The Religion of Richard Wagner (Ring of the Nibelungs.)

“Ex morle vila” said the ancient philosophers, “out of death comes life”. Death and life are the only continuity of being. Where does life begin and where does it end? What is death and when does it begin? Neither biology nor medicine can answer these questions. Oha these processes are so closely intertwined, so intertwined, that the mathematical moment of the beginning of each of them is shrouded in mystery. No they are separated by a defined demarcation line; they are connected to each other like this elusive, like the colors of the sun’s spectrum: a transition to every color next is almost elusive.

Isn’t death only a change? Liberating the eternal life energy from a crystallized shell of matter to create another more perfect and subtle? The activity of the vital force is like thought of the sculptor’s creativity, which incarnates the marble or bronze, giving it shape more and more perfect. So the subjective value is only the artist’s thought, trapped in this or that objective manifestation. Destruction or the disintegration of the form is only the passage of the energy that animates it, the life, consciousness into another, more appropriate form. A characteristic example of this concept of life and form is known gesture of Benvenuto Cellini, a famous goldsmith in the times of Alexander Borgia: Cellini, influenced by the vision of a new work of art, not having at hand free material throws into the crucible of molten gold his wonderful masterpieces, which are his glory and fame: this is an example of the Idea triumphing over matter, Life over Form.

The source of Wagner’s favorite concept of Life, Death and Form was partly Buddhist philosophy, partly the astonishing intuition of a mystic, possessing a profound knowledge of truths scarcely sensed by modern science. Science studies the origin and disintegration of form, mystery yet there remains that power which creates forms and which we call Life. “Astiatmanastitwa – sadhanaasambhavat,” repeated Wagner with the philosophers of India, “the existence of spirit is true, for it is impossible to prove its non-existence.” Spirit – Life – Motion – are unambiguous concepts. and one — Spirit – Matter Life – Form Movement – Inertia. The ring of life and death resembles the ancient symbol of a viper devouring its tail. It is also a biological symbol. Because is strength life of the seed does not pass with its death into the existence of the sprout? The slow decay of the plant gives life to the seed in which it hides again potential life. The death of a caterpillar is the birth of a chrysalis, which, when dying, pours its life energy into a butterfly. These are more glaring examples, accessible to the study of each of us and concerning the transplantation of life from one conglomerate of atoms to another – from matter to matter. The same process, however, is more about transformation subtle: the transfer of Life – from one plane to another, from the three-dimensional body, which is the physical shape of man – to higher bodies dimensions. For we know from mathematics that the number of dimensions is infinite, and this transition of the vital force from one plane to another is called usually death. The rise and fall of life forms a ring, whose most closely joined segments are called life and death.

Biology teaches us that every death is but the beginning of a new life. This process is governed by the threefold law of Sacrifice;—Love—Resurrection. Sacrifice, preceding and being every expansion of consciousness the basis of life; Love – the embracing continuity of the one Life; Resurrection through Sacrifice and Love, woven on the yarn of laws of which man himself is the creator.

This is what must be borne in mind in order to fully understand the genesis “Rishentibelongs“. Arpeggios ascending and descending the overtures are a symbol of the evolution and involution of Life. It is a powerful scheme of Wagner’s philosophy. In “The Ring of the Nibelungs” Wagner depicted the entire Cosmos in motion, in the chord of creative work. People and gods, creations of air, earth, fire and water against the background of the eternal laws of nature. “Rhen’s Gold” is a poetic re-enactment of the history of evolution Self, the evolution of creative powers. The gold that rests at the bottom of the quiet green waters of the Rhine, extracted and then returning to them again, forged into the shape of a magic ring – that’s the whole drama of the Monad. The waters of the Rhine, full of unknown powers and a peculiar life from which they spring the visible shape emerges and into which, after passing the cycle of experiences returns – this is the Sanskrit Prakriti – Pramaterja, symbolized in philosophy in the Orient and in primitive Christianity by the passive element, female – by water

