IS THERE A LITTLE "FAUST" IN YOU?

IS THERE A LITTLE "FAUST" IN YOU?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© October 2007

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragic History of Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (1592)

"Faustian: of, relating to, resembling, or suggesting Faust; made or done for present gain without regard for future cost or consequences."

Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (1993)

* * * * * * * * *

These are the immortal lines when the devil introduces Faustus to Helen of Troy.

As with most morality plays, there is a basis in fact. Dr. Johannes Faust was a real person. He was a professional astrologer and magician who spent his time wandering from town to town in Germany during the sixteenth century. He provided horoscopes and astrological advice to bishops and princes as well as to commoners. He was famous enough to come to the attention of Martin Luther who denounced him as making a pact with the devil.

Faust's actual acquaintance with the devil is not known, but he did become a legend after his death, when an account of his life was published in Germany. It incorporated many fanciful tales borrowed from other sources. In fact down through the ages, fascination is yet to diminish. It has become the Faustian myth.

What has kept this alive is there appears a drive in man to attain an edge on his fellowman. It breaks out in mysterious ways. So, it should come as no surprise that artists would place their stamp on the myth profiling extraordinary souls.

What of ordinary souls such as you and I? Does Faust touch our lives?

Before you answer, consider the fact that many of us seek knowledge and wealth and power and influence, or some other kind of dominance, at the expense of our own personal material-spiritual balance. We become essentially one-dimensional as Herbert Marcuse suggests in his book "One Dimensional Man" (1986). We fail to see something is given up never to be regained for a temporary advantage.

There has been dissembling in science where objective truth is supposedly the anchor of the investigation. But the good and bad angel is very much in the midst of humans. I was reminded of this again when James Watson, the scientific icon and "co-discoverer" of DNA said recently that blacks are inherently inferior to whites and therefore the prospects for Africa are not good.

Watson in the chemical field was a model builder. His partner Francis Crick was a theoretical chemist. They were totally off base until the boss of Rosalind Franklin showed them her famous "photograph 51," which confirmed DNA was a double helix.

Watson savaged Franklin in his book "The Double Helix" (1968) without acknowledging her contribution. She died from excessive exposure to radiation in her research in 1958, four years before the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1962) was awarded to Watson and Crick. Franklin was thirty-eight (see "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA" by Brenda Maddox 2002) when she died.

Watson was very Faustian as a young man. He brazenly invited himself from the States to participate on the British team in Great Britain, which would eventually find him a scientific iconic figure. The dark side of his mind slipped out only this week with an opinion that has no basis in science. Once it was published in the press he was immediately suspended from chancellor responsibilities at the renowned Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (source: The Tampa Tribune, October 19, 2007).

It might even be suggested that the maddening race to understand the universe, or make progress our most important product is symptomatic of this Faustian myth. For such people in quest of such a “prize” nothing must stand in the way. This includes brutalizing those less motivated or driven. Indeed, such people think they are different, exceptional, unique, as if they, alone, can hold the bad angel at bay and have only the blessings of the good angel.

What is prejudice but shorthand for claiming superiority? What is the obsession with living in an affluent gated community or graduating from an exclusive university other than to create an edge? What is the obsession with knowledge, celebrity, beauty, sex, or physical prowess than Faustian?

Now, this doesn't have to be the motivation but our cultural programming surely encourages such preoccupation. We live in a sick Faustian society as indexed by disproportionate wealth where people are allowed to die every five seconds because of a simple lack of food and water. Someone says, "You're talking about Africa. This is the United States. This is not Africa."

Well, we talk about a competitive edge and competitive advantage as if they are the lexicon for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, when in truth for every gain someone else loses. The irony is that to create this edge we often stifle creativity, encourage conformity and replicate mediocrity, grinding our obsession deeper into the abyss while promoting lifestyle diseases as companion to such excess.

Many fortunes have been built on Faustian excess, as we learn if we read biographies. Read the biography of Henry Ford. His good angel found him giving workers the $5 a day wage, a pension plan, and the eight-hour working day so that he had a ready market for his Model-A and Model-T Ford, while his bad angel had him surreptitiously supporting Hitler and having an equal hatred of the Jews.

How do you know that Faust controls your nature? There is no simple answer, only ambivalent gradients of obsessive compulsiveness. Some simple questions might help: are you in control of your destiny or is your destiny in control of you? Do you have balance in your life or are you sacrificing balance now for finding it later? Are you too self-absorb to have time for family and friends? Can you never relax?

Another good indicator is when beauty or intellectual or physical prowess is flaunted and not used with modesty and humility; when self-aggrandizement becomes an end; when society becomes unequivocally narcissistic. Then the pathology of normalcy is firmly in place. I suggest it is and that we live in a sick society.

