#faust i

I am of the part, that once was everything

Faust and Lilith by Richard Westall

And now references made to how the soul element has to leave the body, and how a part of the etheric body too must be lifted out, and what I might call a kind of Nature-initiation, that during the whole earth-evolution only happens in exceptional circumstances. Part of Faust's etheric body has gone out; and because a man's etheric body, as I have often told you already, is feminine, this is seen as Lilith. This takes us back to times when man was not constituted at all as he is now. According to legend Lilith was Adam's first wife and the mother of Lucifer. Thus we see here how Mephistopheles is making use of the luciferic arts at his disposal, but how something lower also enters in that, in the following speech amounts almost to a temptation. Faust moreover is afraid he may lose consciousness and losing consciousness he would fall very low — so that Mephistopheles would like to promote this. He has already brought Faust to the point of having part of his etheric body drawn out, which makes him able to see Lilith appear. But Mephistopheles would like to go still farther, and thus tempts Faust to the witch-dance, when he himself dances with the old witch, Faust with the young.

Thus we are given an accurate picture by Goethe of a scene taking place among spirits. When souls have left their bodies they can experience this, and Goethe knew how to represent it.

...

But now, when this affair is over, Faust sees a very ordinary phenomenon — a red mouse jumping from the beautiful witch's mouth. That is a very common phenomenon and a proof that Faust has remained completely conscious; for had he not been conscious but only dreaming, it would have remained a red mouse, whereas now he is able to change this vision called up by sense-instinct into what it should really be for him. Everything is transformed — I think this is most impressive — and the red mouse becomes Gretchen. The blood-red cord is still about her neck. The Imagination has grown clear, and Faust is able to pass from a lower imagination to the vision of the soul of Gretchen who, by reason of her misfortune, now becomes visible to hem in her true form.

You may think as you like, my dear friends, the connections of the spiritual world are manifold and perhaps bewildering — but what I have just shown you in this changing of a lower vision of a red mouse into something lofty, true and deep, is pre-eminently a spiritual fact. It is highly probable that Goethe originally planned the whole scene quite differently represented. A little sketch exists in which it is differently represented — in the way Mephistopheles might have conjured up the scene before Faust. But Faust has been sufficiently conscious to elude Mephistopheles here, and to see a soul to whom Mephistopheles would never have led him. To Mephistopheles himself she appears as Medusa, from which you see that Goethe is wishing to show how two different souls can quite differently interpret one and the same reality — the one way true, the other in some respect false. His own base instincts giving colour to the phenomenon., Mephistopheles flippantly utters:

“Like his own love she seems to every soul.” And here again we find that this is a spiritual experience through which Faust had to pass. He is not just a vigorous man enjoying a walk, he is a man undergoing a spiritual experience; and what he now sees as Gretchen is actually what lives within him, while the other serves merely to bring this to the surface.

Click here for the Quizlet.

die Zueignung, -en ~ dedication

schwankend ~ erratic, wavering, fluctuating

walten ~ to rule, govern

erschüttert ~ shocked, shaken

verklingen, verklang, ist verklungen ~ to fade away

die Sage, -n ~ saga, legend

die Klage, -n ~ accusation, suit, complaint (legal)

getäuscht ~ deceived

schwinden, schwand, ist geschwunden ~ to vanish

der Gesang, -¨e ~ singing

zerstieben, zerstob, ist zerstoben ~ to scatter

das Gedränge ~ crowd, throng

ertönen ~ to sound, ring out

der Beifall ~ approval, applause

zerstreut ~ scattered, diffuse

lispelnd ~ lisping

die Harfe, -n ~ harp (instrument)