The Christian Mystery
GA 97
16 January 1907, Kassel
XXV. The Supersensible Brought to Expression in the Music of Parsifal
Here, where my hopes and dreams found peace, let me name this house ‘Wahnfried’ [hopes and dreams at peace].195See Kleeberg L. Wege und Worte. Erinnerungen an Rudolf Steiner aus Tagebüchern und Briefen. 2. Aufl. S. 134 ff. Stuttgart 1961.
These are the words Richard Wagner wrote for the house he had built in Bayreuth. The house brought fulfilment of a deep longing. To him, all of life had been endeavour, hopes and dreams. Peace came to his hopes and dreams with his occultist dramatic work Parsifal.
People generally believe that when a work of art such as Wagner's Parsifal is produced, all the thoughts that may be found in it have been deliberately put in by the artist. That, however, is not the way a mystic will ever consider a work he has created. A plant also does not know the laws which the botanist discovers when he studies it. Invisible powers were hovering above Richard Wagner. The occult contents of Parsifal come from them. Much of the process we call ‘occult training’ lived in Wagner. Wonderful things may be discovered by following the development of someone throughout his life. You can observe truths dawning in his mind that were systematically nurtured in occult centres for centuries.
Let us consider the way in which the secrets that later came instinctively to Wagner were presented to the pupils at occult centres. All kinds of physical and mental exercises were done and this intimately shaped their faculty of occult vision. The teacher would above all awaken a basic mood in the student that would give him an intimate relationship to the natural world that surrounded him. The pupil would be guided through the realms of nature and taught to approach nature inwardly in the same way we approach human beings. Seeing a smile we surmise a cheerful mood of soul, tears are to us another specific inner response. The pupil would be shown how to perceive correspondences between physiognomy and soul life also in the natural world. An occultist is someone for whom these things become very real in his inner life. Looking at the natural world, the pupil would be told: ‘All is physiognomy, reflecting something that is of the spirit.’ A plant in brilliant colours would be the smiling mien of the earth spirit to him, another the sorrowful mien of the earth spirit. An occultist thus takes emotional impressions with him through all parts of the world.
A crystal chastely lets light pass through itself. Here matter is free from desire and longings. Human substance is more perfect, but it is full of pleasure and pain, desire and passion. The day will come when human substance will be as chaste and precious as that of a crystal. The pupil's heart and mind would be attuned to finding images in looking at the world of nature, showing how the flesh would develop at a future time. Objects in the outside world are seen as expressions of the world's soul by the occultist, and this is just as objective as the spatial forms a mathematician is able to visualize. And just as it is impossible for two mathematicians to teach different things about a theorem, so it is impossible for two individuals who have gained access to higher knowledge to have different inner responses. Mystical things are beyond dispute, just as mathematical concepts are.
When a pupil had practised like this and was then found ready for it, another idea would be presented to him. He was introduced to something that was the most beautiful and most pure and yet also the most questionable. He would be told: ‘Look at the plant. The chalice of its corolla faces the sun. The sunbeam influences its growth and maintains it. It presents its reproductive organs to the sun in a chaste way. These parts, kept hidden in shame by man and animal, are chastely turned towards the sun in the plant. Now look back into the far distant past. Then man, too, was at the stage at which the plant has remained. Then he, too, had his reproductive organ facing the sun. The head, the root, was in the soil. Mystics have always known that man is an inverted plant. Only he developed further in the course of evolution, first becoming horizontal, like the animal, and then assuming the upright form human beings have today. He went through the plant realm and the animal realm to reach the human realm. Plato referred to this when he said that the world's soul has been crucified on the world's body.’ Man has not yet come to the end of his evolution, however. He is in a transitional stage where he must overcome desire and reach a higher spirituality. Desire must be overcome in the part he turns away from the sun, winning through to a higher spirituality. Then man will offer the chalice of his essential nature to the higher spiritual sun as purely and chastely as the plant does.
