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First Mystery Drama

by Rudolf Steiner; translated by JC McCulloch; co-published with The Modern Spirit Press

154 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0365; ISBN 1-4120-0003-3; US$19.00, C$21.70, EUR15.50, £11.00

An individual life crisis, when faced bravely and with the help of a higher knowledge, can lead to a heightened perception of oneself and others, and a new spiritual awakening.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book The four Mystery Dramas were created, produced and printed one each year, one after the other, from 1910-1913. They took place in different theatres in Munich but always in the month of August. The writing of the dramas, the creating of the scenery, the making of the costumes, the learning of roles, the general directing, the organization of the printing and all the other inummerable things connected with such a major production happened within a matter of weeks before the main performance. There was a literal whirlwind of activity, and it is reported that often the scenes were written during the night before a scheduled rehearsal, and that at five or six in the morning a boy would come from the press to pick up the manuscript for the printing of the scene for that day's rehearsal. All this activity centered around Rudolf Steiner who gave directions or advice on every aspect of the production down to the smallest details. He not only wrote the dramas themselves, but also indicated how such soul and spiritual pictures could be presented and played on stage. A fifth drama was also planned, which was to include scenes from Ancient Greece and its mystery centers, but the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 meant that it had to be postponed. Rudolf Steiner's early death in 1925 resulted in it never coming to production, nor ever being written down. The First Mystery Drama For ten years, Johannes has been working with Maria on art and on spiritual understanding. They both have the intention to make available the spiritual truths, which she is trying to research, in an artistic way, which he is trying to carry out, to the general public. Johannes has already had a relationship with a woman previously when he was younger, but he left her in order to work with Maria. She and Johannes had no intimate love relationship to begin with, but as time passed, Johannes has fallen in love with Maria and wishes to have such a relationship. She, however, wishes it to remain a platonic working partnership, since her main interest is in his art and in spiritual development. As Johannes reaches the crisis point where he has to admit to himself that the relationship he wishes with Maria will not come about, he is also thrown into uncertainity about the whole purpose and significance of his artistic development and the spiritual knowledge that he has also striven to master. Yet these two areas of crisis in his life do not, significantly, cause his complete emotional/ personal break down. At the key moment when these two crisis reach a peak, Johannes hears an address by Benedictus that illuminates very significant aspects of his soul life. This also causes him to be able to see other people in a new light, and on the basis of this, to be able to painfully reassess himself and his path in life. One consequence is that Johannes recognises that he is responisble for the moral failures that he has committed in the past, and the other consequence is that he recognises that how he acts with regard to other human beings now, will have consequences for their and his own soul-spiritual development in the future. This is turn allows him to see further into the realm of soul and spirit where he is able to understand that spiritual beings can and will act through us if we do not fully comprehend and lead ourselves. He sees how Maria is possessed by a certain being which takes advantage of something in her she is not aware of. When Benedictus, through his words, makes her aware of it, that being must leave Maria, and she is able to make a major step in her development. Johannes is also able to see how other characters meet certain spiritual beings, whether fully consciously or only partly consciously, and these perceptions then allow further progress in his development. Thus he enters right into the soul-spiritual realm and eventually can perceive those who have full consciousness in that realm and their activities. He can come fully to the understanding that he himself wishes to take part in that realm in a postitive way. Johannes is not yet able to perceive or recognise his true spiritual essence, but Maria does acheive this and through her Johannes can perceive a true soul copy of it and then know he wishes to come to a perception of it for himself. Thus is presented the beginning of what was traditionally called the path of initiation, but now in a completely modern way which is appropriate for our modern society. Although the central characters of the First Mystery Drama are Johannes Thomasius and Maria, the other main characters who play around them may be seen as individualized or specialized aspects of their characters. Together, the first two form a sort of soul unit, while Strader, Capesius, The Other Philia, and Felix Bald together, form a sort of second level soul-unit around them. That is to say, the latter four present archetypal aspects of the soul and spiritual nature of the first two as a unity, while at the same time presenting their own selves. Other characters can be seen as still a third layer around the second one. Johannes's progress in understanding his inner self and the spiritual world is closely dependent on Maria's own progress, and she on his. For both of them, the progress of the four individuals of the second level will also indicate progress for each of them. The perception by Maria and Johannes of the real soul and spiritual events happening to the four others is at one and the same time an indication of the ability Maria and Johannes have now acheived to see and experience the real world of soul and spirit, but yet also, this seeing and experiencing then gives them concrete material with which they themselves must work and with which the two of them can advance themselves and each other still further. Thus each is dependent on every other, but there is a whole and it's progress is dependent on what each once can acheive. This is the fundamental law of soul-spiritual relationships, and it lies at the basis of an understanding of Karma. Out of an inner picture of what each character is and wants to achieve, or can achieve, the reader/viewer can come to the perception that what the character actually does is also dependent on a set of forces within that character that have come over from the character's past. A still longer perspective on these inner forces indicates that some of them, or some part of them, must even have come into this life at the birth of the character and that they may well have been brought over from an earlier life on earth. Thus, reincarnation is brought into relationship with Karma, extending the complication of the situation and the characters immeasurably. The way of consecration may thus be seen as a striving to acheive something for oneself, and on the other hand, as a striving to bring something to others. In so far as one can understand something about one's own soul-spiritual nature, one can put one's own Karma in order; in so far as one can put one's own Karma in order, one can help others on their path of striving, and this then will form a basis for one's own further progress. Unrecognized by most people, these soul-spiritual relationships continually play into our everyday lives; thus everyday people and their characters can be chosen as representatives for these relationships. When these relationships are presented with all the outer aspects stripped away, a viewer/reader can begin to see clear lines of development of a soul-spiritual nature. One begins to 'see' into the soul and spiritual world.

