How Stefan Rautter illustrates his Thesaurus and Fausto Experiences Blue...

Rautter placed before him a solid disc made of copper with ten divisions, each denoting one of Aristotle’s categories. A crank connected to a devise - a series of wheels within wheels - made the large disc rotate through inertia.

“You see the blacksmith at the village made it for me, it is very commodious.” He then brought forth a multitude of pieces of paper weighed down by pins, upon which the fundamental concepts were written.

“Ja! You see! Thesaurus!” He said proudly.

“But how does it work?” asked Fausto feeling disoriented and unwell.

“Of course it would take a lifetime or two, and I shall devote what is left of mine, in order to enumerate every substance, every quality etcetera. However I have spent many hours collecting several hundred upon which our little compendium is predicated. The wheel is the causa, or should we say, the motivator. Once it is set to a spin, as Raymon Lull your fellow countryman tells us, we must throw in our concepts, and allow them to fall where they will. This way they will be found, one on another. That is the secret mein silly fellow, the secret is this, then we read!”

“But that sounds nonsensical.” Answered Fausto flatly, feeling the effects of the arquaeous taken moments before.

“Nonsensical to you perhaps!” He thundered now in a bad mood. “But to those who are not chaotic senior, completely practical.”

He cranked, and the wheel started to spin, slowly at first, then faster, then the monk ceremoniously threw in a handful of fundamental concepts.

“Now senior, we see what we find……” He waited patiently for the disc to come to a standstill. “You see what poetry! For blue we have…..Melancholy cerulean speck of….backward liquid matter glowing outward momentarily together! There you see?”

“It doesn’t make sense.” Sighed Fausto.

“What doesn’t you silly, silly, fool?”

“It, your thesaurus, it is mechanical, awkward and….and it sounds absurd and not at all poetical!”

“Absurd!” Rautter flew into a rage occasioned perhaps by lack of sleep, and the wisdom of his neophyte’s words, and turning the handle on disc spun it around and around.

Fausto observed it with intensity, was he too spinning? He saw a mountainous cerulean blue into which his one eye dissolved, wishing to accompany it forever. In blue there was grace, devotion, and selflessness that sought to become larger than himself, to expand outwards to the stars and beyond to the great cosmic spaces.

He was lost, weaving and becoming, irradiated by inner suns out of a depthless darkness. Manifold permutations and combinations of existence he had been told, was measured by these principles but (alas!) he was illiterate! Form unrecognisable! Words dispossessed, weeping nightingales frowning in the sadness of an inner winter - blue. A light shot through a darkened soul illuminated a violet therein, observing the innocence of its uplifted face - blue. At once fused, then dispersed, curling, swirling being, positioning and possessing rainbows of hyperbole in a sky that was fading and becoming pale, shedding its dewy tears upon the earth - blue.
...

How Fausto argues Plato and Vanquishes the Inquisitor...

Fausto walked over to the galleries and raised one hand eloquently in the air and all eyes were alight, his successes up to this moment had been theirs also, now this too might be a victory. He turned to the Dominican.

"So you say the Inquisition is Holy, your holiness...but we have not yet ascertained if it is Holy because God approves of it, or if God approves of it because it is holy. Perhaps we need the Greek philosophers to help us to know it. Plato for instance?"

"Plato is a pagan." He spat.

"Yes but Plato can help us to answer this question. Tell me did you come here by mule?"

"That is plain to see!" He vociferated."I will soon lose my patience, what has this to do with anything!"

"It will soon become apparent your holiness. The mule carried you here. Now, were you carried because you got carried, or for some other reason?"

"I was carried because I was being carried....and you are sounding like the Devil!" He snarled in a rage.

"And if I am your holiness, it is your job to vanquish me."

The other man narrowed his eyes into slits, realising that he was suddenly now in judgement. "Proceed...antes que tu me eches los higados!"

"So isn't it true that a thing is not being carried because it gets carried, but rather because it gets carried it is being carried, am I right?'

The inquisitor looked blankly at his fellow friar, who merely shrugged his shoulders. "I assume this will lead somehow to holiness?" He answered ambiguously.

"Most certainly....for surely an erudite man such as yourself realises that something does not get approved by God simply by being approved by God, but rather, being approved by God because it gets approved! So that for something to be approved by God, it must first be holy, and not the other way."

"Stop!" Cried the other man. "It is as though you were speaking in tongues! It matters not who approves or disapproves first, second or last. Holy is holy and that is that!"

"Ahh. But we were just speculating on the holiness of the inquisition, your holiness. Is it holy because it is approved of by God or is it approved of by God because it is holy?"

The other man frowned. "It must be that it is approved of because it is holy."

"Then you are saying that you are holier than God, because following your reasoning, God himself only approves of you because you are holy in the first place!"

