rudolf Steiner, but on the contrary only gave him the opportunity to fully exploit its capabilities.

Thus, this work could succeed, it required a special inner attitude of the performers:

"In everything that is mentioned here, we see not a Consummate, but something that is the beginning of a want, and we would like to like that one it by all that is wanted, what can not be already done now, ersieht, as you can imagine the further shaping of art is why we have of such infinite importance that the internal dramatic design is only in the hands of actors who seek spiritual knowledge, because I want to - not from personal inclination but because I have to - do not speak a single word in this our dramatic things on the stage of an other-minded people, and if that word would also talked with the highest artistic perfection and with the utmost artistic refinement of current linguistic stage technology because something. all else is wanted as this outer stage technology. That which is now called art is not wanted. But wanted is that in every soul that stands up and participate, the heart of spiritual heat out is the fact that such a breath through the whole more or less good representation is that we are experiencing mental heat as art, art as a spiritual heat up there. Therefore everyone who participates in this our inaugural undertakings of Munich cycle would have to have the feeling: there's not a word, not by being spoken, is at the same time vicarious depths of his soul by the performer. This causes in some respects those artistic chastity, who likes who does not want to feel spiritually feel as dilettantism, but the beginning of something what is to come, the of something that, beginning once as an artistic truth in the deepest will feel in geistigstem sense of the word, imperfect, and initially it may confront you today." (Ref : GA 129, S 26)

Reincarnation and karma

For the first time in dramatic poetry, Rudolf Steiner in his dramas presents the driving forces of destiny events, openly and consistently on the stage. The success of the characterizing people towards the inevitability of fate, has always been the main nerve of tragic poetry, and Steiner's characters also remain true to these causes, which are ultimately enigmatic. Rudolf Steiner was the background of the fate complications to their true causes, namely karmic entanglements in former lives on earth, returning and brought dramatically to display in the present for the characters on stage. This is a critical and necessary impetus for the progress of dramatic art, even if it may take long time until it is taken up more widely by the public.

Lectures

Lectures on The Portal of Initiation:

Lectures on The Trial of the Soul:

Lectures on The Guardian of the Threshold:

Lectures on The Soul's Awakening:

Music

Adolf Arenson: Music to the four Mystery Plays of Rudolf Steiner - Recording of a concert performance in Bern on August 25, 1989 (Parzifal Verlag). Music to the four Mystery Dramas of Rudolf Steiner - by Adolf Arenson. Mystery scenes - Music to the Mystery Dramas by Elmar Lampson. The examination of the Soul - A musical version of the Second Mystery Drama of Rudolf Steiner - Directed by Pedro Guiraud (Samples).

Video

The 4 Mystery Dramas - 120 min excerpts from the Goetheanum in Dornach on VHS or DVD (Aladin movie).

Notes

  1. ↑ Hammacher (1995), p 112

References

External links

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