For those of us, who have no opportunity to attend Ian
Bostridge's recitals, this DVD (recorded live at Chatelet as part of
the "Voices of Our Time" series) is a priceless gift. Having heard much
about his "unorthodox" manner of delivery, we were surprised by just how
natural and spontaneous he was. Every interpretive nuance seemed to
stem from his deep inner conviction in how to bring to
life the very essence of each lied. It was thrilling to have
each song turned into an actual experience on stage, as though it were
being "lived out" right there at that moment, right before our very
eyes. And it is a mistake to think that this
can be achieved through mere "acting", for the power necessary for this
would not be sufficient. The kind of mezmerizing hold that Mr.
Bostridge has over the audience can only
come from his spirit.
This actually takes a great deal of courage: to open
yourself up to the point, at which the spirit can rise from within and
take over the performance. This happens only with the greatest of artists,
who put themselves entirely at the service of the music. In addition, it
takes a particular stage of spiritual development, because
it requires a nobility of soul - something that definitely
cannot be "acted". In fact, it is so rare to see spiritual nobility
these days that some people tend to mistake it for "posturing" or
affectation.
It is difficult to single out
highlights, because in its own way every song is a highlight (though,
it must be said that a song like "Nimmersatte Liebe" is simply
unworthy of Mr. Bostridge). Rising to the dizzying heights of
effortless virtuosity in "Willkommen und
Abschied", "Storchenbotschaft", "Abschied", he contrasts it with
spellbinding stillness in "Nacht und Traume", "Wanderers Nachtlied
II", and the last encore, Schubert's "Erster
Verlust", just needs to be experienced to be believed. To end an
entire recital on a question! And through the powerful projection of
the inconsolable longing for what has been lost, to
transform it into a kind of eternal, existential
question!
Singing
about the beauty of the spiritual ideal (in "An die Geliebte", "Neue
Liebe"), Mr. Bostridge himself undergoes a kind of transformation and
begins to emerge as the earthly personification of that ideal. His
features become transfigured, as they take on a reflection of the
unearthly beauty of his spirit, which has found its expression in the
lieder of Schubert and Wolf. Glowing through the body's material cloak,
the luminosity of his spirit has little to do with our modern concepts of
beauty - but then true beauty is not dependent on the correctness of
physical features, but only on the extent to which spirituality is
revealed on the face.
Another phenomenon can be observed in this
performance: Mr. Bostridge's extra-ordinary sensitivity to words. Much has
been written about it, but to fully appreciate this, it is necessary to
lift part of the veil covering the knowledge of the mysterious powers
contained in every human word, to which most people remain oblivious. As
Abd-ru-shin
reveals:
"...there is a releasing quality in every word, because all words
are firmly anchored in the Primordial Laws of Creation! Every word shaped by man has come into being under the
pressure of higher Laws and, according to its application, must manifest
formingly in a very definite way!" (Abd-ru-shin, "IN THE LIGHT OF
TRUTH: THE GRAIL MESSAGE", chapter "The Human
Word".)
The more
sensitive people perceive this intuitively. So very often in the
course of the recital, what we see on Mr. Bostridge's face is how
deeply he is affected by this special "releasing quality" contained
in every word, particularly when it is even further
amplified by the music. (The great Fischer-Dieskau also possessed this
quality.) The facial expressions do not come from "acting", but from an
inordinate degree of receptivity to the forming power of the words, which
create word-forms in the layers of matter, invisible to the human eye.
"Erlkonig" is, perhaps, the most obvious illustration of this receptivity,
but it is present throughout - already in "Wehmut" it is clearly
discernible, as Mr. Bostridge, from the very first note, stands right in
the power-current of his Calling.
And speaking of
receptivity to Higher Realms, a set of Wolf songs ("Gebet", "An den
Schlaf", "Neue Liebe" and "An die Geliebte"), written after the composer's
attendance of Wagner's "Parsifal", reveals much more about him than just
Wagner's stylistic influence on his music. The inner deepening that
has occurred is clearly reflected in the so-called "religious" songs
chosen for this recital. This is also where Mr. Bostridge sores to new
heights of spiritual transcendence in his performance.
It is reported
that during the intermission of "Parsifal" Wolf broke down in tears. For
such a reaction to happen, he had to have been shaken to the innermost
depths of his being, he had to have experienced a spiritual recognition of
the actual existence of the Persona of Parsifal in Creation and the
reality of the Holy Grail (despite the fact that Wagner's story, based as
it is on purely human writings, contains many errors).
