Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl [1]
The light always shines in the darkness,
but the darkness does not understand it.
Millions of years ago, in an age beyond human calculation, the Queen of Wisdom dwelt in a realm of light whose splendor we cannot conceive. She was a noble woman of perfect beauty; her face shone like the sun, and the living rays of light which emanated from her filled the whole universe with splendor and evoked life, consciousness and sentiment in it. The spirits by which she was surrounded and who served her were numberless as the sands of the sea; big and small; many of them shone like the moon and others twinkled like the stars; but the most glorious of these were love, faith, hope, and patience, and over all these reigned the spirit of truth, which was so mighty that it could do what it willed; the whole universe owed him its existence and even the queen her ornaments.
Wherever the queen was seen, it became light, and where she appeared, darkness disappeared. Her light shone to the extreme limits of her realm, which lay in infinity, and as far as her light reached, so did her power, which, consisting of a fiery ethereal substance, filled the whole of infinite space.
One day the queen commissioned her valet, the will, to put on a show for her, and at his command the fiery ethereal substance in the realm of light condensed. Spirits of various kinds set it in motion and formed in it points of attraction and repulsion, and around these various forces gathered into a thing called “substance” or “matter,” and formed into luminous spheres, which erupted in the body with great rapidity. Dancers twirled and circled through the infinite heavens, guided by the will of divine wisdom which is love. And many of these luminous spheres got a dark core on which stones, plants, animals and human beings developed, and the queen was very happy.
In the beginning, all the phenomena and creatures brought forth by the will of wisdom had a light and ethereal form, such as one now only finds in elves, fairies, and similar beings; they were imbued with the light of wisdom, and therefore themselves luminous, and recognized all they saw as the queen’s property. Gradually, however, their bodies thickened and became as dark as the earth on which they dwelt, and then they could no longer see anything, and groped about in the dark until at last they found a phosphorescent substance in the caves of the earth, which gave off a faint light, like that of a diamond which had been illuminated by the sun for a time. They called this light “reason” and took great pride in possessing it because it gave them the ability to see their surroundings. But since this light illumined only the surface of things, and did not penetrate inwardly like the light of wisdom, it gave them only a superficial knowledge of things and gave rise to many errors and deceptions, because human beings are the essence of things which they could no longer see, now judged only by their superficial and deceptive appearances.
When the queen saw this, she was saddened; for she wished to give all things her own royal splendor and to shine in them just as in her own self, and since she could no longer make herself directly understood by the people, she sent down to the people, by her will, the spirit of truth, so that he may reveal himself to them and bring them back to knowledge.
But the Spirit of Truth was a spirit and therefore without form, omnipresent and invisible, and therefore people could not see it and would not believe in its presence. Then the spirit of truth resolved to enter the hearts of men themselves, to make his presence felt by them, and he hoped to assume a visible form in them, that they might understand him and hear his voice. He entered the heart of man and found that it was a house with different departments. On the lower floor there was a stable with animals of various kinds. There was an ox called “self-will” under the yoke of a witch called “passion”; there was an ass called “mind,” the son of “conceit”; there was a pig called “Intemperance,” a product of “desire,” and a goat called “lust,” a product of sensuality. The tiger, the wolf, and the hyena lurked in front of the door and tried to sneak in, while snakes and poisonous vermin slithered in through the cracks in the walls; the windows were covered with cobwebs, which prevented the entry of light, and the stable was full of uncleanliness. In the basement below, however, lived the devils of hate, malice, murderousness, lust for power and tyranny. Many of these devils were asleep, and were roused by the entrance of the spirit of truth. But there was a great noise upstairs; for it was inhabited by traders and bartering Jews. There were wisdom-mongers of various kinds, readers and preachers, scholars, pharisees and hypocrites, traders in sham science, theologians, moralists, etc., and all were ruled by the spirit of selfishness, who kept her in constant uproar with his knout.
The owner of the house noticed the stranger’s presence and asked him who he was; but, owing to the noise upstairs, the Spirit of Truth was unable to make itself understood by the proprietor, and the latter therefore appointed a commission to inquire who the stranger was, and what he wanted. For this purpose he chose two of his servants, named “doubt” and “superstition,” sons of ignorance, and a cheap whore named “logic,” a daughter of lies. These went into the house and asked the spirit to prove to them who he was; but since they did not know the truth, they could not recognize its spirit in spite of all the testimonies, and therefore declared him a swindler. The animals, however, became very excited and stormily demanded that the strange visitor should be removed; for its presence disturbed their comfort, the more so as the spirit had begun to assume a tangible form, and therefore required bodily nourishment to maintain strength, for which purpose it drew blood from the animals and fed upon them.
This seemed unbearable to the owner of the house and he therefore resolved to kill the intruder. Doubt and superstition had become the greatest enemies of truth, and were willing to do so. Not knowing the spirit of truth, and therefore unable to approach it, they allowed themselves to be led by logic, which often succeeds in approaching truth and which is therefore all the more dangerous for them. Thus, the three succeeded in approaching the spirit of truth, and in destroying the form which it had built up; but they could not harm the spirit itself, because it was immortal. When this was done, the Spirit of Truth returned again to its Empress, the Queen of Wisdom, who again sent it out to repeat the attempt to reveal itself to men, and so this game is repeated over and over, for the The spirit of truth, obedient to the law of wisdom, constantly descends into the hearts of people to kindle the light of wisdom in them, but people do not recognize it.
Note:
[1] A True Story in the Form of a Fairy Tale. [Eine wahre Geschichte in der Form eines Märchens. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 7, no. 41 (February 1896), 139-146] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}