Unfortunately, the last chapter on Faust has not been written, as it lives in the heart of every ambitious person who sells his soul to attain "the prize," whatever it is. Then, it becomes pathological and eats away at the spiritual-material balance of goodness displaying itself instead in Faustian diabolical form.

The killing fields across the globe are not always those of physical murder. More often than not the killing fields are emotional and psychological abuse. The body is allowed to live but the spirit is murdered as we escape into work, career, drugs or dissipation.

It is my thesis that we promote Faustian behavior without ever mentioning the name. It is the reason suicide is the greatest killer of our young people. Not only is suicide rampant in the United States, but across the Western world, and is starting to be noted in China and India as well.

That said it might be interesting to review a few well-known Faustian myths that artists have provided us starting with the most well known from the gifted Christopher Marlowe, who never made it to the age of thirty. He was fatally wounded in a brawl at Deptford, England May 30, 1593.

Marlowe's own life was quite Faustian. His original intention was to take Holy Orders and become a priest, but he abandoned that to write plays and to become embroiled in political intrigue.

In 1589 he was involved in a scuffle with William Bradley in Norton Folgate, who died, but Marlowe’s plea of self-defense was accepted. A genius as a playwright, he was also known to have strong unorthodox religious and political opinions and would not back down from a fight. It was as if he felt immortal. In 1593, he was arrested on a charge of atheism, but met his own death before being brought to trial.

Intrigue has followed his death for more than four hundred years. The whole episode of his death is perplexing as some say he was a spy, and others say he escaped to the continent and wrote the plays for which Shakespeare is given credit.

Rodney Bolt writes in "History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe" (2005) that he staged his own death to dodge the atheism charge, fled to Europe, and wrote the great Shakespearean plays. The evidence? The language and syntax of Marlowe's "Tamburlaine" (1586 - 1587), "The Jew of Malta" (1589), and "Edward the Second" (1591).

The Faustian mind loves the idea of conspiracy. Critics insist, however, that Marlowe's plays up to 1590 are tragedies, but unlike Shakespeare's tragedies, show no real tragic sense and little skill in dramatic contrivance.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564 - 1593)

Marlowe's "The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus" (1592) is "master of all knowledge." The story as told by Marlowe finds Faustus born of base stock in Rhodes, Germany. In his maturity, while living with relatives in Wittenberg, he studies theology and is called "doctor." However, Faustus is so swollen with conceit that, like Joyce's Daedalus, strives too far, becoming glutted with learning and conspires with the devil to know everything knowable, and finally falls accursed.

The path of his downfall found him the complete master of medicine, where he had huge success. But after obtaining good health for men no challenge remained in medicine except immortality. Law was no challenge as he sensed that it was nothing but an elaborate moneymaking scheme. Only divinity remained, but it was a blind alley. Since the reward of sin was death, and since no one could escape sin, all men must die.

The Good Angel and Evil Angel tried to persuade Faustus, but he was in no mood to listen to the Good Angel. He sought to be the wealthiest man on earth with all the power that comes from such wealth. He would reform education and perform many other fabulous deeds.

His first act of magic is to summon Mephostopilis, but he is so ugly he orders him to assume the shape of a Franciscan friar. Faustus questions Mephostopilis about the nature of his master, Lucifer and Lucifer's domain, hell. Mephostopilis tells him that the fallen spirits, having been deprived of the glories of heaven, find the whole world hell.

Faustus then says he will surrender his soul to Lucifer if the fallen angel will give him twenty-four years of voluptuous ease. Lucifer agrees. Faustus thinks he has beaten the devil at his own game because he doesn’t believe in the afterlife.

During the final days of his life, Faustus asked Mephostopilis to bring him Helen of Troy as a lover. In the end, he pleads to be spared impending misery, but instead is carried off by a company of devils.


JOHANN WOLFGANG von GOETHE (1749 - 1832)

The genius of Goethe rendered a version of this great story in a clarity that still resonates with each generation throughout the world. To Goethe, the hero is simply "Faust" (1790) but the philosophical problem is the same: the human damnation through the desire for knowledge.

Echoing the sentiments of the eighteenth century "Age of Reason," which asserted that man's rationality was the supreme truth in life, Goethe created some of the most quoted passages in literature.

Then, too, Faust's cry for one moment in life of uninterrupted pleasure is echoed throughout the ages in the emotions of men of all times. Goethe cleverly creates a play of "Faust" that doesn't exist in a certain locale or time, but exists forever and everywhere.

While three archangels are singing the praises of God's lofty works, Mephistopheles appears and says that conditions on earth are bad. The Lord agrees that man has his weaknesses, but He slyly points out that His servant Faust cannot be swayed from the path of righteousness.

