Steiner Rudolf Steiner. This most important event of Bely's later literary life was matched by the single most important influence for the rest of his life: his meeting with and acceptance of Rudolf Steiner. Ten years after the death of his father, Bely finally found a new father figure, a spiritual advisor, one who could show the way and lead him through this earthly existence. The story of Rudolf Steiner and Andrei Bely, if and when it ever becomes fully known, will certainly clarify much about Bely and his art. Bely settled with Asya Turgeneva, his companion and later his wife, in Dornach to work on the construction of the Goetheanum. Steiner's collected writings fill over 350 volumes, and to read them and attempt to comprehend them is work for a lifetime.(To my knowledge they have not all been translated into English.) Several key works for reading Glossolalia are Steiner's Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriss (1910), trans. Maud and Henry Monges, rev. Lisa D. Monges into English as, An Outline of Occult Science, (Anthroposophic Press, 1972) and Eurythmie als sichtbare Sprache (1931) trans. Vera and Judy Compton-Burnett as Eurythmy as Visible Speech (London: 1984).

weaves for itself weaves. In Russian [tkat' tkani] a tautology. Bely, in particular, but like many Russian writers, seems not only undisturbed by tautologies, but actively seeks them out as a means of revealing the sound associations connecting words.

Bereshit bara Elohim eye khashamaim bet kharets.* Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." In Steiner Die Geheimnisse der biblischen Schöpfungsgeschichte (30 ff.) we see quoted and then discussed the Hebrew "B'reschit bara élohim et haschamajim w'et ha'arez."(Cf. Kozlik, 671).

suprasensible Steiner uses the German word: Übersinnliche.

flaming flambeau "a blazing torch"

emerge. . .immergence Based on the Russian root nik [voznik, pronik]. I have tried to preserve the connection of the two words using the Latin "mergere."

furnace of Daniel; to remain untouched in it;... In the Old Testament Book of Daniel (3:1-30), King Nebuchadnezzar throws into a white-hot furnace three Jews, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who had refused to serve the false gods or worship the golden image. "Thereupon Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego came out of the fire....they saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of these men; the hair of the head was not singed, and their clothes were not burned,..." (3:26-27).

sphere shape . . . ashen heat. Bely draws both on the writings of Steiner, but also associates the Russian words [shar] "sphere" and [zhar] heat. I have added the word "shape" and "ashen" to point to Bely's association of the two Russian words via sound.

shell In Steiner's writings this is a "Hülle."

bet, resh and shit The Hebrew letters.

Therefore "Daher liegt auch in diesen Lauten selber die hohe Schule, die den Weisen hinfuehrte zu den Bildern, die sich vor die Seele des Sehers draengen, wenn er ins Uebersinnliche hereintritt. . . .Wenn man das ins Auge fasst, dann gelingt man dazu, jene tiefe, ungeheure Scheu und Ehrfurcht zu empfinden vor dem, wie die Welt sich entwickelt,... (60-61).

Rudolf Steiner. Course XIV. Third lecture. (For members of the Anthroposophical Society.) This lecture can be found in Rudolf Steiner, Die Geheimnisse der biblischen Schöpfungsgeschichte, Vol. 122 of Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe ( Dornach: 1961).