A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult (9 page)

Goethe

That Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Germany's greatest poet, had an interest in the occult is clear from Faust. Based on an historical character, the original Faust legend goes back to medieval times and prior to Goethe's there were earlier dramatic renditions of the tale, notably Christopher Marlowe's. Yet it is to Goethe's Faust (Part I 1808; Part II 1833) that most of us turn when we think of pacts with the Devil, of things Mephistophelean, and of the dangers of a too obsessive pursuit of knowledge and arcane secrets.

The historic Doctor Faust was born in Knittlingen, Wurt- temberg, in 1480, and died at the hands of the Devil in Staufen, near Freiburg, in 1539: at least according to the plaque that adorns Staufen's Lion Inn, the scene of the doctor's demise. According to Melanchthon - friend of Martin Luther - Faust studied magic and the occult sciences at the University of Cracow, in Poland; similar courses of instruction were also given at the Universities of Salamanca and Toledo. In Cracow Faust reportedly scoffed at the miracles of Jesus, and loudly boasted that he could repeat them at any time. Though many were scandalized by these remarks, others were impressed; years later, while lecturing on Homer at the University of Erfurt, Faust allegedly invoked the spirits of Achilles, Ulysses and Hector to entertain his students. According to the Abbot Johannes Trithemius, Faust had good reason to boast of being "the most accomplished alchemist that ever lived. ,3 Nevertheless, a Franciscan monk implored Faust to give up his black arts and to return to the Church. Faust informed the monk that this was impossible, as he had already sold his soul to the Devil; and as the Devil had kept his side of the bargain, Faust intended to keep his. There are reports of Faust's powers of prediction and other wonder working - he was reportedly kept in the employ of Baron Anton von Staufen, and forced to produce artificial gold - and stories about the Devil accompanying him as his `familiar' in the form of a dog.

The first Faust book appeared in 1587; written in German, it told the story of Faust's pact with the Devil, and of his bizarre adventures. It was something of a bestseller, and within a few months it appeared in several different pirated editions. By 1588, the story had crossed the English Channel; there it received a more serious and eloquent treatment by Christopher Marlowe. In 1593, soon after Marlowe's murder., a troop of English actors brought a production of the Tragical History of Doctor Faustus to Germany. Through some metamorphosis, the tragedy became a comedy, and the comedy was then transformed into a puppet show. It was more than likely in this form that the young Goethe first came upon what would become his most famous work.

In the medieval legend Doctor Faustus is a conceited braggart, who meets his comeuppance through a rash pact with the Devil. In Goethe's hands, the too obvious cautionary tale becomes an archetype of western consciousness, and a powerful symbol of the perils of a one-sided development. Goethe contributed a new term to describe the growing modern sensibility: Faustian, meaning an insatiable, hubristic hunger for knowledge at whatever cost, a desire to penetrate into the innermost regions of life, regardless of the consequences. In the Decline of the West (1918), the historian Oswald Spengler divided the course of human history into three periods: the Classical, the Magian and the Faustian. Writing little more than a century ago, Spengler saw the last period as our own; and, as the title of his book suggests, he recognized it was on its way out.

Goethe's interest in magic, the occult and hermetic thought began early, and although it went through many changes, it remained with him throughout his life. He begins his autobiography, Dichtung and Warheit (Poetry and Truth) (1811-1812) with an account of the astrological backdrop to his birth:

My horoscope was propitious: the sun stood in the sign of the Virgin, and had culminated for the day; Jupiter and Venus looked on me with a friendly eye, and Mercury not adversely; while Saturn and Mars kept themselves indifferent; the moon alone, just full, exerted the power of her reflection all the more, as she had then reached her planetary hour.'