This ideal of the plant's chalice made spiritual was presented to those who were pupils of the Holy Grail. They were told that the holy chalice was the plant corolla which had gone through the sphere of animal life and had then been purified again and made spiritual. The words spoken to the pupil were: ‘The potential for this chalice, which takes the rays of the spiritual sun into itself; also lies in the human being. Man has finished organs and others that will only develop in future. In the far distant future man will reproduce himself the way we create a wave in the air when we say a word today.’ When the pupil had made these feelings his own, he was able to feel in those occult fastnesses how the power that sprouts forth from the plants at the time of Good Friday and Easter will in future also show itself in man, having been cleansed and purified. This sprouting growth was experienced especially on Good Friday, and people also felt that a pledge had been given with Christ's sacrificial death that man might have the possibility of gaining possession of the Holy Grail through his struggles. The sap that is the blood of Christ makes man pure, just as the plant has pure sap flowing through it. This was something the pupils experienced at the most solemn moments. The thought of redemption arose clearly before them when they had their inner experience of the relationship between Christ's sacrificial death and the sprouting plant. This idea came to be ever present for Richard Wagner. Wagner used the figure of Alberich to represent the birth of the I and of egotism. He used the E flat organ pedal for this.196In the Rheingold prelude.
In 1856 he tried to give form to the riddle of life on earth in a play called The Victors. A youth was loved by a girl belonging to the lowest caste in India. The difference in their castes made him turn away from the girl and become a pupil of Buddha. The pain this gave to the girl was so great that she realized that she had been a Brahman in an earlier life who had refused the hand of a low-caste girl. This is how Wagner was searching for a way of helping people to understand cosmic thought.
In 1857 Richard Wagner was standing outside the Villa Wesendonk near Zurich and looking out upon the Lake of Zurich and the countryside. Seeing the sprouting plants he came to see the relationship between redemption and plant life. A basic feeling for the ideal of the chalice came to him, an ideal the followers of the grail had always known. Later he tried to find the music that would express the evolution that leads from plant chalice to grail chalice. And he then found peace in his hopes and dreams.
The Parsifal idea has always been part of more recent culture, lying hidden in it as a seed. In his poem The Secrets, Goethe wrote of a youth walking through the woods to a monastery where he was received into the community of initiates. This youth seems like a Parsifal on his way to the grail castle. Asked about the poem by a group of students, Goethe explained that there are many different religious views in the world. Each of the twelve men whom Brother Mark found in the monastery was the representative of one of them, and the thirteenth among them was their leader.
Goethe was representing the occult lodge in his poem where there are no disputes over different opinions but only love. On reaching the monastery the young man saw a cross above the entrance with roses wound around it. He asked: ‘Who has made roses the companions of the cross?’ The sign of the rose cross expresses a thought that is part of the whole of world evolution. Someone who understands the ideal and the symbol is able to find it everywhere. Ancient legend tells of Cain looking for the door to paradise.197See Steiner R. The Temple Legend (GA 93). 20 lectures, Berlin 1904–1906. Tr. J. Wood. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1985 He was not admitted, but Seth was. Seth found the tree of knowledge and the tree of life intertwined. He took three seeds and put them on the dying Adam's tongue. A tree grew from them. That was the tree which Moses saw in flames, hearing the words: ‘I am he who was, who is and ever shall be.’198Exodus 3: 1-5 & 14. Moses got his staff from this tree. The great door to Solomon's temple was made of its wood, also the bridge which the Christ crossed on his way to the Mount of Olives, and finally the Cross on Golgotha. Those who knew of the grail had added: When the wood had grown dry and become the cross, it produced living shoots as a pledge of life eternal. The grail pupil would see this in the form of roses. Here past and future come together. Goethe touched on this secret in verses such as:
Tell none but the wise,
For the crowd will cast instant derision.
This is also the mood behind the words: ‘Who has made roses the companions of the cross?’ Wagner brought this stage of evolution most intensely to expression in his Parsifal. Everything Parsifal does has meaning. Nothing he does is superficial. He is allowed to be active in the supersensible world and does most at the point where he reaches the greatest pinnacle of his inner development.
This can be heard so marvellously in Wagner's last work. When we see the group of holy people gathered around the grail, and Parsifal who first of all kills—he shoots the swan—and then becomes the redeemer, we understand what Wagner meant with the words: ‘hopes and dreams found peace’. He had wanted to show that it was possible to reach in the musical sphere what it had not been possible to show by means of drama. Until then, music had only given expression to inner feelings. On the other hand people felt it was importunate to use the term ‘drama’. Deepest inner feelings begin where words cease to be. Wagner was looking for a link in musical drama. The spoken word was to stop at the given moment, leaving the stage to music. Without Parsifal, Wagner would not have achieved the ideal he strove for. At the point where he penetrated to the highest level in the supersensible sphere, he needed the most intimate musical element. He found the purest musical expression for this in his Parsifal. As an artist and musician he sought to show what lived in Wagner the mystic.