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About the Author Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was born of German parents in eastern Austria at the time of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. His father was a station master on one of the new railways and Rudolf Steiner's education was oriented towards engineering and scientific subjects. At the age of about seven, he reports having had a spiritual encounter in the middle of the day with a relative who asked for his future help. He found out later that she had died at that moment by her own hand. Steiner had a strong personal interest in philosophical questions and, studying in Vienna at the university, in 1883 obtained his doctorate in philosophy on the subject of the theory of knowledge. Closely tied to his philosophical and scientific studies was his interest in Goethe, the Shakespeare of German culture. After graduating, Steiner obtained the commision to help prepare Goethe's scientific papers for publication within the complete works of Goethe. In 1889 he took up residence in Weimar and lived there while working at the Goethe Archives. He remained there until the publication of his fifth and last volume of Goethe's scientific works in 1897. In addition, in 1893 Steiner published his own first book, and the foundation of all his future work, entitled 'The Philosophy of Freedom'. In the summer of 1897 Steiner moved to Berlin where he married Anne Eunike (died 1911) soon afterwards and, having obtained "The Magazine for Literature", he edited and gave it out until it closed in September 1900. In 1899 he began, and continued for several years, to give lectures on culture and history at the College of the Workers' Educational Association in Berlin. Steiner reports that in about 1899 he had another major spiritual experience which enlightened his relationship to Christ and Christianity. Following this, he was asked by Marie von Sivers if there could not be a unifying of traditonal eastern spirituality with the modern western conception of Christianity. He saw it as his task to attempt to achieve this, and thus in 1902 when asked, he took up the leadership of the German section of the Theosophical Society, which was then headquartered in London and under the general leadership of Annie Besant. He lectured and worked unceasingly with Marie von Sivers, with whose help the production of the Four Mystery Dramas was brought about from 1910-1913. Differences with Annie Besant led to the establishing of the Anthroposophical Sociey in 1913. In 1913 he married Marie von Sivers, and through a donation of land they and the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society moved to Dornach, Switzerland. Their activities were severely restricted by the outbreak of the First World War, but in Dornach they began to build out of wood a large specially designed temple as a center and a theatre for the Mystery Dramas. After the war, Steiner attempted to give practical impulses to the then shattered social life, but these were only haltingly taken up. The temple, The Goetheanum, was burned down by arson on December 31, 1922, but was rebuilt a few years later in concrete. After apparently suffering from poisoning at the end of 1923, Steiner was weakened and subsequently died in 1925. His life's work encompasses about 50 books and over 6000 lectures and numerous artistic and social impulses. To order a coil bound copy of this book please go to: First Mystery Drama

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Sample Excerpts

SCENE SIX

The same scenery as in the fourth scene. The Spirit of the Elements is standing in the same place. In front of him, Mrs. Bald; later Germanus. Johannes in meditation.

MRS. BALD:
You have had me summoned;
What would you hear from me?

SPIRIT OF THE ELEMENTS:
Two men I gave as gift to the earth.
The spirit force in both men
Was quickened through you.
In your words they found
Stimulation for their souls
When dry ponderings had lamed them.
What you gave to them
Also puts you in debt to me.
Their spirit is not sufficient
To pay me for the service
I have rendered them.