The Monad, in order to gain self-consciousness, must be of this Prime Matter selected. Gold is a symbol of the spirit and the spirit must go through thousands of experiences, in a thousand shapes – in a colorful rosary of many lives, to be purified, aware of himself, he could return to Oneness. Woglinda reveals the secret of the waters of the Rhine to Alberic. Dwarf Alberic, whose external figure is only a caricature of a man, is a symbol of the blind instinct, the lowest creative force that curses gold; that’s it in short poetic repetition of the legend of original sin. Like the monstrous dwarf lurking in the depths of the Rhine, drag yourself henceforth behind the human spirit there will be a monstrous caricature of love – brutal lurking animal lust. Wagner’s Alberic, like Żuławski’s Blaks in Eros and Psyche, is symbol of the physical body, the instincts of primal matter. Curse the dwarf hangs over the Rally of the Monad and follows it, like Blaks for Psyche, an Arcadian princess, nullifying every ascent and laying barriers with radiant ones Dreams of Beauty and Freedom. It is, after all, the beginning of the division of consciousness into lower and higher, the beginning of the eternal struggle of the two elements in man, the eternal struggle between Ormuzd and Ahriman, Tobias with an Angel.

And here comes the miracle: the dwarf’s curse feeds the gold’s hidden life – static and potential becomes dynamic and evolutionary. Let’s pay attention to the music. The first three topics? Rhine, Ondine, Gold, are in a major tone. Not a single note goes beyond the general coloring. Everything is quiet, beautiful, harmonious and joyful, mathematically strict in the world of the unmanifested, in the world of Platonic ideas, music is here with a beautiful geometric pattern, without any clashes or complications. We know after all: Dieu geometrise. The great and immutable laws of cosmic geometry, they are reflected in our world, creating a thousand shapes, connecting human beings, drawing intricate lines of historical pragmatism of peoples.

The first minor tone can be heard when entering the stage Alberic. This physical law, this world of matter, cuts into the harmony of the existence of the spirit. The radiant joy of the gods darkens. We are entering the first phase the drama of Monad into Involution. The minor tone now predominates. Ondine they are defeated. They retreat deep into the cool green waters of the Rhine, into the primeval land. The tone of their song matches Woglinda’s recitatives: (The desire for love in whom it lasts, And who tames the rush of love, He can by now ) spell, Bend it into a golden hoop.”

Love will only lift the curse. But Love is “tamed”. The curse is there thrown, in simple and tragic ignorance, destroying what it does not understand. The force is put into motion. It will be reversed by the one who loves he who renounces individual love will subjugate himself. Give up love? But neither Ondine nor Alberic understand what love is? Love it is the product of total harmony between energy and matter. Ondines belong into the realm of spirit, they are pure and undefiled, and they do not know what individual love is. For Alberic, love is like a light he longs to see blind man. Love is the realm of manifested spirit, the realm of differentiation of forces, the realm division of a single power into two polarized, eternally yearning powers parts to each other. Ondines form a whole with the sphere of magnetic bi-polarization. Alberic, a symbol of nature and an expression of the instincts dormant in the matter of love cannot know.

The concept of love is closely related to the concept of Sacrifice, which is the natural order of things and arises against the background of the struggle of two forces: Spirit and Matter. Wotan and Nibelheim are like a mirror reflecting the consciousness of the world of the monad. Monad (gold) does not manifest itself completely at once, it develops slowly, the law revealed in the depths of the waters of the Rhine. It submits to working laws in the material world. The gold is hammered into a ring – woven into a wheel of life and death, into the magic ring of being, Hindu Samsara. The laws of the spiritual world and the laws of matter converge in the person Siegfried, who must learn them and act accordingly. This situation can represent it geometrically like this:

[Since the plates did not arrive on time [for publishing] – we will put them in a separate print, we are going to do with a series of articles entitled “Wagner’s Religion”. [This sentence refers to this article being only one of several in a series.] The first triangle ABC – symbolizes and solution, the lower one – DCE – is an evolutionary triangle. Both of these triangles converge at one point common: it is the person of Siegfried. A straight line connects the Gold (Monad), Siegfried and Alberic – the lowest point of matter – animal instinct. Siegfried’s place is between the divinity of the Monad and the brutality of instinct. Brunhild is a reflection of the Prime Matter, symbolized by the waters of the Rhine, has to make a sacrifice of life to leave Siegfried a free way up. I am sure that Wagner, like Lord Bacon, known as Shakespeare, first drew a geometrical drama and those magnetic lines that bound them together. Brunhild’s last words were: “Blessed in suffering and joy – make one thing henceforth exist: Love. What is nausea in Wagner’s conception? What are its goals and tasks? In the seven-color rosary of his operas, Wagner shows the evolution of the concept of love, from the purple glow of the passions of the Flying Dutchman – to the snowy whiteness of Parsifal, priest of the One Great Love. Even the greatest love, but centered on one human being, the love of a man to a woman, considers Wagner a weakness.

The leaf fallen from the tree on Siegfried’s shoulders makes the dragon’s blood not wash from the place to which it clung. This is the point of weakness. Its psychic counterpart is Siegfried’s love for Brunhild. There is it is an illusion resulting from the illusory nature of matter, which is the same as reflected in the mirror image. Siegfried’s path is the same he followed Dante: to fight the delusion he had to live it to the end. Man’s involution is only a prelude to his ascent to the heights of superhumanity (Parsifal). Before that, however, the laws of the physical world must be known and mastered.

The end of roads and the fulfillment of roads is All-love – all-all-embracing love in the One and the One in All. Love this is the highest wisdom at the same time. It is understanding the mathematical relationship between the Whole and its parts. It is the longing of a drop to the ocean. It is the feeling of an atom embracing greatness in one flash of consciousness and the magnificence to which it belongs. The concept of love in Wagner’s philosophy is so broad and cosmic that his only genius could make them available to the general consciousness by means of speech tones. Starting from the central point that man is always for self – love moves in ever wider circles, embracing the whole of existence until everywhere he sees the One Life, pulsating in every atom, the One Light, radiant in every being, Love One, all-encompassing in One.

Individual love is only a stage of the upper way. And then it becomes sacrifice and redemption, a faint reflection of the future glory of all-understanding. What is the love of Senta, Elizabeth, Tristan, Brunhild. For Lohengrin, the Silver Knight, it ceases to be an end and a goal. He leaves his beloved and sails away in his mysterious boat; drawn by the White Bird into an unknown land, in search of what? Longing and loneliness of Lohengrin, hiding his great secret even from his closest ones mission, this is the characteristic of all those who are at the end of the Pilgrimage. Loneliness, it is deeper and more painful in Parsifal. Mocked and covered with contempt, considered a ridiculous idealist, he becomes his own guide and way on Mont Salvat (Mountain of Salvation), is alone. All souls, lower in development, subconsciously feel this Pilgrim loneliness.

The idea of sacrifice is a recurring motif in Wagner’s musical dramas. Only the victim can move the inert mass of the crowd for a moment, help the evolution of individuals and liberate the consciousness of the one who puts it together. History knows thousands of such victims. They contain an element of both joy and suffering. Why is it like that? For a man at a low level of development of discomfort, tribulations and even the smallest sacrifices seem to be a torment hard to bear. Only a physical being is involved. But I am taller. The more development a person has, the more joy is woven into the concept of suffering. The higher and lower consciousness reacts to them. This notion of consciousness expansion through Sacrifice and inner crucifixion is found in the beautiful the saying of the Rosicrucians: “Per Rosam (mystical love and awakened consciousness) ad Crucem, per Grucem ad Rosam in eis genuatus resurgam.” This is the moment of Christ’s resurrection in the human soul.

