Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832)

I was introduced to Goethe via the writings of Albert Schweitzer during my freshman year at Columbia. Since then, Goethe has become my spiritual mentor. He was not only a great poet and dramatist, but a scientist as well. I bought Rudolf Steiner's Goethe, the Scientist, the first time at Anthony's American Brahmin bookstore. I attended a Cornell student's backyard picnic party where Tony was invited. They played the guitar and took turns singing popular songs. When it was my turn, I admitted that I didn't know any song by heart but could recite some verses from Goethe's Faust which I'm quoting below. Tony was impressed, saying, "Peter bought a book from me about Goethe the first time we met. I didn't know that he knew Goethe by heart." Tony told me to be more sociable and attend the weekend gathering at his home in Seneca Falls— "We relax and chat, I play some classical music. My wife Ella May serve some homemade vegetarian soup." Tony invited me to stay overnight at his house before I left Cornell for my postdoc research at Brandeis (Sept. 1970). He introduced me to Beethoven's Last Quartets and deepened my appreciation for his spiritual mentor, Paul Brunton, whom I had the pleasure to interview during my visits to Europe. I've included Goethe's verses in the Prologue of my Ph.D. Thesis "Calorimetric Heat of the Helix-Coil Transition of Poly-L-Lysine" because Goethe's message spoke to me as I embarked on Buddha's spiritual path of enlightenment. Goethe's Chorus Mysticus at the end of Faust summarized the importance of the "Eternal Feminine" in leading us above. This is the message of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and also Dante when Beatrice (intuition & insight) and not Virgil (intellect & logic) guided him to Paradise. (Peter Y. Chou)