Mephistopheles makes a wager with the Lord that Faust can be tempted from his faithful service. The Lord knew Faust could be led downward if he were to lose his soul, while Mephistopheles knew Faust was not satisfied with all the knowledge he had acquired.

Faust confesses to his servant, Wagner, that he has two souls: one clings to earthly things, the other to super sensual things. Feeling limited in his daily existence, and wanting to be taken to another level, Faust intimates to Wagner that he would do anything to take him there.

Mephistopheles in the form of a dog follows Faust to his home. Seeing Faust contemplating the meaning of life, the dog steps forward in its true form, but Faust remains unmoved by the devil's entreaties.

The devil returns the next day and finds Faust more receptive to getting more out of life. But again Mephistopheles fails to tempt Faust with cheap debauchery.

Next the devil uses the maiden Gretchen to tempt Faust. A complicated love affair follows in which Gretchen surrenders to Faust, than is shamed by her brother, who Faust kills, only for Gretchen to kill her love child with Faust and damn herself.

Mephistopheles then brings Faust to the emperor, who asks Faust to show him the most beautiful male and female who have ever existed. Faust produces the images of Paris and Helen of Troy. Then to the devil's surprise, Faust faints. He is so overwhelmed with desire at the sight of Helen. This desire for ideal love mystifies the devil.

Mephistopheles with the help of Wagner creates a formless spirit of learning, Homunculus, who can see what is going on in Faust's mind. With that, they venture off to Greece. There a living Helen is brought to Faust with the devil now convinced he has finally found Faust's weakness. But Faust soon realizes that the enjoyment of transitory beauty is no more enduring than his other experiences.

With this new knowledge of himself, Faust returns to his native land with a pledge to use his powers in the service of men. His mystical power now banished, he stands before nature alone. His first act is to turn a large swamp into useful production. People are inspired by this act and follow by widening their creative efforts in useful ways.

Now blind and old, Faust sees his life among men as free and active and useful. At that moment, when he realizes what he has created, he cries out for this moment, so fair to him, to linger on.

Faust had emerged from being a self-centered egoist into a man who saw his actions as part of a creative society. He realized, finally, life could be worth living, but in that moment of perception he lost his wager to Mephistopheles. The devil now claims Faust's soul, but in reality he too has lost the wager. The Almighty was right. Although Faust has made a mistake in his life, he has always remained aware of goodness and truth.

Seeing his own defeat, Mephistopheles attempts to prevent the ascension of Faust's soul to God. Angels appear to help Faust, however, and he is carried into Heaven where all is active creation, exactly the kind of afterlife Faust would have chosen.

OSCAR WILDE (1856 - 1900)

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891) remains a popular book over a hundred years after its first publication. Dorian Gray is very much a Faustian young man, as was the author himself, who lived an amoral life and died a young man of genius at the age of forty-four while burning the candle at both ends.

The story opens with Basil Hallward, an artist, putting the finishing touches on the portrait of his handsome young friend, Dorian Gray. Lord Henry Wotton, a caller, indolently watches the painter at work. The artist explains to Lord Henry that Dorian was his ideal of youth, and that he must promise not to influence the boy, as the artist knew Lord Henry was the personification of evil.

While the two men are talking, Dorian comes to the studio. Lord Henry immediately attempts to influence Dorian, telling him that while he will become old, wrinkled and ugly, his portrait will remain the same, frozen in beauty. This saddens Dorian and wishes that the portrait would grow old while he remains forever young. Lord Henry sees that he gets his wish becoming his Mephistopheles.

Dorian then romances a young actress, Sibyl Vane. When she is hopelessly in love with him, he coldly rejects her. She commits suicide as Dorian has killed her love. He learns of her suicide too late to ask her forgiveness, and decides, immediately, to live a life of sensation and pleasure.

One day he notices that the appearance of his portrait has changed but he has not. He hangs the portrait in an old schoolroom upstairs, locks the door, and puts the key where only he can find it.

On the eve of his thirty-eighth birthday, he takes the artist to the portrait to show what it has become. It was now quite ugly. Hallward reacts with horror seeing his work is now a portrait of evil. Enraged by this, Dorian stabs him to death.

Then there is a comic-tragic encounter between, James, the brother of Sybl and Dorian. James seeks out Dorian whom he holds responsible for his sister's death eighteen years before. But instead he finds a man who appears no more than twenty. Mystified but yet suspicious, he stalks Dorian only to be killed under strange circumstances on Dorian's country estate. The police are investigating this death as well as the disappearance of the artist Basil Hallward.

Dorian decides to destroy the picture, which stood as an awful record of his guilt. He goes to the schoolroom and finds the portrait now has the appearance of cunning and triumph. He slashes it to pieces with the same knife he murdered the artist.