"I said no such thing!" He exclaimed. He loosened his collar, and dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief, 'You are twisting my words!'

The crowd gasped. The inquisitor choked. The friar distanced himself just a little.

"I don't know..." He said a little confused. "I....."

How Fausto Redeems the Word...

A weakness descended over his limbs and he dropped to his knees. Instead of the circle of men before him, he saw vividly, all his self-love, his indulgent suffering, his madness. He searched himself, perusing all the poisons of his character, would they these demons overcome him, consume him? Would he arrive at the unknown a criminal, utterly damned, to be broken up into pieces, obliterated?

First a resistance then, a great abyss opened up in his soul, wherein he experienced the greatest loneliness….his own annihilation, for one says I to the sum of all of one’s past moments relived! A tenuous condensation for one about to forget all that he knows….Then he asked the question into the void. The question that had been long awaited...

"How shall I purify the word?"

Then the voice of Satan answered him.

Oh question! How longingly longed for!
Oh what release and sweet relief!
For eons, secula, these bonds have stiffened my bones,
And pressed me down to infinite matter.
But now you have seen my need and answered it and I am free!

At that moment all around Fausto a sigh was sensed and these words could be heard ringing through the fifth.

O lovely concord, O sacred peace
From which the heart doth find release.
Behind life’s baseless fabric seeming
Dissolved like mists before our dreaming
Awaken Christ’s word in all things seen
And the word of the world in Christ redeem!

Prologue in Heaven from my unfinished play: Fausto

Stage: blue and purple light upper stage, red and yellow the lower half.

The divine Sophia stands centre stage, resplendent and sparkling in white. Seven spirits of wisdom arrayed in gold kneel with heads bowed in a circle around her. At the perimeter of this circle twelve spirits of time arrayed in blue, dance, holding incense burners)

The Sophia speaks

SOPHIA:
Oh man!
Made from Saturn’s wisdom-warmth
Sun’s light flaming forges thee
Silver waves of Lunar dwells
In thine own being
The seed of knowing

SPIRITS OF WISDOM:
We contemplate the sacrifice
We venerate the pouring forth
We ponder well the essence of
Cosmic wisdom’s flowing love

SPIRITS OF TIME:
We dance the chanting of the Sun
We sing down songs of radiance weaving
The fire of love moves in our hearts
For man’s created being

(enter Spirits of Space weaving in and around the spirits of wisdom and the spirits of time)

SPIRITS OF SPACE:
How swift the spheres in splendour circuit
Round radiant paths are burning
Their movement flows with Far- flung force
Lengths widths and breadths of Cosmic learning

There is a bright light and Michael Appears from the right.

SOPHIA:
My son!
Thine countenance is radiant
With light-reflecting Sun
Thine sword-iron defiant
Thine steady heart compliant
Toward thine heavenly role

It is time that thou must yield
What thou hast held with heart-fast will
Cast forth intelligence below
In freedom’s will within man’s soul
Will shine thought’s mighty force-filled glow

MICHAEL : (gesturing downwards with grave and solemn expression)
O mother!
When wisdom’s light flames free
From world creative will
And tumbles toward the earth
My sacrifice is sealed

The intelligence of gods
I hereby liberate
What I’ve held fast for aeons now
Is man’s to contemplate


(In a puff of smoke enters Lucifer and Satan, immediately the spirits form a protective circle around Sophia and Michael steps forward brandishing his sword.

MICHAEL:
Who requests your presence!

LUCIFER:
It is the essence of what you speak
That calls our spirits forth
From our abodes above and below
We come to see if there is sport
In what to man you have bestowed

SATAN:
You place such hopes upon these beasts
I really must decry!
Thoughts in their heads
As good as dead
Corpses cold and dry,

LUCIFER:
And as for feeling
Man is lacking
Any studied care
He swings from sadness
To joy and gladness
From laughter to despair

SATAN
In his will, he is fast sleeping
Habit drives his every move
It would not be daunting
Or even demanding
To lead him about in a noose

LUCIFER:
Shall we make thee a wager?
We are at your pleasure
Perhaps it is not so secure

SATAN:
He will take your intelligence
And make it material

LUCIFER;
He will use it for means
Sinful and serial

SATAN:
He will throw in the mud
What you hold so dear

LUCIFER:
Like pearls to a swine
It will not take a year!

MICHAEL:
Away, away! You deplorable ghosts
I trust in the power of spirit inherent
In every man though he may be aberrant.
Error is good when it brings about learning
Inside every man the right question is burning!

SATAN:
He will not ask it!

LUCIFER:
He will look past it!

MICHAEL:
I believe that intelligence leads
To inquiry,
That is my creed.

LUCIFER AND SATAN TOGETHER (to one another):
The sons of earth will ne’er see heaven
Once they’ve tasted of our leaven.
Come let us go to your place and to mine...
The pageant has started there isn't much time!