Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

in this country is coupled with it. Oz is a mystery figure, but it is possibleto surmise the spiritual being that stands behind the green snake, just asthe archangels represented by the youth and the beautiful lily can disclosethemselves.One way to approach the spiritual being represented by the Wizardof Oz is to focus on the idea that he was once active in America. Thequestion of his activity needs to be compared and contrasted with that ofDorothy for a concrete picture of it to emerge. When relating Kurt’s insightinto the being of Dorothy—that she represents Columbia—to the events inThe Wizard of Oz, it is important to note that Oz himself has authority overDorothy, since it is he who commands her to defeat the Wicked Witch of theWest. In anthroposophical terms Oz appears as an archai, a spirit of the age,who realizes his mission through a folk soul, a messenger of the archai. IfKurt’s insight into the cyclone that signals the beginning of the story—thatthe tornado represents the Civil War—is related to Dorothy’s displacementas the guiding spirit of America by the Wicked Witch of the West, then theevent referred to above as the Wizard of Oz being driven out of the Landof the Winkies by the Wicked Witch of the West can take a more concreteform. The question of the activity of the Wizard of Oz in America can beformulated: What cultural movement, active in various countries, came toan end in America around the time of the Civil War? A study of transcendentalismwould reveal that the impulse of a time spirit stands behind it, for itmanifested in England as romanticism and in Germany as idealism beforeit appeared on this continent as transcendentalism. That the transcendentalmovement effectively ended with the Civil War suggests that the mysteryof the Wizard of Oz can be connected with the central European archai, thespirit of the fifth cultural age.Steiner himself worked specifically with the cultural achievementsthat resulted from the inspirations of this spiritual being. He studied Germanidealism in philosophical works and produced his first great contributionto culture, The Philosophy of Freedom. He meditated on Goethe’s fairy taleand transformed it into the first of the Mystery Dramas. His greatest artisticachievement, the Goetheanum, shows in its very name its connection tothe height of European culture. Leaders in the anthroposophical movementhave pointed to the development of the Goetheanum as a process beginningwith meditation on Goethe’s fairy tale and culminating in its realization asa mystery temple arising on the earthly plane. They have even suggestedthat America needs to recapitulate this process by building a Goetheanumin the West.339