The first word Rudolf Steiner ever set into eurythmy, a sequence of sound-gestures meaning "I cleanse myself of all that hinders me from beholding the Highest."
The Hallelujah in anthroposophy is the first word Rudolf Steiner translated into eurythmy, the art of visible speech. On 22 September 1912, near Munich, he gave the young Lory Smits a sequence of sound-gestures, H, A, a series of L-movements, E, a long-sustained U, closing with a strong I and A, and named its inner meaning: "I cleanse myself of all that hinders me from beholding the Highest."
In Steiner's Own Words
So, little one, make an H and right away an A. Now make L seven times, then an E. Now there follow three more large, calm L-movements that lead up to a very large, long-sustained U. To conclude, form one more strong I and A. Now you have made the word. It means: I cleanse myself of all that hinders me from beholding the Highest. After a pause with a straight-directed countenance, the I and the final A were to be formed quite large and objective, right into the fingers, I and A, for thereby, like a seal, the name of the Highest, of Jahve, is set down.
What it Means Today
The Hallelujah was never meant to stay on the stage. When Fräulein von Sivers exclaimed that the pentagram form "must release tremendous forces," Steiner answered that the aim was not to dance but to help the sick, writing beneath his drawing the words "Strengthening of the etheric body." That therapeutic intention became a discipline in its own right. In April 1921, working with the physician Ita Wegman at the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut in Arlesheim, Switzerland, Steiner gave the first curative-eurythmy course (Heileurythmie), and the practice has been carried since by the Medical Section of the Goetheanum's School of Spiritual Science in Dornach. Today registered curative eurythmists trained through bodies such as the International Coordination of Eurythmy Therapy still work tone and sound gestures, the same H, L, and U that compose the Hallelujah, as prescribed movement within anthroposophic clinics like the Filderklinik near Stuttgart.
Thalira synthesis: read this way, the Hallelujah is less a hymn than an instruction, the etheric body learning to articulate a single sentence of praise through the limbs rather than the larynx, so that worship and healing become one continuous gesture. A reader can hear in it what Steiner placed at the threshold of eurythmy itself, that speech, before it is ever sound, is already movement.
Where to Read More