Spiritual Mentors: Goethe & Albert Schweitzer

Germany B306
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(issued 8-15-1949)

France 863
Goethe
(issued 11-9-1957)

Luxembourg 564
Schweitzer
(issued 4-28-1975)

Gabon C1
Albert Schweitzer
(issued 7-23-1960)

Spiritual Mentors: Goethe & Albert Schweitzer (1960)

Goethe became my spiritual mentor during my freshman year at Columbia (1959-1960). After reading Sartre's philosophy of existentialism, I accepted
his viewpoint that God did not create man but the other way around. Feeling depressed, that God will not reward the virtuous and punish the evildoers, and that man must shoulder all the responsibilities in creating a just society, I began looking for heroes to emulate. I selected Albert Schweitzer for his selfless altruism. Here was someone who had a successful career as a philosopher, theologian, an organist, and a Bach scholar. But at the age of 30, decided to go to medical school. After his medical degree, Schweitzer did not practice in Europe, but went to Lambaréné, Gabon, to open his hospital and worked there for nearly 50 years. When Schweitzer was awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, he was
too busy to go to Oslo because of his hospital duties. However when the city of Frankfurt asked him to deliver the Goethe address (1928-1929), Schweitzer went. He also gave an address on the Goethe Bicenntennial at Aspen, Colorado (July 6 and 8, 1949). I wondered who is this Goethe who was more important than the Nobel Prize to Schweitzer. I went down to the Columbia Butler Library and saw rows and rows of books by and about Goethe. I read Goethe's Sorrow of Young Werther and Faust, as well as Goethe's Theory of Color and Conversations with Eckermann. In his Goethe Address at Frankfurt (August 28, 1928), Schweitzer tells about reading Goethe's Harzreise. He was impressed that Goethe "whom we regard as an Olympian should have set out in the midst of the rains and mist of November 1777 to visit a preacher's son who was plunged in deep spiritual distress, in order to bring him some spiritual assistance." So, whenever Schweitzer encountered some person who needed help, he'd say to himself, "That's is your Harzreise. I'm sharing this Goethe poem which inspired Schweitzer to such heroic action, and is one of the many reasons why I love Goethe so much.

Goethe became my spiritual mentor since 1960. He was not only a great poet and dramatist, but a scientist as well. I bought Rudolf Steiner's Goethe, the Scientist (1950), the first time at Anthony Damiani's American Brahmin bookstore. In 1970, 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—

Behind me, field and meadow sleeping,
I leave in deep, prophetic night,
Within whose dread and holy keeping
The better soul awakes to light.
The wild desires no longer win us,
The deeds of passion cease to chain;
The love of Man revives within us,
The love of God revives again.

Ah, when, within our narrow chamber
The lamp with friendly lustre glows,
Flames in the breast each faded ember,
And in the heart, itself that knows.
Then Hope again lends sweet assistance,
And Reason then resumes her speech:
One yearns, the rivers of existence,
The very founts of Life, to reach.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
   Part I, Scene III: The Study
   translated by Bayard Taylor (1870),
   Random House, NY, 1950, pp. 41-42
   eBook of Faust

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.

Chorus Mysticus:
All things corruptible
Are but a parable;
Earth's insufficiency
Here finds fulfilment;
Here the ineffable
Wins life through love;
Eternal Feminine
Leads us above.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
   Part II, Act V, Closing Lines
   translated by Philip Wayne,
   Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1959, p. 288)

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.

At Foothill College (Spring 2019), William Cavada's online class "LINC 72B: Adobe InDesign" was to create a Poster on a World Hero. I selected "My Hero: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)". I have two dozen books by and about him, and a dozen pages on Goethe at my WisdomPortal.com web site. Listing below the steps used in this Page Layout Project. Page 1, Page 2. Poem: "Meeting Goethe in Heidelberg" (12-13-2007) & Notes to Poem (12-19-2007). Almost a year ago had a dream of Albert Schweitzer which I wrote this poem
on 2-8-2021. It's amazing the spiritual mentors chosen over 60 years ago are
still guiding me. This is the first epiphany experience to honor in my life.

— Peter Y. Chou
Mountain View, 1-12-2022