The subject of
the Holy Grail has remained a matter of much speculation (some serious,
some sensational and some even unclean), but the truth about it could not
be known until now, for the simple reason that "unless a Messenger is sent
from there, no detailed tidings about It can ever reach the World
of Matter!" (Abd-ru-shin, "IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH: THE GRAIL
MESSAGE", chapter "The Holy Grail"). Abd-ru-shin then goes on to
reveal for the first time the true nature and function, as well
as the actual location of the Holy Grail in Creation and the Persona
of Parsifal, Who stands in close connection to
It:
"At the
summit of the eternal Sphere of Spiritual Substantiality stands the
Castle of the Grail, spiritually visible and tangible, because it is
still of the same species of spiritual substantiality. This Castle of
the Grail contains a Sanctuary which lies on the outermost border
adjacent to the Divine Sphere, and is thus of still finer consistency
than the rest of spiritual substantiality. In this Sanctuary, as a
pledge of the eternal Goodness of God the Father, as a symbol of His
Purest Divine Love, and the point from which Divine Power issues, stands
the Holy Grail!
This is a
chalice in which it bubbles and surges unceasingly like red blood
without overflowing. Enveloped as it is in the most Luminous Light, it
is granted only to the purest of all spirits in the Realm of Spiritual
Substantiality to look into this Light! These are the Guardians
of the Holy Grail! If it is said in the legends that the purest of men
are destined to become Guardians of the Grail, this is a point about
which the blessed poet has drawn all too earthly a picture, because he
was unable to express himself differently!
No human
spirit can enter this holy Sanctuary! Even in its most perfect state of
spiritual substantiality, after having returned from its wanderings
through the World of Matter, it is still not so fine that it could cross
this threshold, i. e., the boundary line! Even in its highest state of
perfection it is still too dense to do so!
A still
further etherisation would be equivalent to its complete disintegration
or combustion, because the origin of its nature does not lend itself to
assuming even greater radiance and luminosity, thus becoming still more
etherised. It cannot bear it!
The Guardians
of the Grail are Eternal Primordial Spiritual Beings, who never were
human beings. They are the highest of all in the Realm of Spiritual
Substantiality. However, they are in need of Divine Unsubstantiate
Power, are dependent upon It, as all else is dependent on Divine
Unsubstantiality, the Source of all Power, God the
Father!
From time to
time on the Day of the Holy Dove, the Dove appears above the Chalice as
a renewed token of the unalterable Divine Love of the Father. It is the
hour of communion which brings about the renewal of power. The Guardians
of the Grail receive it in humble devotion and can then transmit this
magic power.
On this depends the existence of the whole
Creation!
It is the
moment in which the Love of the Creator radiantly flows forth in the
Temple of the Holy Grail, bringing new life and a new urge to create,
pulsating downwards and diffusing itself through all the Universe. A
trembling and a holy awe, with forebodings of joy and great happiness,
vibrate through all the spheres. Only the spirit of earthman still
stands aside, without intuitively sensing what is happening particularly
to him at that moment; or in what a dull-witted manner he accepts such
an immeasurable gift, because the limitations he imposed upon himself
through his intellect no longer permit him to grasp such
greatness!
It is the moment
when a new supply of vital energy is sent out into the entire
Creation!
It is the
necessary, ever-recurring ratification of the Covenant between the
Creator and His Work! Should this supply ever be cut off, should it ever
fail to come, inevitably all that exists would slowly dry up, grow old
and disintegrate. The end of all days would then come, and only God
Himself would remain, as it was in the very beginning, because He alone
is Life!
This process
is related in the legend. How everything must grow old and decay if the
Day of the Holy Dove, the "uncovering" of the Grail, does not recur is
even hinted at in the description of the growing old of the Knights of
the Grail, during the time in which Amfortas no longer uncovers the
Grail till the hour in which Parsifal appears as King of the
Grail.
Man should
cease to regard the Holy Grail as only something intangible, for It
really exists! The human spirit, however, owing to its nature, can never
behold It. But the blessing radiating forth from It, which can be and is
being passed on by the Guardians of the Grail, can be absorbed and
enjoyed by those human spirits who open themselves to
it.
In this sense
some of the interpretations cannot be called wrong, as long as they do
not try to draw the Holy Grail Itself into their explanations. They are
correct, and yet again they are also not correct!
The appearance
of the Dove on the special Day of the Holy Dove indicates the sending of
the Holy Spirit on each occasion, for this Dove stands in very close
connection with the Holy Spirit." (Abd-ru-shin, "IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH:
THE GRAIL MESSAGE", chapter "The Holy
Grail" - read the entire chapter or listen to it in MP3
audio - 18 min.)