At the time of Goethe's birth in Frankfurt-on-Main, in the not too-distant city of Mannheim, alchemy was still popular. Although experimental science had been encroaching on alchemy's domain for nearly a century, it had not yet completed its colonization. As late as 1787, the Berlin Academy investigated the claims of a Professor at Halle who was said to have transmuted base metals into gold. While scientists scoffed at such claims, the fact that they felt obliged to investigate them suggests that alchemical notions had not yet been completely ousted from the popular mind. In Mannheim, at any rate, alchemy was still a favourite pastime: many of the leading citizens had alchemical laboratories, and the craze was so wide spread that the city authorities had to ban it. As with much alchemical activity, a great deal of this was prompted by the promise of quick riches, yet, in the part of Germany where Goethe was born, a deeper motivation was at work. German Pietism was strong in Frankfurt, and much of the Pietist doctrine had its source in the writings ofJacob Boehme. Boehme, as we've seen, was a central figure for 18th century occultists like Saint-Martin and William Blake, and his works presented a form of Christian mysticism couched in alchemical language. As Ronald Gray in his book Goethe the Alchemist (1952) suggests, it's probable that where Pietism was strong, some notion of the spiritual value of alchemy was also present.' In any case, by the time the teenaged Goethe returned to Frankfurt from his studies in Leipzig, he was drawn into the occult milieu, and had embarked on an intensive study of alchemical writings.

He was introduced to alchemical literature by his friend and spiritual mentor, the Pietist Fraulein von Klettenberg, with whom he began a serious study of hermetic authors like Paracelsus, Basil Valentine,J.B. van Helmont and George Starkey. Goethe's belief in the efficacy of alchemy, however, had a more than intellectual basis. Goethe had returned from Leipzig suffering from a kind of nervous breakdown, and the condition lingered well after his return, troubling him and exasperating his parents. Fraulein von Klettenberg belonged to a Pietist circle, one of whose members was a Dr. Metz. Along with a charming and ingratiating manner, Metz spoke mysteriously of a "Universal Medicine" that cured all ills, a claim, we've seen, made for the alchemical elixir vitae. Metz also spoke allusively of certain kabbalistic and alchemical books through the reading of which one could discover the means of producing this universal medicine oneself. Although he doesn't say it openly, with his hermetic knowledge and occult medicine, Metz seems to fall into the profile of a Rosicrucian, one of whose tasks, as we've seen, was to act as a kind of travelling physician, tending to the sick of body and soul. Goethe, at any rate, met that criteria, and soon after being introduced to von Klettenberg's circle, his condition worsened. He was, it seemed, near death and his mother, also a member of the Pietist group, beseeched the mysterious Metz to use his miracle drug. As Goethe writes:

In this last extremity my distressed mother constrained the embarrassed physician with the greatest vehemence to come out with his universal medicine. After a long refusal, he hastened home at the dead of night, and returned with a little glass of crystallised dry salt, which was dissolved in water and swallowed by the patient. It had a decidedly alkaline taste. The salt was scarcely taken than my situation appeared relieved; and from that moment the disease took a turn which, by degrees, led to my recovery.'

Impressed by Metz's wonder drug, Goethe remarks that, "I need not say how much this strengthened and heightened our faith in our physician, and our industry to share in such a treasure. "

After his cure, Goethe began his alchemical studies in earnest. Von Klettenberg already had a small alchemical laboratory set up in her house, and soon after Goethe set up one of his own in his parents' attic. A furnace, a retort, some alembics and a sand bath were put to the service of producing the liquor silicum, or `flint juice', made from melting down pure quartz flint with a mixture of alkali, and which was supposed to result in a transparent glass, which dissolves on exposure to air, and displays a perfect clarity. This liquor silicum would serve for Goethe as the alchemical `maiden earth', the virgin prima materia upon which further operations could take place. Yet, diligent though he was, Goethe had to admit that however thorough his preparations, the result was never as pure as he had hoped, and he eventually halted his experiments.

Goethe's interest in practical alchemy faded, but not his passion for occult literature. Following his studies with Fraulein von Klettenberg, Goethe plunged into the depths of Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Thomas Vaughan as well as many other, lesser known luminaries. He was particularly drawn to the alleged writings of Hermes Trismegistus, the patron saint of alchemy. The notion of transformation, so crucial to his own ideas about evolution and the metamorphosis of plants, which predated Darwin, remained key, and it was through his interest in alchemy that Goethe became particularly interested in the Rosicrucian legacy. A fragment entitled Die Geheimnisse (The Mysteries), written between 1784 and 1786 - the years in which he first began his botanical studies - was intended to be a poem about the Rosicrucians. For Goethe, the rose and cross was a powerful symbol of the unification of opposites, a central alchemical concern. One Rosicrucian work that Goethe read with evident interest was the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, most probably written by the alchemist and hermeticist Johann Valentine Andrea. Andrea (1586-1654), a Lutheran theologian, was responsible for other Rosicrucian tracts, like the Fama Fraternitas, which appeared in Germany in 1614, announcing the existence of the secret brotherhood, and calling for serious seekers of spiritual truth to join them. One well-known applicant was the philosopher Rene Descartes, who was dismayed at his inability to locate any members of the sect. Sceptical friends suggested this was not unusual as the Rosicrucians claimed to be an invisible society; later, troubled by reports that he himself was a Rosicrucian, Descartes appeared before his friends and declared that as they could see him quite well, he could not possibly be a member of the hidden lodge.