Die Musik Des «Parsifal» Als Ausdruck Des Übersinnlichen
Hier, wo mein Wähnen Frieden fand,
Wahnfried
sei dieses Haus von mir benannt.
Diese Worte schrieb Richard Wagner über das Haus, das er sich in Bayreuth erbaute. Er hatte dieses Haus tief ersehnt. Alles Leben hatte er als Streben und Wähnen empfunden. Den Frieden seines Wähnens fand er in seinem Bühnenweihespiel «Parsifal».
Man 'glaubt meistens, daß ein Kunstwerk wie Wagners «Parsifal» so entstehe, als ob der Künstler alle Gedanken, die darin gefunden werden können, bewußt hineingelegt habe. So faßt aber niemals ein Mystiker das von ihm geschaffene Werk auf. Auch die Pflanze kennt die Gesetze nicht, die der Botaniker in ihr findet. Unsichtbare Mächte schwebten über Richard Wagner. Von ihnen stammt, was im «Parsifal» liegt. In Wagner lebte vieles von dem, was wir Geheimschulung nennen. Eine wunderbare Wirkung kann davon ausgehen, wenn man die Entwickelung seiner Persönlichkeit durch sein Leben hindurch verfolgt. Man beobachtet dann, wie in ihm Wahrheiten aufdämmern, die jahrhundertelang in den Geheimschulen systematisch gepflegt worden sind.
Führen wir uns vor Augen, in welcher Weise die Geheimschüler in solche Geheimnisse eingeführt wurden, wie sie später in Wagner instinktiv auflebten. Mannigfaltige Übungen des Körpers und der Seele wurden da vorgenommen, wodurch eine intime Formung des okkulten Vorstellungsvermögens eintrat. Der Lehrer erweckte in dem Schüler vor allem eine Grundempfindung, um in ihm ein intimes Verhältnis zu der umgebenden Natur hervorzurufen. Der Schüler wurde durch die Naturreiche geführt und angeleitet, der Natur gegenüber ebenso zu empfinden, wie man gegenüber Menschen empfindet. Wie man beim Menschen hinter einem Lächeln Heiterkeit der Seele, hinter Tränen eine bestimmte andere Empfindung wahrnimmt, so wurde der Schüler angeleitet, auch in der Natur die Entsprechungen zwischen der Physiognomie und dem Seelischen zu erkennen. Ein Okkultist ist derjenige, der mit seinen Empfindungen in diesen Dingen ganz in das Konkrete hineingehen kann. Dem Schüler wurde beim Hineinschauen in die Natur gesagt: Alles ist Physiognomie und Ausdruck eines Geistigen. — Eine Pflanze mit leuchtenden Farben erscheint ihm als lachelnde Miene des Erdgeistes - eine andere als die Miene des trauernden Erdgeistes. So trägt der Okkultist Gefühlseindrücke durch die ganze Welt.
Der Kristall läßt keusch das Licht hindurch. In ihm ist die Materie nicht von Begierde und Verlangen durchzogen. Die menschliche Materie ist vollkommener, aber sie ist von Schmerz und Freude, Begierde und Leidenschaften durchzogen. Einmal wird die menschliche Materie so keusch und edel wie die des Kristalls sein. So wurde das Gemüt des Schülers darauf gestimmt, Vorbilder der künftigen Fleischesentwickelung in der Natur zu sehen. Mit der gleichen Objektivität, mit welcher der Mathematiker räumliche Gebilde imaginiert, erscheinen dem Okkultisten die Gegenstände der äußeren Welt als Ausdruck der Seele der Welt. Wie es unmöglich ist, daß zwei Mathematiker über einen Lehrsatz Verschiedenes lehren, so ist es unmöglich, daß zwei, die wirklich in das höhere Wissen eingedrungen sind, verschieden empfinden. Es gibt über das Mystische ebensowenig einen Streit wie über das Mathematische.
