Approaches to the Mystery Dramas
This site is devoted to a single, unusually dense body of work: the four Mystery Dramas that Rudolf Steiner wrote between 1910 and 1913 — The Portal of Initiation, The Soul’s Probation, The Guardian of the Threshold and The Souls’ Awakening. Four closely linked plays follow the inner development of a group of characters across several lives.
I approach them from two sides at once: as a scholar of language and literature who studies their images, motifs and place in the literature around 1900, and as a long-time dramaturgical adviser at the Goetheanum stage in Dornach, who knows them from practical work — from conversations with directors and performers, and from rehearsals and performances.
The articles on this site are written in German. This English section offers a way in: an overview of the four plays, a guide to their characters, and English summaries of every article.
Start here
- The Four Mystery Dramas — titles, first performances and the core of each play
- The Characters of the Mystery Dramas — the figures, their forms of knowing and their earlier lives
- Articles — English summaries of all articles, with links to the German originals
About me
I am Alexander G. Höhne. My background is in German linguistics, bordering on literary studies. In 2005 I received my doctorate from the German Department of the University of Basel with a study of mirror metaphors in Rudolf Steiner’s four Mystery Dramas, published in 2006 in the series Basler Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur (A. Francke Verlag). Since then I have been working on a literary-historical study that places these plays in the context of modernism around 1900.
From 2013 to 2017 I was officially dramaturgical adviser to the Faust production at the Goetheanum, and from 1988 to 2025 I accompanied the stage informally as a dramaturgical adviser, mainly in conversation with the directors. More about my work: alexanderhoehne.ch.
New articles appear in German roughly every two weeks, occasionally more often. My second research field, reincarnation and karma in European intellectual history, has its own site: karmaforschung.ch .