"The existing
interpretations are not without great ethical value, but they cannot
claim to be an explanation of the legends, much less to approach the
truth about the Holy Grail.
Nor is the
Holy Grail meant to be the cup which the Son of God used during His last
meal with His Disciples at the end of His Ministry on earth, and in
which His blood was afterwards caught when He was on the cross! This
vessel is a sacred memento of the Son of God's sublime work of
redemption, but it is not the Holy Grail of which the poets of the
legends were mercifully granted to sing praises. These legends have been
misinterpreted by mankind!
They were
meant to be promises from the Highest Heights, the fulfilment of which
mankind is to await!..
Parsifal is a
great promise! The defects and errors which the poets have added to the
legends through their too earthly way of thinking distort the true
essence of this figure. Parsifal is identical with the Son of Man, Whose
coming the Son of God Himself proclaimed.
As a Divine
Messenger with His spiritual sight blindfolded, He will have to go
through the most bitter hardships on earth, outwardly a man among
men.
After a
certain time, when His spiritual sight is restored, He will inevitably
recognise His origin and therewith Himself, as well as clearly realising
His mission. This mission will also bring redemption to those who are
seriously seeking, and goes hand in hand with a stern
judgment.
For this
purpose not just anybody can be chosen, much less can the possible
experiences of many people, or even of all the people, be seen in it. On
the contrary, it will only be a very definite and special Messenger!"
(Abd-ru-shin, "IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH: THE GRAIL MESSAGE", chapter
"The Holy Grail".)
"It will have
occurred already to every thinking person that the Son of God and the
Son of Man cannot be one! The difference is quite clearly expressed in
the words themselves."
"He who
believes in the Son of God and in His words and has made them come to
life within himself, thus carrying them within him in their true
interpretation and acting accordingly, naturally need not wait for
the promised Son of Man because the Son of Man has nothing else to bring
than the Son of God has already brought! It is a condition, however,
that such a person has really understood the words of the Son of
God, and does not stubbornly cling to erroneous transmissions. If
somewhere he has bound himself to errors he will not be able to complete
his ascent until he has received enlightenment. It was reserved for the
Son of Man to bring this because the limited human spirit is unable to
free itself from the dense undergrowth which now obscures the
Truth!..
The Son of God
personally proclaimed to mankind the Coming of the Son of Man, Who will
then remain the eternal Mediator between the Divine and Creation!
This expresses the sublime love of the Creator for His
Creation!
The difference
between the Son of Man and the Son of God is that, though born out of
the purely Divine, the Son of Man was at the same time connected with
the Sphere of Conscious Spiritual Substantiality, so that it is as if He
stands simultaneously with one foot in the Divine and with the other in
the highest part of Conscious Spiritual Substantiality. He is a part of
each, and thus forms the eternal bridge between the Divine and
the summit of Creation...
The Mission of
the Son of Man on earth is the continuation and completion of the
Mission of the Son of God, as the Mission of the Son of God could only
be a transient one. Hence this continuation and completion is at the
same time a consolidation of Christ's Mission!" (Abd-ru-shin, "IN
THE LIGHT OF TRUTH: THE GRAIL MESSAGE", chapter "The Son of Man" -
Read
the entire chapter.)
And here is a
description of how the Son of Man, Who is identical with Parsifal, looks
in the Grail Castle of the Primordial Spiritual Realm located at
the summit of Creation:
"What
shall I now tell you about that which simply cannot be limited by
earthly words?
A luminous
head in the most perfect form, cloaked in the eternal movement of the
Living Light, which causes every Created One who looks at it to lose
consciousness and throws him down. The body enveloped in a radiant cloak
which gives the impression of a flexible scaly mail, above the head the
wings of the Dove spread protectingly... thus can you envisage Him,
powerful, imperious, invincible, unapproachable, the Power of God
embodied, the Radiance of God that has taken on form: Parsifal, the Son
of Light, in the Primordial Spiritual, standing at the summit of
Creation! The Pure Gate that has opened from the Divine to
Creation, that leads from God to man!
According to
its meaning the name Parsifal signifies among other things: From God
to man! He is therefore the gate or the bridge from God to man. He
is not the pure simpleton (in German "der reine Tor"), but the
Pure Gate (in German "das reine Tor") of Life to
Creation!