Wenn der Schüler so geübt und schließlich für reif befunden war, wurde ihm eine andere Vorstellung beigebracht. Er sollte das Schönste, Reinste und doch Anfechtbarste kennenlernen. Da wurde ihm gesagt: Sieh dir die Pflanze an. Ihr Kelch ist der Sonne zugewandt. Vom Sonnenstrahl wird sie im Wachstum beeinflußt und erhalten. Sie streckt ihre Fortpflanzungsorgane keusch der Sonne entgegen. Was jetzt beim Menschen und Tier schamvoll verhüllt ist, ist bei der Pflanze keusch gegen die Sonne gerichtet. Siehe zurück in urferne Zeiten. Damals war der Mensch auf der Stufe, auf der die Pflanze zurückgeblieben ist. Da hatte auch er seine Fortpflanzungsorgane gegen die Sonne gerichtet. Der Kopf, die Wurzel, war in der Erde. Die Mystiker haben immer gewußt, daß der Mensch eine umgekehrte Pflanze ist. Erst im Laufe der Entwickelung ist er weitergeschritten, wurde zuerst horizontal wie das Tier und nahm dann die heutige aufrechte Menschengestalt an. Er ging durch das Pflanzen- und das Tierreich hindurch zum Menschenreich. Darauf hat Plato gedeutet, wenn er sagte: Die Weltenseele ist an den Weltenleib gekreuzigt. - Der Mensch ist aber noch nicht am Ende seiner Entwickelung. Er ist in einem Durchgangsstadium, indem er die Begierde überwinden und zu höherer Geistigkeit durchdringen muß. In demjenigen, was er von der Sonne abwendet, muß die Begierde überwunden und zu höherer Geistigkeit hindurchgedrungen werden. Dann wird der Mensch so rein und keusch wie die Pflanze der höheren geistigen Sonne den Kelch seines Wesens entgegentragen.
Dieses Ideal des vergeistigten Pflanzenkelches wurde denen vor Augen gestellt, die Schüler des Heiligen Grals waren. Jene heilige Schale sei der Pflanzenkelch, der durch das Tierische hindurchgegangen ist und wieder zur Geistigkeit geläutert wurde. Zu dem Schüler wurde gesprochen: Dieser Kelch, der die Strahlen der geistigen Sonne in sich aufnimmt, ist im menschlichen Organismus veranlagt. -— Der Mensch hat fertige Organe und solche, die sich erst in der Zukunft herausbilden werden. Ähnlich wie wir jetzt durch das Wort die Luftwelle hervorbringen, so wird in ferner Zeit die Art sein, wie der Mensch seinesgleichen hervorbringt. Wenn der Mensch sich mit solchen Empfindungen durchdrang, dann konnte er zur Karfreitags- und Osterzeit in jenen Geheimfesten fühlen, wie aus den Pflanzen eine Triebkraft hervorsprießt, die in der Zukunft gereinigt und geläutert auch im Menschen erscheinen wird. Insbesondere am Karfreitag wurde dieses Heraussprießen erlebt zugleich mit der Empfindung, daß durch Christi Opfertod ein Unterpfand gegeben sei, daß der Mensch sich zum Besitz des Heiligen Grales emporringen könne. Der Blutsaft Christi macht den Menschen rein, so wie die Pflanze von reinem Saft durchströmt ist. Dies erlebten die Schüler in den feierlichsten Augenblicken. Dann fühlten sie sich als Wissende. Der Erlösungsgedanke stand klar vor ihnen, indem der Zusammenhang des Opfertodes Christi mit der sprießenden Pflanze empfunden wurde. Diese Idee stand immer vor Richard Wagner.
Wagner stellte die Geburt des Ich und des Egoismus in der Gestalt des Alberich dar. Er benützte dazu den Es-Dur-Orgelpunkt.
Im Jahre 1856 versuchte er das Rätsel des Erdenlebens in dem Stück «Die Sieger» auszugestalten: Ein Jüngling wird von einem Tschandalamädchen geliebt. Die Kastenunterschiede aber sind so groß, daß er dadurch veranlaßt wird, sich von dem Mädchen abzuwenden, um ein Buddha-Schüler zu werden. Durch den großen Schmerz, den das Mädchen dadurch erfährt, wird ihm klar, daß es in einem früheren Leben ein Brahmane war und damals die Hand eines Tschandalamädchens ausgeschlagen habe. So suchte Wagner nach einer Darstellung zum Begreifen des Weltgedankens.
