Goethe’s Tale and the Mystery Dramas

A Rare Opportunity this August

by Daniel Hafner

“This evening I promise you a tale that will remind you of nothing, and of everything.”

With these words the old priest announces the story that concludes Goethe’s Conversations of German Refugees. It is commonly known as the Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; Goethe himself inscribed it simply THE TALE. Both the title and the introductory remark suggest something centrally archetypal.

The Tale was first published at Michaelmas 1795. It was a time when a cultural flourishing unparalleled since classical Athens was being brought about by a convergence of great individualities incarnated in Central Europe. Simultaneously, in the spirit world, those souls who soon would incarnate into the new current of anthroposophy were gathered for a heavenly cultus under the guidance of the Archangel Michael. This cultus seeped through into Goethe’s consciousness and became the Tale. *1 It drew on the spirit of the Knights Templar. *2 “The way the images are framed, the way the human soul in its relatedness is thought of in the tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily, the sequence of the thoughts, the force of the thoughts: this is Christian, this is the new way to Christ.” *3

1 Rudolf Steiner, lectures 8 July 1924, GA237, 19 July 1924, GA240. 2 Steiner, lecture 25 Sept. 1916, GA171. 3 Steiner, lecture 12 Jan. 1919, GA188.

Hence it played a central role in the founding of anthroposophy. Rudolf Steiner’s first esoteric *4 lecture was about the Tale: it was entitled “Goethe’s Secret Revelation,” and given on Michaelmas Day, 1900. Later, Rudolf Steiner called this event the original cell of the anthroposophical movement. *5 Today too its powerful images can enable the souls who seek anthroposophy from before birth to find it in a deep destiny connection.

4 Steiner, Autobiography, ch. 61 (ch. 30 in some editions). 5 Steiner, remarks 25 Sept. 1920 (the evening before the opening of the Goetheanum), Blätter für Anthroposophie 1955, vol. 7, no. 3.

Through Rudolf Steiner, the Tale was transformed: after he had lived with it for three times seven years, it became his first mystery drama, The Portal of Initiation, a Rosicrucian Mystery. *6

6 Steiner, lecture 31 Oct. 1910, GA125; lecture 9 May 1924, GA236.

Rudolf Steiner’s seal for this first of his mystery dramas

And in a broader sense the totality of the Mystery Dramas is a metamorphosis of Goethe’s Tale. The characters are the same, but now mostly human, and with new names, living in a karmic constellation at the beginning of the anthroposophical movement. The action is the same, but utterly recast, moving freely between the supersensory realms and the earthly plane. Even though it began to appear centuries ago, it turns out to be the story of our own present and future evolutionary trials in the Anthroposophical Society for the sake of mankind as a whole.

The first performance of The Portal of Initiation in 1910, with Marie von Sievers at left

And what you suppose is done and gone, You can see from afar only now coming on. *7

7 Novalis, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, part II.

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that The Portal of Initiation contains all of anthroposophy. *8 Here the path described in How Does One Attain Recognitions of the Higher Worlds is shown onstage, but in comparison with the book it is “much more intense, more real with life, and more actual, because much more individual.” *9

8 Steiner, lectures 17 Sept. 1910 and 31 0ct. 1910, GA125. 9 Steiner, lecture 31 0ct. 1910, GA125.

A scene from the production as given in 2004 at the Goetheanum

The drama is a being seeking incarnation. It wants to be clothed and spoken and moved, to be beheld with our senses. In 2007, the actors of the Goetheanum ensemble that had performed the mystery dramas in an uninterrupted tradition since the time of Rudolf Steiner were fired. This is a crisis for the being of the mystery drama.

In our own country, Hans and Ruth Pusch worked with these dramas for decades in Spring Valley, translating them and staging them. Hans Pusch had played Johannes Thomasius in the mystery dramas under Marie Steiner. Since his time, the mystery dramas have lived in Spring Valley, at least on and off, in an auditorium lovingly made for anthroposophy. This year there will be a conference there, with presentations, seminars, and performances. A dramatic adaptation of Goethe’s Tale will be performed by Laurie Portocarrero and Glen Williamson. And The Portal of Initiation will be performed, directed by Barbara Renold. The dates are Wednesday to Sunday, August 12–16, 2010.

Daniel Hafner is a priest of the Christian Community. He will be speaking at the conference. He can be reached at dhafner1964@hotmail.com