For His work
of purifying Creation which was granted by God the Father, and which
became necessary through the fall of the human spirits in the World of
Matter, Parsifal's volition as a Part of Him took on form for His
wandering through all the parts of the world, so that through gathering
experiences therein He would recognise all the weaknesses and wounds of
the human spirits." (Abd-ru-shin, "IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH: THE GRAIL
MESSAGE", chapter "The Primordial Spiritual Planes
III".)
Such is the
reality of Parsifal and the Holy Grail. Richard Wagner's highly-guided
opera "Parsifal" offers a chance to every human being to
experience this reality intuitively, on a profound spiritual level,
without clinging to its outward inaccuracies. And many people do have
this significant inner experience after listening to this
opera, unaware that the shaking nature of it is rooted in the reality
of life in Creation, which owes its continued existence to the Power
pouring from the Holy Grail on the Day of the Holy Dove. The time of
the occurrence of this special Day is also revealed by
Abd-ru-shin:
"The event described in the Bible of
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of the Son of God
is still an inexplicable happening to many people, and is mostly
regarded as extraordinary, as having occurred only on this one occasion,
and therefore as an arbitrary act!
It is just in
this erroneous view that there lies the cause for what is apparently
'inexplicable'!
The
happening was not an isolated one, not one specially brought about for
the disciples, but one that has recurred
regularly ever since Creation existed. With this
recognition it will immediately lose its inexplicability, and it
will become understandable to the seriously seeking readers of the Grail
Message without forfeiting any of its greatness, but on the contrary
making it even more stupendous!
He who
has attentively studied my Grail Message will already have found the
solution for this event in it, for he must also have read the
explanation given in the lecture "The Holy Grail". There I mentioned the
regularly recurring
yearly renewal of power for the entire Creation.
It is the moment in which new Divine Power streams into the Holy Grail
for the maintenance of Creation!
For some
moments the 'Holy Dove' appears above the Grail. This is the spiritually
visible form of the presence of the Holy Spirit, which directly belongs
to the 'form' of the Holy Spirit, and is therefore a part of this
'form'.
Just as the
Cross is the spiritually visible form of Divine Truth, so is the "Dove"
the visible form of the Holy Spirit. This actually is the form, not
merely an imaginary conception!
This
renewal of power by the Holy Spirit, the Living Will of God which is
this Power, recurs every year at a certain definite time in the Holy of
Holies of the highest castle or temple harbouring the Holy Grail. This
temple is the only point of connection of Creation with the Creator, and
is therefore called the Grail
Castle. This renewal may also be called the outpouring of
power, thus the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit or, still more explicitly,
the outpouring of power by the Holy Spirit, for it is not the Holy
Spirit that is poured out, but the Holy Spirit pours out the
power!
Now the
disciples were assembled on this day in commemoration of their ascended
Lord Who had promised to send the Spirit, that is, the Living Power. The
fact of their commemorating provided an anchorage for this, an anchorage for the event which took
place at this time in the Primordial Sphere, enabling the Living Power to
descend to a certain and corresponding degree directly upon the disciples
on earth, who had assembled in devotion and accordingly adjusted
themselves to it. All the more so as the way to these disciples had been
opened up and smoothed by the life of the Son of God on
earth!
And for
this
reason the miraculous happened, which could not
otherwise have been possible on earth, and the experiencing of which is
related in the Bible. The evangelists were able to describe their own
experiences
but not the actual happening, which they themselves
did not understand.
The festival of
Whitsuntide has been instituted by Christians in memory of this
occurrence, without their ever suspecting that at this approximate time
each year the Day of the Holy Dove occurs in the Grail Castle, that is,
the day of the renewal of power for Creation by the Holy Spirit. Naturally
this does not always correspond exactly with the Whitsuntide holiday as
figured out on earth, but at its approximate time!
At that
time the meeting of the disciples coincided exactly with the actual happening! Later
on it will also be celebrated here on earth regularly and at the right time as the most supreme and holy
festival of mankind, the day on which the Creator always renews His gift
of sustaining power to Creation, as the 'Day of the Holy Dove', or the Day
of the Holy Spirit, a great prayer of thanksgiving to God the
Father!
It will be
celebrated by those
human beings who at last stand consciously in this Creation, and who
have finally learned to understand it aright in all its manifestations.
Their devout attitude at the exact time will also make it possible that,
through opening themselves, the living blessing can again flow down to
this earth in return, and pour itself into the thirsting souls as it did
long ago with the disciples!
This period, which is not too
far distant, will bring peace and happiness if men do not fail and do not
want to be lost for all eternity!" (Abd-ru-shin, "IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH:
THE GRAIL MESSAGE", chapter "The Outpouring of the Holy
Spirit".)