Goethe read the Chymical Wedding in 1786, many years after his alchemical experiments. But its effect was considerable. He wrote to his friend Charlotte von Stein that after reading it he felt that "there will be a good fairy tale to tell at the right time, but it will have to be reborn, it can't be enjoyed in its old skin." The fairy tale told at the right time seems to have been Goethe's Mdrehen, The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and The Beautiful Lily.

The Marchen, or literary myth, is a peculiarly German form. Novalis, who included a similar tale in his novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen, called the Marchen "a dream vision ... beyond logic ... an assembly of wonderful things and happenings ... a pregnant chaos." Alchemical symbols and themes abound in Goethe's tale, first published in a collection called Conversations of German Emigrants in 1795. The `conversations' are a cycle of stories told by the aristocracy that had been driven from their homes during the years of the Terror, and had fled to Germany to avoid the guillotine. Appalled by the horrors of the Revolution, Goethe had hoped to show how the principles of harmony, the unification of opposites and the disinterested appreciation of beauty could provide the basis for a new, spiritually whole society. Needless to say, Goethe's vision of a new Europe came to naught. Along with Andrea's Rosicrucian fable, another influence were the Letters on Aesthetic Education of his friend Friedrich Schiller. In his letters, Schiller argued that the truly free individual could arise only through the harmonizing of both the sensual and the rational aspects of the personality, a unification of Geist and Natur a theme that would occupy many thinkers of the time, like Hegel, Coleridge and Heinrich von Kleist. Goethe agreed with Schiller, but believed that his own contribution to the cause could only be put forth in more poetic, symbolic forms. The result was the beautiful, though not immediately comprehensible, Fairy Tale.

Goethe himself was not forthcoming with interpretations of the story. He remarked that it "will remind you of everything and of nothing," and said that he would reveal its true import only after "99 others had failed to do so." Others certainly have tried. Ronald Gray devotes a chapter to the alchemical exegesis of the Mdrehen, and in Goethe and the Philosopher's Stone (1965), Alice Raphael offers ajungian reading of the tale. In terms of esoteric influence, however, perhaps the greatest interpreter has been the early 20th century Austrian philosopher, educator and architect, Rudolf Steiner. Steiner's `supersensible' reading of this and all of Goethe's work is at the centre of his occult system, anthroposophy, whose headquarters in Dornach, Switzerland is a massive citadel of Expressionist architecture, called, appropriately enough, the Goetheanum. However, whether one accepts Steiner's, or any other interpretation, Goethe's tale is undoubtedly reminiscent of the dream-like, mystical and obscure allegories at the heart of alchemical literature.

Novalis

If one word encapsulates the essence of German Romanticism it is Sehnsucht. Langenscheidt's German-English Dictionary translates this as "longing, yearning, hankering, pining, languishing, nostalgia," but there is really no strict English equivalent. `Unfulfillable' or `inexpressible' longing perhaps come closest, but there is something in the original German that is distinctly lacking in any English translation. Sehnsucht conjures up horn calls far off in the dark forest, the poignant glow of the sunset, which we will never reach, no matter how quickly we race to the horizon, the snow-capped peaks of a distant mountain range. Beauty, distance, and the sense of something infinitely desirable just beyond our grasp: it is perhaps in music that we can feel its full effect, yet on a coarse and profane level we can see pornography as an everyday example of this poetic condition'. These willing and available women stimulate an appetite they can never gratify. And like pornoaddicts, the Romantics who succumbed to Sehnsucht eventually discovered it was very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with an actual world of flesh and blood. In the end many of them found themselves stranded between an imaginary realm of infinite beauty, which nevertheless slipped through their fingers, and a concrete reality which invariably proved too much for their sensitive natures to endure.