The Fourth Mystery Drama

About the Book

The fourth drama enters new terrain based on what has been achieved in the first three dramas. The end of those brought about the unifying of the various main characters in a Temple ceremony whereby they consecrated themselves to take over the work of the traditional Mystics for modern times.

Up until this point, the dramas had been concerned with personal development, the achieving of spiritual vision, the beholding and integrating of a correct view of Karma. But now the step has to be taken to bring all this into a concrete relationship with the modern world. The task of the Mystics had been to preserve in secret the mysteries of humanity. The task of the new Temple servants is to bring those mysteries to humanity again and make them fruitful in the modern world. This requires, on the one hand, a willingness to approach the elements of the world and interact with them, and on the other, the cultivating of an inner knowledge which will give one the new faculties and strength to do that.

The essential question thus arising for all of them, illustrated by the greatly increased role Benedictus plays in this fourth drama, is the question of spiritual help and from where and under what conditions it can come to us. Not only Lucifer and Ahriman are here operating for their own intersts, good human beings and good spiritual beings are working, too, and who these are, where these are, and what relation we can have to them is a matter of the greatest urgency for humanity at this time.

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 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 Worker's 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 acheive 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.