Who is Zarathustra?
(Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophy.)
Franz Hartmann, M. D. (Florence)[1]
Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl
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Translator’s note (Robert Hutwohl):
Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, often misunderstood and misinterpreted, is a profound expression of his unique character and a passionate confession of his soul. To truly understand Nietzsche, one must transcend the ego and grasp the theosophical wisdom embedded in his writings, which emphasizes self-knowledge and the realization of the divine self within. This understanding requires an intuitive and spiritual connection, transcending intellectual analysis and recognizing the distinction between the transient personality and the eternal individuality.
End.
It is an old story that truth has never appeared among humankind without being misunderstood, misused, mocked, and crucified by the masses, and as happens to truth, so happens to its prophets. It is also a well-known fact that when a ray of truth’s light falls upon immature or misguided minds, it is itself distorted and reflected back: then truth becomes a lie, and it is not truth itself, but rather the misunderstanding of it that wreaks havoc everywhere. Nietzsche and his philosophy are no exception to this general rule, and thus we find various factions among those who have engaged in the study of his writings: A few who understand him, many who misunderstand him, and among these, some who exalt him to the heavens and others who condemn him.
Henri Lichtenberger says:[2]
“Before studying Nietzsche’s doctrine, it is necessary to become fully acquainted with the idea that—according to its creator’s own admissions—it is less a collection of abstract truths of general significance than the living image of an individual character, a very peculiar temperament, that it is the sincere and passionate confession of a soul of the rarest kind.”
But this is of little use if one is not capable of entering into the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, of soaring to that intellectual height from which he looked down, of seeing and feeling with him. The egoist who sees no other self in himself than the everyday, petty, mortal self with its personal desires and inclinations, will recognize in Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” only a megalomaniacal egoist who imagines himself to be someone else, and in striving to become such an Übermensch, or imagining himself to be one, he ultimately becomes a conceited fool.
The word “philosophy” (love of wisdom) has long since lost its true meaning in our age of objective inquiry, and is now usually understood to mean only that intellectual, but unfeeling and heartless, secretive speculation which, by comparing all possible theories and conclusions, seeks to deduce which theory is probably the most correct. Little can be found among our modern philosophers of a “theosophy,” that is, of a true self-knowledge that springs from within the heart, elevates the soul, and illuminates the mind, as was evidently the case with Nietzsche. We have many brooding intellectuals, astute nitpickers, and clever hair-splitters, but few saints, and few who can form an idea of what is meant by “self-knowledge.” And the natural reason for this lack of understanding is that no one can intellectually grasp an inner soul force unless they possess it within themselves and feel it within themselves.
If you don’t feel it,
you won’t understand it.
Nietzsche is far more to us than just a modern “philosopher”; theosophy, or the knowledge of God in the truest sense of the word, shines forth from many of his writings. This theosophy has nothing to do with personal knowledge and will, nothing to do with believing in personalities or authorities; it arises, as both Indian and Christian mystics have taught for millennia, only when the human spirit soars above the delusion of its own selfhood to the eternal and imperishable, becomes one with the One, and its earthly personality appears to it only as a shadow. When the true divine self of humanity is revealed, the self-delusion of personality disappears; then what was previously felt only as intuition becomes clear self-knowledge; then humanity stands on its own two feet and no longer needs any authorities. Whoever has found the master within themselves no longer needs an external master. He loses his master, but he finds him again by recognizing himself as the master. This is what Zarathustra means when he says to his followers, but this is only understood by the few who know the master:
“Now I am leaving everything, my disciples! You too are leaving now, alone! So I will it.
Truly, I advise you: Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And better still; be ashamed of him. Perhaps he deceived you . . .
You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what does Zarathustra matter? You are my believers; but what do all believers matter!
You hadn’t even sought each other; then you found me. That’s how all believers act, that’s why their faith is so weak.
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves: and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.”
