The Goethean basis of Steiner's work

"The Occult Basis of Goethe's Work" by Rudolf Steiner is an article extracted from a longer book, "Transactions of the Second Annual Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society". Hardly a best-seller in its day!

Steiner gave a presentation at this congress, in which he attempted to link Theosophy with the German poet and polymath Goethe. Since "official" Theosophy was more oriented to Hinduism and Buddhism, Steiner's approach isn't really Theosophical in this sense of the term. Indeed, he would soon leave the Theosophical Society Adyar and form his own group, the Anthroposophical Society, which gives a prominent place to none other than Goethe.

In his speech, Steiner gives an esoteric interpretation to several of Goethe's works: "Faust", "The Fairy-Tale of the Green Serpent and the Beautiful Lily", and the poem "Geheimnisse". Not being a Goethe aficionado, I can't vouch for Steiner's interpretations, but I admit that they sound interesting! In the end, I give this (rather short) lecture three stars.