Chapter XI

SIEGFRIED, THE TRUTH SEEKER

WE have seen that it is necessary to set aside all
limitations of religion, family, environment,
and whatever else hinders in order to be able to grasp
truth, but there is still another great requirement, or
one which perhaps is comprehended in the first. We
cling to our religion, our friends, and our families
through fear of standing alone. We obey conventions
because we fear to follow the dictates of the inner
voice that urges us on toward the higher things which
are incomprehensible to the majority; and therefore
in reality, fear is the chief obstacle which prevents us
from getting at truth and living it.

This is also shown in the Ring of the Niebelung.
Wotan decrees that Brunhilde, the spirit of truth, is
to be put to sleep, because he fears the loss of his
power if he retains her after she has rebelled against
his limitations and refuses to shield Hunding, the spirit
of convention. He pronounces her doom in sorrow,
saying that she must remain asleep until one more
free than he, the god, shall waken her. ' ' Perfect love
casteth out all fear, ' ' and only the fearless are free to
love and to live truth. Therefore, Brunhilde is put to

94 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

sleep on a desolate rock, and around her burns for-
ever a circle of flame kindled by Loge, the spirit of
delusion. No one but the free — the unfettered and
fearless soul — can ever hope to penetrate that circle
of hallucination (conventionality) and live to love
the reawakened spirit of truth, ever lovely and young.

Thus the second part of the mystic drama ends
with the abandonment of truth, and the triumph of
convention. Creed is firmly established on earth.
Siegmund, the truth seeker, lies vanquished and dead.
His sister-wife, Sieglinda, also has paid with her life
for entering the quest and it would seem as if "Brun-
hilde must sleep forever. Now the Walsungs have
only one representative, the orphan child Siegfried,
who was left in the cave of Mime, the Niebelung, by
the dying mother, Sieglinda.

In time, however, the child grows up in youthful
vigor, developing the strength of a giant. Beautiful
as a god, he is a strange contrast to Mime, the ugly
Niebelung, a dwarf who claims to be his father. This
Siegfried can scarcely believe, for when he looks about
him in the forest, he sees that the nestlings resemble
their parents, that the young of all animals have the
same characteristics which are found in their pnrents.
He alone is different from the one who claims him
as a son.

When with prodigious strength he has caught a
bear, and leads it into the cave of Mime, the latter is
almost paralyzed with fear, an emotion utterly un-
known to Siegfried. Mime, one of the most cunning

SIEGFRIED, THE TRUTH SEEKER 9li

smiths among the Niebelung, has forged S'Wurd after
sword for the use of this young giant, but each in
turn has been shattered by the powerful arm that
wielded it. Mime has indeed tried to weld the sword
Nothung, the child of distress, which was shattered
upon the spear of Wotan in the fatal fray between
Siegmund and Hunding. The fragments of this
sword were brought by Sieglinda to the cave of Mime,
but no one who is a coivard can either forge or wIcM
the sword, Nothung, the courage of despair; there-
fore, Mime, despite all his skill, has failed every time
he has tried. One day when Siegfried taunts him be-
cause of his inability to make a sword that will stand,
Mime brings out the fragments of Nothung, and tells
him that if he can weld it, it will serve him well.
Possessing that cardinal qualification of the truth
seeker, fearlessness, Siegfried accomplishes with un-
skilled hand what Mime has failed to do. He forges
anew the magic sword and is thus prepared for the
quest of truth and knowledge.

Though ages have passed since Alberich, the Niebe-
lung, was forced to part with the Ring as ransom to
the gods, neither he nor his tribe have forgotten the
power wielded by its possessor. And the longing to
regain the lost treasure is still rife among all of them.
For mankind, being inherently spiritual and free, will
never be reconciled to the loss of individuality in-
sisted upon under the regime of the church. Though,
like Mime, they may be imbued with an uncontrollable
fear; though they may cringe and fawn before the

96 MYSTERIES OP THE GREAT OPERAS

higher powers, as Alberich fawned before Wotan,
they always, whether subconsciously or otherwise, re-
member their spiritual heritage and seek to recover
their estate as free agents, unbound by creed or other
limitations.

To this end they scheme and plot in the most subtle
manner, as symbolized by the aid Mime gives Sieg-
fried to forge anew the sword once shattered by
Wotan. He sees that the young truth seeker is fear-
less. He knows that Fafner, one of the giants, who
obtained the Ring from the gods, broods over his
treasure in the form of a huge dragon, awe inspiring
in the extreme. He can scarcely believe it possible
for anyone to vanquish this monster, but he believes
that if it can be done, this fearless young giant, Sieg-
fried, is the only one able to accomplish the feat. It
has, indeed, been said that the one who forges Noth-
ung, will slay him; and Mime trusts to his cunning
and hopes that if Siegfried kills the dragon, he, Mime,
may be able to obtain possession of the Ring of the
Niebelung and become the master of the world.