No one is free as long as they cling to a master who is not themselves. But whoever has found that true self, whose reflection Nietzsche presents to us as “Zarathustra,” has found God and everything. The point is not that people who are not yet capable of standing on their own two feet should throw away their crutches and deny their faith and their authorities, but rather that they should strive to think for themselves, to feel for themselves, to understand for themselves, and finally to outgrow the tether that humanity needs in its infancy. This is an ancient wisdom. The motto of Theophrastus Paracelsus, who recognized it, was: “Non sit alterius, qui suus esse potest”[3] (Let not be other, who can be himself). And it would be easy to cite numerous passages from the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, Thomas à Kempis’s “The Imitation of Christ,” and many other mystics, all of whom teach the same thing when properly understood. All teach the sacrifice of the apparent self in the true Self, and nowhere is there talk of a “dis-selfing” in the sense Lichtenberger understands it, i.e., of the personality dissolving into nothingness, but rather of a “dissolution of the consciousness of the true Self” into personal consciousness. No true philosopher will seek to rid himself of his true Self, but rather strive to find and hold onto it. To understand this, however, it is above all necessary to distinguish between the permanent individuality of man and his transient self, which is called his personality (from persona = mask); indeed, as the Indian sage Sankaracharya taught two thousand years ago, the possession of the ability to distinguish between the permanent and the transient is the first condition for attaining self-knowledge. ([From the Sanskrit:] “Nitya, anitya vastu viveka.”) And we would like to add that this ability is also the condition for understanding all mystics, and thus also for understanding Nietzsche’s writings.
Before judging and criticizing these writings, one should first understand and explain them; but for a theoretical discussion of the truths contained therein, we would have to delve deeper into the field of higher sciences than the scope of this article allows, and above all, learn about the dual nature of man, which a poet, whose name is unfortunately unknown to me, described in the following words:
“Two natures dwell within every person:
One is a child of daylight;
It shows the sun’s traces everywhere,
There is nothing dark and nothing obscured.
You may see through it to its very core,
You perceive nothing foreign, no riddle;
There, insight, clarity, and trust reign,
It is crystal clear, simple, and sun-bright.”
The other one arose as if from the night,
You do not know her, and no one measures her;
In her, both test and reason are put to shame,
She is a strange guest in one’s own house.
Intangibly, she casts into reality
Her flickering and wild play of shadows,
Like dreams that slip through the bright day.
It confuses the threads and bewitches the goal.
How few people are there in whom the former, simple and clear nature, a child of the light, has broken through, and who recognize themselves and others in this mirror of the soul? Where is there a person who loves the simplicity and clarity of the light of divine wisdom more than the composite spectacle of imagination and the fragmentary nature of human knowledge? Where is there someone who is not much more concerned with the satisfaction of their personal inclinations, the quenching of their scientific curiosity, entertainment, and pastime than with purity and clarity of soul and peace in eternity? Where is that so-called “occultist” or “theosophist” who even takes the first step toward finding their own true Self? And how could anyone judge the true Self of another person if they do not even recognize this higher Self within themselves? Therefore, most critics who attempt to judge figures like Nietzsche, Blavatsky, Böhme, and so on, have only seen their shadows. Because this “shadow” or “personality” is composed of many individual beings or “personalities,” of which now one, now another, comes to the fore, they have been unable to make sense of it. They have mistaken the vessel for the spirit fermenting within, the essence for the form, the tool for the master.
The tool that Zarathustra used to refresh old, half-forgotten truths in the memory of humanity has become unusable, and perhaps the great spirit has already fled from the personality that was called Friedrich Nietzsche; but what was essential in Nietzsche is his spiritual individuality, which in itself is completely independent of his personal appearance, even if it requires a suitable organism for its outward manifestation. To understand Nietzsche, it is necessary to get to know Zarathustra, and he is only recognized when one truly knows oneself. This is, of course, not an intellectual, but rather an intuitive and spiritual understanding—one that transcends human conceptual capacity.
Notes:
[1] Who is Zarathustra? (Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophy.) Franz Hartmann, M. D. Wiener Rundschau No. 27 (December 1899), 639–642 [Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025]
[2] “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche” by Henri Lichtenberger, with an introduction by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Dresden and Leipzig: Carl Reissner Publishing House, 1899.
[3] [R. H.—It should not be someone else’s, which can be his own.