The servants hear a horrible cry. When they reach the schoolroom, they see a beautiful portrait on the wall, and the dead body of Dorian, withered and wrinkled in evening dress, with a knife in his chest. Only by his jewelry did they recognize Dorian Gray, who, in his desperate attempt to kill his conscience, had killed himself.

THOMAS MANN (1875 - 1945)

Thomas Man composed "Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn as Told by a Friend" (1947) nearly four hundred years after Marlowe. On one level, it is a biographical story of a strange and fascinating genius; on another it is of a man tormented by his demons.

It may also be regarded as an excursion into a field, which present day fiction has neglected, which is that of the destruction of the human soul in the demon-haunted world of the imagination, which modern science has all but destroyed.

And it may be studied as the problem of the artist in contemporary society, of the conflict between a love of beauty and his moral responsibility to the kind of world in which he lives. It is so easy for the artist and men of conscience to get caught up in contemporary grandeur and thus lose perspective.

Beyond and beneath these levels of meaning, Mann's novel is a political and philosophical allegory deeply charged with purpose.

Mann would have us believe Leverkuhn, who gave his soul to the devil for twenty years of creative genius, symbolizes the German breakthrough to world power, and the rise of the tortured nationalism of the Nazi state.

As the narrator digresses to comment on the progress of World War II, the reader perceives that the rise and collapse of the Nazi dream runs side by side with Leverkuhn's tragic story, like musical point-counterpoint creating a mood of increasing shame and community guilt in the realization of inescapable doom.

The story ends with Leverkuhn spending the last ten years of his life quite mad, while being tenderly cared for by his aged mother at his birthplace in Thuringian. His old friend, Serenus Zeitblom was one of the few at his funeral.

It seemed to Serenus, then, and grew as he was writing this story of Adrian's life that his friend had somehow reflected the destiny of the German nation, a land arrogant, isolated, dehumanized, and at last reeling to that level of destruction, which was the price of power, as he penned his final pages in April 1945 (Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Forces on May 7, 1945).

FAUST IN COPENHAGEN: A STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF PHYSICS

With the nuclear bomb, man having been on the moon, and spacecraft now part of contemporary life, not to mention digital handheld contrivances, and computers with stupendous memories and flexibility, bringing us all electronically together as a single human face, it is not surprising that men and women of tremendous genius would give pause.

Early in the twentieth century many great minds were reaching fruition, but were aware at the same time, that more than ever before they needed perspective while working for this scientific revolution. Humor is the vehicle for a sense of proportion and a set of balance. And so these scientists came together to put on a Faustian play with them as players in the farce. This occurred at the Copenhagen Institute.

The early twentieth century was scientifically led by such names as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Lise Meitner, Max Planck, Erwin Schrodinger, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, Richard Feyman, Max Delbruck, and George Gamow, to name a few. They passed through the Copenhagen Institute.

The founder and presiding spirit of the institute was the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Goethe's Faust was always a great love and fascination to this physicist. He dreamed of adapting it to the world of physics and physicists to illustrate how the mind and soul struggled in their work. The Faust rendition of the play was written in this context and first performed as a group enterprise in 1932.

"Faust" proved an excellent vehicle for illustrating the carping differences in this competitive scientific world. Here they could lampoon such theories (and theorists) as relativity, quantum mechanics, field theory, wave equations, string theory, and so on. Behind these innocent dramatics was the uncertainty these brilliant men and women harbored with regards to their souls. They knew with each discovery the world changed, and in the changing the consequences could not be fully understood. As Einstein said more than once, "we are having a conversation with God."

As pure and purposeful as their science, the human factor in the equation remained ever ambivalent.

Tragedy was destined to follow after that 1932 Faust performance in Copenhagen. Paul Ehrenfest, a charismatic teacher but tortured soul, was given the role of Faust. He was comfortable in the world of classical physics while feeling alien to the weird new world of quantum mechanics. Not only was this new world mystifying, he had the horrible feeling he couldn't keep up with his colleagues.

Niels Bohr, on the other hand, made the adjustment with ease and grace, while Ehrenfest was unable to make the leap. Ehrenfest wrote letters to Einstein and Bohr that he was thinking of committing suicide. The letters were never mailed. Two years later he killed himself in a park in Amsterdam.

The Faust script was never published. But like all these versions of the original play, the soul has found a lasting place in the annals of the Copenhagen group as recorded in Gino Segre's new book, "Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics" (2007).

It is no accident that kindness is considered the greatest virtue and humility the greatest expression of the soul. Faust in its various iterations leaves us with that lesson.

_____________

Dr. Fisher's latest book is A LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD (AuthorHouse 2