Am Karfreitag des Jahres 1857 stand Richard Wagner vor der Villa Wesendonk bei Zürich und blickte auf den Zürichsee und die Fluren hinaus. Da kam ihm aus den sprießenden Pflanzen der Gedanke über den Zusammenhang zwischen Erlösung und dem Pflanzendasein entgegen. In seinem Herzen tauchte wie ein Bild die Grundempfindung vom Kelchideal auf, die die Gralsschüler immer gehabt hatten. Später suchte er dann die Töne, um die Entwickelung auszudrücken, die vom Pflanzenkelch zum Gralskelch führt. Dadurch fand er den Frieden seines Wähnens.
In der Keimanlage war der Parzival-Gedanke in der neueren Kultur immer verborgen da. Goethe schildert in seinem Gedicht «Die Geheimnisse», wie ein Jüngling durch den Wald zu einem Kloster wandert und dort in die Gemeinschaft der Eingeweihten aufgenommen wird. Dieser Jüngling erscheint wie ein Parzival, der zur Gralsburg wandert. Goethe hat später einer Studentenverbindung, die ihn darüber befragte, dieses Gedicht erklärt: In der Welt gebe es viele religiöse Anschauungen. Jeder der zwölf Männer in dem Kloster, in das der Bruder Markus kommt, sei der Repräsentant einer solchen. Der Dreizehnte in ihrer Mitte sei der Führer.
Goethe hat in dieser Dichtung die okkulte Loge dargestellt, in der es keinen Streit der Meinungen, sondern nur Liebe gibt. Der Wanderer sieht, als er an das Kloster kommt, ein Kreuz über der Klosterpforte, welches mit Rosen umschlungen ist. Er fragt: «Wer hat dem Kreuze Rosen zugesellt’» - In dem Zeichen des Rosenkreuzes drückt sich ein Gedanke aus, der durch die ganze Weltenentwickelung hindurchgeht. Wer das Ideal und das Symbol versteht, kann ihn überall finden. Die alte Legende erzählt, wie Kain den Zugang zum Paradies suchte. Nicht er, sondern Seth wurde hineingelassen. Seth findet dort die beiden ineinander verschlungenen Bäume der Erkenntnis und des Lebens. Er nimmt davon drei Samenkörner und legt sie dem sterbenden Adam auf die Zunge. Ein Baum wächst hervor. Das ist derselbe Baum, an welchem Moses die Flammenbildung wahrnimmt und das Wort hört: «Ich bin, der da war, der da ist und der da sein wird.» Von diesem Baum wird der Stab des Moses genommen. Aus seinem Holz ist die Pforte des salomonischen Tempels, die Brücke, über die Christus schritt, als er zum Ölberg ging, und schließlich das Kreuz von Golgatha. Die Gralsanschauung hat hinzugefügt: Als das Holz trocken und zum Kreuz geworden war, da trieb es lebendige Sprossen als Unterpfand des ewigen Lebens. Dieses sah der Gralsschüler in der Gestalt der Rosen. Hier reichen sich Vergangenheit und Zukunft die Hand. Goethe berührt dieses Geheimnis in solchen Versen:
«Sagt es niemand, nur dem Weisen,
Weil die Menge gleich verhöhnet...»
Diese Stimmung liegt auch dem Wort zugrunde: «Wer hat dem Kreuze Rosen zugesellt?» - Am intensivsten hat Wagner diese Evolutionsstufe im «Parsifal» dargestellt. Alles was Parsifal tut, ist sinnvoll. Er tut nichts Äußerliches. Er darf in der übersinnlichen Welt tätig sein. Er leistet am meisten da, wo er die höchste Höhe seiner inneren Entwickelung erreicht.
Dies tönt so wunderbar durch Wagners letzte Dichtung. Wenn wir jene heilige Schar, die sich um den Gral versammelt, sehen, dazu Parsifal, der erst tötet - er schießt den Schwan - und dann Erlöser wird, so verstehen wir, was Wagner meinte mit den Worten «des Wähnens Frieden finden». Er hat zeigen wollen, daß mit dem Musikalischen zu erreichen ist, was mit der dramatischen Kunst nicht erreicht worden war. Bis jetzt hat die Musik nur innere Gefühle zum Ausdruck gebracht. Andererseits ist das Wort «Drama» als aufdringlich empfunden worden. Die tiefsten Empfindungen setzen da ein, wo die Worte aufhören. Wagner suchte nach einem Verbindungsglied. Das sollte das Musikdrama sein. Das äußere Wort sollte im gegebenen Augenblick aufhören und der Musik den Raum freigeben. Ohne den «Parsifal» hätte Wagner das Ideal seines Strebens nicht erreicht. Da wo er am höchsten ins Übersinnliche vordrang, brauchte er das intimste Musikalische. Im «Parsifal» fand er den reinsten musikalischen Ausdruck dafür. Er hat als Künstler und Musiker darzustellen versucht, was in ihm als Mystiker gelebt hat.