MRS. BALD:
Through the years,
One of the men came to our cabin
To get for himself the force
That gave his words their fire.
Later he brought the other, too,
And so they both consumed
The fruits whose worth
Was then unknown to me.
Yet little good
Did I experience in return.
They gave our son
Knowledge of their type.
It was well meant,
But our child
Received thereby, soul death.
He had grown up in the light
Father Felix receives from the springs,
Rocky cliffs and mountains
By way of spirit sayings.
United with that was everything
That has grown up in my soul
Since my earliest childhood years.
Our son's sense for the spirit
Died in the deep shadow
Of that dark science,
And in place of the cheerful child,
A man grew up
With barren soul
And empty heart;
And now you actually demand
That I should pay
What they owe you.

SPIRIT OF THE ELEMENTS:
So must it be.
Since you have served
The earthly part in them first,
The spirit now demands through me
You bring this work to completion.

MRS. BALD:
It's not my way
To refuse what I should do;
But first of all tell me
Whether disadvantage will arise
Out of my service to love.

SPIRIT OF THE ELEMENTS:
What you first did for them on earth
Robbed your child of his soul strength.
What you now give their spirit
Will be lost to you within your own self,
And the loss of your life force
Will show itself on your body
As ugliness.

MRS. BALD:
They took from my child
The forces of his soul,
And now I'm to walk around
As a monster before people's eyes
So that fruits may ripen for them
That will work little good!

SPIRIT OF THE ELEMENTS:
Yet you will work for human salvation
And for your own happiness too.
The mother's beauty and the child's life
Will blossom for you both in a higher form
When the new spirit forces
Germinate in these human souls.

MRS. BALD:
What am I to do?

SPIRIT OF THE ELEMENTS:
You have so often inspired human beings,
So now inspire the Spirits of the Rocks.
You must wrest from out of yourself, right now,
One of your fairy tale pictures
And entrust it to the beings
Who serve me in my work.

MRS. BALD:
Well now - -
Once upon a time there was a being
That flew from east to west
Following the course of the sun.
It flew on over lands, over seas.
From its heights
It watched human striving.
It saw how people love one another
And hatingly persecute each other.
Nothing could hinder that being
In its flight,
For love and hate always create
The same thing many thousandfold.
Yet, above one house,
There, that being had to stop.
Within it was a weary man.
He pondered over human love
And pondered human hate as well.
His pondering had already etched
Deep furrows on his brow.
It had turned his hair white,
And over his troubles
That being lost its sun guide
And remained with the man.
It was still in his room
As the sun went down,
And as the sun came up once more
That being was again taken up
By the Sun Spirit;
And once again it saw human beings
Spending their earthly lives
In love and hate;
And as it came back over the house
For the second time, following the sun,
There, its gaze fell
On a dead man.
(Germanus speaks from behind a rocky cliff so that he remains invisible.)

GERMANUS:
Once upon a time there was a man
Who moved from east to west.
The urge to know lured him on
Over land and sea.
He watched human striving
According to his rules of wisdom.
He saw how people love one another
And hatingly persecute each other.
At every moment the man saw himself
At the end of his wisdom.
Yet how love and hate
Always rule the earthly world
Was not to be brought into any lawfulness.
He noted down many thousand cases,
But every survey failed.
This dried out researcher, on his way,
Was met by a being of light
Whose existence here was difficult
In that it was in constant battle
With a dark shadow form.
"Well then, who are you both?"
So asked the dried out researcher.
"I am love,"
So said the one being;
"In me see hate,"
So spoke the other.
The words of these two beings
The man no longer heard.
As a deaf researcher
He moved on from east to west.

MRS. BALD:
Well then, who are you
Who all unwished for
Distorts my words
Into his own style.
It sounds like mockery,
And mockery is not my style.

GERMANUS(stepping forth):
I am the Spirit of the Earth Brain.
Only a dwarf size reflection of me
Lives within human beings.
Many a thing thought within them
Is but a mockery of itself
When I display it at the size
It appears as within my brain.

MRS. BALD:
Therefore you mock me too!

GERMANUS:
I have to practice
This skill quite often,
But mostly no one hears me.
I've taken this chance
To be here for once too
Where someone can hear me.

JOHANNES(from out of his meditation):
This was the man
Who said about himself
That spirit light, as if by itself,
Had entered into his brain,
And the woman Felicia, she came,
Just like her husband,
As she is in life.

(The curtain falls.)

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Catalogue Information

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