Green Snake
In 1899, Steiner published an article in the "Magazin für Literatur", titled "Goethe's Secret Revelation", on the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy tale, "The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily". This article led to an invitation by the Count and Countess Brockdorff to speak to a gathering of Theosophists on the subject of Friedrich Nietzsche. This invitation was followed by a second, the occasion of what he later considered to be his first fully 'esoteric' lecture, once again on the topic of Goethe's fairy tale.