The Music of Parsifal as an Expression of the Supernatural
Here, where my delusions found peace,
Wahnfried
let this house be named by me.
Richard Wagner wrote these words about the house he built for himself in Bayreuth. He had longed deeply for this house. He had perceived all of life as striving and delusion. He found peace from his delusions in his stage consecration play Parsifal.
It is commonly believed that a work of art such as Wagner's “Parsifal” comes into being as if the artist had consciously put all the thoughts that can be found in it into it. But a mystic never perceives the work he has created in this way. Even a plant does not know the laws that the botanist finds in it. Invisible powers hovered over Richard Wagner. They are the source of what lies in Parsifal. Much of what we call secret training lived in Wagner. A wonderful effect can result from following the development of his personality throughout his life. One then observes how truths dawned in him that had been systematically cultivated in secret schools for centuries.
Let us consider how the secret students were introduced to such secrets, which later came to life instinctively in Wagner. A variety of exercises for the body and soul were performed, resulting in an intimate formation of the occult imagination. Above all, the teacher awakened a basic feeling in the student in order to evoke an intimate relationship with the surrounding nature. The student was guided through the kingdoms of nature and instructed to feel towards nature in the same way as one feels towards human beings. Just as one perceives the cheerfulness of the soul behind a smile in a human being, or a certain other feeling behind tears, the student was guided to recognize the correspondences between physiognomy and the soul in nature as well. An occultist is someone who can enter completely into the concrete with his feelings in these things. When looking into nature, the student was told: Everything is physiognomy and expression of a spiritual being. — A plant with bright colors appears to him as the smiling face of the earth spirit — another as the face of the mourning earth spirit. Thus, the occultist carries emotional impressions throughout the world.
In it, matter is not permeated by desire and longing. Human matter is more perfect, but it is permeated by pain and joy, desire and passions. One day, human matter will be as chaste and noble as that of the crystal. Thus, the student's mind was attuned to seeing models of future physical development in nature. With the same objectivity with which the mathematician imagines spatial structures, the occultist sees the objects of the outer world as expressions of the soul of the world. Just as it is impossible for two mathematicians to teach different things about a theorem, so it is impossible for two people who have truly penetrated into higher knowledge to perceive things differently. There is as little dispute about the mystical as there is about the mathematical.
When the student was thus trained and finally found to be mature, he was taught another concept. He was to learn about the most beautiful, the purest, and yet the most contestable thing. He was told: Look at the plant. Its calyx faces the sun. It is influenced and sustained in its growth by the sun's rays. It chastely stretches its reproductive organs toward the sun. What is now bashfully covered in humans and animals is chastely directed toward the sun in plants. Look back to ancient times. At that time, humans were at the stage where plants have remained. They too had their reproductive organs directed toward the sun. Their head, their root, was in the earth. Mystics have always known that humans are inverted plants. Only in the course of evolution did they advance, first becoming horizontal like animals and then assuming the upright human form we see today. They passed through the plant and animal kingdoms to reach the human kingdom. This is what Plato meant when he said: The world soul is crucified on the world body. But man has not yet reached the end of his development. He is in a transitional stage in which he must overcome desire and penetrate to a higher spirituality. In that which he turns away from the sun, desire must be overcome and penetrated to higher spirituality. Then human beings will become as pure and chaste as the plant of the higher spiritual sun, holding out the chalice of their being.
