Rudolf Steiner's Vision for the Future - Anthroposophical Society in ...

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The outcomes of the “probation” are
assessed in the temple scene at the end of the
play. Maria has come to recognize and accept
her karmic obligations to help Johannes and
Capesius on their spiritual paths. But overcoming
obstacles at one stage leads to even
greater challenges at the next stage.
The Guardian of the Threshold penetrates
even deeper into the soul lives of the
characters. At the midpoint of the play we find
them standing before the Guardian of the
Threshold himself. Other scenes also take
place in Lucifer’s and Ahriman’s respective
kingdoms. Here Johannes (called “Thomasius”
in the third play) comes to grips with his
Double, who exclaims: “Know what I am…
behold yourself in me.” This is the command
echoing from Delphi in ancient Greece: “Oh,
man, know thou thyself!”
The final scene of the third play takes
place within the temple of an occult brotherhood,
where Benedictus presents his pupils,
“who have had to take their paths through
worlds of spirit and through their soul probations
to this place.” The duties of the temple
brothers are ceremoniously transferred to the
worthy pupils: Johannes, Capesius and
Strader. Even Felicia, the story teller, and Felix,
the mystic, are now admitted to the temple.
The scene closes with the soul forces who
dedicate themselves to fostering light-filled
thinking, warmth of love and strengthened
courage. The audience at the Goetheanum
was treated to seeing the expanded use of
eurythmy throughout these new productions.
On Sunday, August 1st, a national holiday
in Switzerland, the crowd filed into the Great
Hall to marvel at the fourth, and final Mystery
Drama, The Souls’ Awakening. There wasn’t
an empty seat to be found, even in the
sweltering upper back rows.
The harmonious mood of the temple
scene in The Guardian of the Threshold has
vanished by the time of the fourth play. The
86 • being human
first scene opens with the distressing news
that the communal business enterprise is
about to go bankrupt. How familiar this sounds
in today’s world! But the characters continue
on their spiritual paths and struggle to overcome
ever more hindrances, deceptions and
errors. In Scene Three Strader endures the
terrifying experience of gazing into his own
abyss and beholding the demons that rise up.
Johannes continues to wrestle not only with
his Ahrimanic Double but also with a being
called the “Spirit of his Youth,” a kind of unredeemed
second Double created by Lucifer.
The fourth play offers amazing glimpses
into the Sun and Saturn spheres in the spirit
realm, through which we all journey between
death and rebirth. This time we are led back
into ancient Egypt, where Johannes and Maria
witness the crucial moments of a failed initiation
ritual. The two Egyptian temple scenes are
truly the most dramatic in all the plays. They
are designed to shed light on how the karmic
knots started to form even back then and now
need to be loosened through the trials of
modern initiation.
The Souls’ Awakening closes with the
untimely death of the scientist Dr. Strader, the
youngest actually of the four main characters.
His previous incarnation as Simon the Jew in
the Middle Ages and even as the Representative
of the Fire Element in the Egyptian temple
give insight into his existential philosophy and
sense of isolation. The nurse, whom we
recognize as the figure of the snake in the
Goethe tale, served at Strader’s bedside and
reported on his final moments: “This gentle
soul – except for seven years of rarest bliss –
passed through his earthly life in loneliness…
his desire for deeds was love, indeed,…a love
which seeks to show itself in life in many
forms.”
It may not be so easy to find a link
between the opening children’s song and the
closing words of Benedictus at the end of the
fourth play when he warns of the grave threat
of the “fierce, dark Ahriman.” But then we
must remember that there were supposed to
have been three more Mystery Dramas!
Nevertheless this did not keep the audience in
Dornach from generating thunderous applause
for the cast, drowning out the booming holiday
fireworks down in the valley.
In June of 1919 Rudolf Steiner shared a
rather despondent remark with his listeners in
Stuttgart: “In Munich we staged our mysteries,
whose basic content was understood by very
few people. We produced these mysteries over
the course of 4 years, a good number of
people saw them. As far as the world is concerned
they may as well be in a coffin. They
are no longer mentioned. They are forgotten.
They were performed, but they passed over
the audience like a pleasant sweet dream, the
kind one forgets. These are things that need
to be said, my dear friends.”
The performances in the summer of
2010 clearly demonstrated that Steiner need
not have worried. It seems that the plays speak
even more to us today than perhaps to those
who first saw them 100 years ago. How grateful
we are to the Goetheanum, especially to
the artistic director Gioia Falk and the stage
director Christian Peter, for reinvigorating the
Mystery Drama impulse that continues to
inspire members and groups of the Anthroposophical
Society in various places around the
world.
Herbert O. Hagens
Princeton, New Jersey
North American Council
for Anthroposophic Curative
Education and Social Therapy
The 2010 annual conference began on
Palm Sunday of Holy Week with keynote
speaker Jaimen McMillan, the founder and
director of the Spacial Dynamics Institute. The