The spirit feels joy in overcoming difficulties. We all know that sacrifices made for loved ones or for a cherished idea become the greatest joy. This is the secret lever of martyrdom. Happy serenity is always visible in the eyes and smiles of ascetics, mystics and saints and great artists, for each of them knows the sweetness of sacrifice and self-denial, which would seem to be all the more difficult because the sensitivity, the ability to feel suffering and the subtlety of the nervous system increase in proportion to spiritual development. Resurrection through Sacrifice and Love – this is the concept of the Ring of the Nibelungs.

Resurrection through Sacrifice and Love, Joy and suffering unleashed on the yarn of the laws of fate intersecting at right angles. By the right of sacrifice, Brunhild dies, so that after undergoing the baptism of Fire and Water – Love and suffering could be resurrected in Parsifal. In brilliant strokes Wagner paints the whole mystical drama of the soul. Her way up, arduous progress towards the peaks, a complicated network influences of fate, of which man himself was the creator and which, in the logical association of causes and effects, like Hindu Karma and Mohammedan Kismetu, stands in the way of human intentions.

The power with which Wagner touches the most intricate mystical problems it is the result of the contact of the artist’s consciousness with the supersensible world, like moreover, he himself often mentions it, the consciousness of artists easily crosses the boundaries of physical equality. For this reason in Hellas and Egypt to artists almost divine worship. Is their work – the embodiment of the vision of Beauty, the incorporation of creative thought into a rainbow of colors, the whiteness of marble, or the harmony of sounds did not resemble in a small measure the creative work of the gods?

The difference between a mystic and an artist of Wagner’s stature lies in the fact is that the mystic, returning in consciousness from the plane of the spirit, goes deeper in the secrets of your own self. This is interior creativity. And the artist, in joyful ecstasy, he wants to show others what he has seen and felt. Creation therefore his is also external. The mystic also despises matter. Artist, he wants to spiritualize her and make her as beautiful as her counterpart in the world spiritual. And this is where the beautiful role of the artist lies: sharing your own vision of Beauty, Harmony and Truth to those who directly feel and see cannot. This is how Wagner understood his task. He defined them himself: “Lifting the veil that divides the invisible and the visible.” The descent into Matter is the joyful sacrifice of an artist who yearns incessantly to the continuity of supersensible impressions, to the Syntagma, as Eucken defined it. Wagner is a master of orchestration, but we see him in every opera how much meaning he gave to his voice, how deep his knowledge was the secret science of sounds contained in Hindu Mantra Yoga.

According to the words of the great artist of our epoch, Leopold Stokowski, creation in the field of music resembles the capture of sound waves by a radio receiver. Sounds and melodies recorded in memory transferred by the artist to various instruments. The human voice itself is the creator of sounds. And here lies its magical power, little understood by the general public. There is no doubt that musical instruments have a much broader scope rock of opportunity. After all, the average consciousness perceives most easily sounds within 6 octaves. For all that is lower or higher, only the ear of the musician responds. The human voice covers 5 or even 5M octaves. By means of these two powerful factors, which are the voice and the symphony music, Wagner accomplished an enormous task in the history of art: he created music not of feelings but of thoughts, cosmic music, a powerful concept evolution. We see it in The Ring of the Nibelungs.

God-Wotan manifests through thousands of human beings, through action and stillness, joy and suffering. And behold, after the cycle of appearances, everything returns to the Unity from which it came: to Wotan and the deep, still waters of the Rhine. Asces in understanding the occult (Continuation of the article “The Elixir of Life” on page 86.) Most people are prone to take illusion for everything reality, turning away from the light – to plunge into your own shade. The laws of the occult are most often diametrically opposed to generally accepted principles. The mob claims that by submitting to the laws of nature, we win freedom and follow the voice of duty. Every occultist knows well, that the forces of nature are at the disposal of him who knows how to oppose them. Spirit, like St. Jerzy, must gain victory over the forces of nature manifesting through the lower quadruple of our being— through the physical, etheric, astral and lower mental.

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