This ideal of the spiritualized plant chalice was presented to those who were disciples of the Holy Grail. That holy chalice is the plant chalice that has passed through the animal realm and been purified again to spirituality. The disciples were told: This chalice, which absorbs the rays of the spiritual sun, is inherent in the human organism. — Human beings have organs that are already formed and others that will only develop in the future. Just as we now produce air waves through the word, so in the distant future will be the way in which man produces his own kind. When man was imbued with such feelings, he could feel at Good Friday and Easter in those secret festivals how a driving force springs forth from the plants, which in the future will also appear purified and refined in man. On Good Friday in particular, this sprouting was experienced together with the feeling that Christ's sacrificial death was a pledge that human beings could strive to attain the Holy Grail. The blood of Christ purifies human beings, just as the plant is permeated by pure sap. The students experienced this in the most solemn moments. Then they felt themselves to be knowledgeable. The idea of redemption stood clearly before them as they felt the connection between Christ's sacrificial death and the sprouting plant. This idea was always before Richard Wagner.
Wagner depicted the birth of the ego and selfishness in the form of Alberich. He used the E-flat major pedal point for this purpose.
In 1856, he attempted to elaborate on the mystery of earthly life in the piece “Die Sieger” (The Victors): A young man is loved by a Chandala girl. However, the caste differences are so great that he is compelled to turn away from the girl in order to become a disciple of Buddha. The great pain this causes the girl makes him realize that in a previous life he was a Brahmin and had rejected the hand of a Chandala girl. Wagner thus sought a representation that would help him understand the idea of the world.
On Good Friday in 1857, Richard Wagner stood in front of Villa Wesendonk near Zurich and looked out over Lake Zurich and the fields. As he gazed at the sprouting plants, the thought occurred to him of the connection between salvation and plant life. In his heart, the basic feeling of the chalice ideal that the disciples of the Grail had always had emerged like an image. Later, he sought the notes to express the development that leads from the plant chalice to the Grail chalice. In this way, he found peace in his delusion.
The seed of the Parzival idea had always been hidden in modern culture. In his poem “Die Geheimnisse” (The Secrets), Goethe describes how a young man wanders through the forest to a monastery and is accepted into the community of initiates. This young man appears like Parzival wandering to the Grail castle. Goethe later explained this poem to a student fraternity that asked him about it: There are many religious views in the world. Each of the twelve men in the monastery where Brother Markus arrives represents one such belief. The thirteenth among them is the leader.
In this poem, Goethe depicts an occult lodge where there are no disputes of opinion, only love. When the Wanderer arrives at the monastery, he sees a cross above the monastery gate, entwined with roses. He asks: “Who has placed roses on the cross?” The sign of the Rosicrucians expresses a thought that runs through the entire development of the world. Those who understand the ideal and the symbol can find it everywhere. The old legend tells how Cain sought access to paradise. It was not he, but Seth who was allowed to enter. There Seth finds the two intertwined trees of knowledge and life. He takes three seeds from them and places them on the tongue of the dying Adam. A tree grows from them. It is the same tree on which Moses perceives the formation of flames and hears the words: “I am who was, who is, and who will be.” Moses' staff is taken from this tree. Its wood is used to make the gate of Solomon's temple, the bridge over which Christ walked when he went to the Mount of Olives, and finally the cross of Golgotha. The Grail tradition added: when the wood was dry and had become the cross, it sprouted living shoots as a pledge of eternal life. The Grail disciple saw this in the form of roses. Here, the past and the future join hands. Goethe touches on this mystery in the following verses:
“Tell no one, only the wise,
Because the crowd will immediately mock...”
This mood also underlies the words: “Who has placed roses on the cross?” Wagner depicted this stage of evolution most intensely in Parsifal. Everything Parsifal does is meaningful. He does nothing outwardly. He is allowed to be active in the supersensible world. He accomplishes the most where he reaches the highest level of his inner development.
This resounds so wonderfully through Wagner's last poem. When we see that holy band gathered around the Grail, and Parsifal, who first kills—he shoots the swan—and then becomes the savior, we understand what Wagner meant by the words “finding peace in delusion.” He wanted to show that what could not be achieved with dramatic art could be achieved with music. Until now, music has only expressed inner feelings. On the other hand, the word “drama” has been perceived as intrusive. The deepest feelings begin where words end. Wagner sought a connecting link. That was to be the music drama. The external word should cease at the given moment and give way to the music. Without Parsifal, Wagner would not have achieved the ideal he was striving for. Where he penetrated deepest into the supernatural, he needed the most intimate music. In Parsifal, he found the purest musical expression for this. As an artist and musician, he attempted to portray what lived within him as a mystic.