There is a very deep spiritual significance in this
tale, namely, that of the lower nature, plotting to use
the higher self for its own vile purposes. Siegfried
(he, who through victory gains peace), is the higher
self at that stage of its pilgrimage where it has been
left all alone, without kith or kin, where it sees that
the shape of clay symbolized by Mime is not part of
it, but of an entirely different race and breed, where
it is ready to continue its search for truth, attempted

SIEGFRIED, THE TRUTH SEEKER 97

in previous lives as did Siegmund and Sieglinda, from
whom the indomitable courage, that knows neither
fear nor defeat, has been inherited.

But though the seeking soul may forsake the world,
as did Hertzeleide, the mother of Parsifal, who gave
birth to the truth seeker in a dense forest, and as
Sieglinda who bore the child, Siegfried, in the cave of
Mime, the lower nature follows, scheming to use the
power of spirit for worldly ends. Alas! how many
have left the churches in despair because of creed, as
Siegmund left Wotan; who have gained a certain
knowledge of the higher things and have then mis-
used their heavenly powers of hypnotism and mental
suggestion, to attract to themselves the goods of this
world, seeking rather the things of earth which fetter
than the treasures of heaven which free the soul.

There has never been an age on earth when this
part of the great myth was so generally enacted as it
is today. There are many thousands of people who
represent in themselves, Siegfried and Mime — Dr.
Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. They are roused to a greater
or lesser realization of the powers of the spirit, of
their divine nature and attributes as Siegfried was,
but the lower phase of their nature, Mime, keeps on
scheming for material benefit.

And whether we call this use of the divine powers,
Christian, or by an other name, it is not the science
of the soul. We should be honest with ourselves and
recognize the fact, that He, who had not a place
whereon to lay His head, and who was the very em-

7

98 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

bodiment of the attracting Christ power, refused to
use that power for His own benefit. Even at the point
of death He refrained, and it was said of Him that
others He saved, but Himself, He could not (would
not) save because the law of sacrifice is greater than
the law of self-preservation: ''For what shall it
profit a man, though he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul ? ' '

The moment we set out upon the path in earnest,
the lower nature is doomed despite all its efforts of
cunning to save itself. And when Mime plans to send
Siegfried against the dragon, Fafner, the spirit of de-
sire, he has in fact sealed his own fate ; for when the
soul has conquered the desire for worldly possessions,
we are dead to the world, even though we may still
live here and perform our work in the world. We are
then in the world, but not of it.

Led by Mime, Siegfried finds the giant Fafner
guarding the cave where he has hidden the hoard of
the Niebelungs. The lower nature always urges the
higher to seek the material wealth of the world, seek-
ing, thereby, to obtain standing and power in society.
It is, alas, all too common, this desire and thirst for
wealth and power ! We are all like Mime, ready to
risk our lives in the quest of gold. And though Mime
quakes at the very thought of being near the dreadful
dragon, he keeps on plotting, for he knows that when
the ego, represented by the Ring of the Niebelung, is
so enmeshed in the snares of materiality that the body
may be said to own it, when all its energies are di-
rected by the lower nature, there is no limit to the

SIEGFRIED, THE TRUTH SEEKER 99

power it may attain. But Siegfried, the fearless truth
seeker, when he has vanquished the dragon, represent-
ing the desire nature, also slays Mime who is em-
blematic of the dense body.

Freed from the mortal coil, the spirit is able ta
understand the language of nature. Intuitively it
senses where truth, represented by Brunhilde, the
Valkuerie, is hidden, and following this intuition,
represented in the myth by a bird, he starts for the
fire girt rock, to wake and to woo the sleeping beauty.
But though we may, by laying aside the physical
body, enter the realm where truth is to be found, the
pathway is not by any means clear ; for Wo tan, the
warder of creed, stretches his spear across the path of
Siegfried, endeavoring to the last to dissuade or dis-
courage the independent searcher for truth. How-
ever, the power of creed, represented by the spear of
Wotan, was weakened when he bargained with the
giants ; in other words when it appealed to the lower
side of man 's nature. And in token of this weakening,
magic characters were cut upon the shaft of the spear.
This is therefore, easily broken in twain at the first
blow from Nothung, the courage of despair.

When the truth seeker has come to the point here
described, he will no longer allow himself to be
thwarted in his quest, whether the opposing power be
devils like Fafner or gods like Wotan. Every obstacle
he removes with ruthless hand for he has only one de-
sire in the world, an overweaning craving to know
truth. Therefore, after shattering the spear of Wotan,

100 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

he presses onward, led by rhe bird of intuition, until
he comes to the circle of flame hiding Brunhilde, the
sleeping spirit of truth. Neither is he daunted at
sight of Loge's flames of illusion and hallucination.
He plunges boldly through, and behold ! there lies that
for which he has panted during many lives. He
stoops, gathers Brunhilde in his strong, yet tender
arms, and with a fervent kiss he awakens the spirit
of truth from her age long sleep.