Cultural psychological implications of Hermann Hesse’s Glasperlenspiel (glass bead game)

Abstract

In the present article, I dissect key elements of Hermann Hesse’s famous novel, the Glass Bead Game (Glasperlenspiel) in order to make them fertile for Cultural Psychology. I originate from the idea that the Glass Bead Game can be understood as a universal language that relies on open ideographs, thus signs that can be combined and structured for multiple purposes. Yet, this universal language is not solely a play; it has an educational drive to educate the mind and to help the individual reaching inner harmony. This play comes into being only when listening to the play of other people interacting with me and me meditating upon the multiple meaning making opportunities of it. I argue that such a perspective is in close accordance with the actual task of Cultural Psychology helping to unravel how people do relate to their environments and the impact that results from this ecological interaction. However, I appeal interested readers in trying to better institutionalize such a cultural psychological purpose of serving the individual in order for Cultural Psychology to be a sustainable and long-lasting science unlike the Glass Bead Game that became an end in itself.

Cultural psychological implications of the Glasperlenspiel

Relating Cultural Psychology with some other disciplines such as with German studies is always a difficult endeavor. Yet, this relation might lead into a fertile synthesis benefiting the understanding of Cultural Psychology as well as Hermann Hesse’s Glasperlenspiel for which the prominent German author won the Nobel Prize in 1946. Before examining the specific implications of the Glasperlenspiel for Cultural Psychology, we need to investigate the thematic and philosophical frame of the Glasperlenspiel.

The historic frame of the glass bead game

The Glasperlenspiel is Hesse’s late work that he started to create during the early 1930ies. It was Hesse’s very own answer towards the uprising National Socialism insofar as he created a utopia which was the response to the chaos of his time (Muschg, 2002). War, barbarism, and a decline of culture were the common enemies of Hesse, and he tried to create an opposite pole with his Glasperlenspiel (Heuss, 1974). The Glasperlenspiel and its destiny are intertwined with a particular protagonist called Josef Knecht; a personal narrator that has access to archives draws a biography of Josef Knecht and his role within the Glasperlenspiel.

The narrator draws upon many different life-stages of Knecht in particular his youth, his vocation to Kastalien (especially him being chosen by his mentor, the music master), his education (Chinese and Indian philosophy—among many other educational branches as well as the confrontation with Kastalien’s principles), his mission in a religious monastery in order to reconcile religion and Kastalic philosophy, Knecht being the head of the glass bead game and him forming the glass bead game within his Chinese philosophical orientation as well as Knecht’s emancipation from Kastalien.

The nature of the glass bead game

The Glasperlenspiel is a specific game with rules (open syntax based upon signs and symbols that can be flexibly combined to reach a synthesis). This synthesis is then like music or art a specific cultural product based upon personal meaning making or in the narrator’s words:

Man erlernt die Spielregeln dieses Spiels der Spiele nicht anders als auf üblichem, vorgeschriebenem Wege, welcher manche Jahre erfordert. (…) Diese Regeln, die Zeichensprache und Grammatik des Spiels, stellen eine Art von hochentwickelter Geheimsprache dar, an welcher mehrere Wissenschaften und Künste namentlich aber die Mathematik und die Musik (beziehungsweise Musikwissenschaft) teilhaben und welche die Inhalte und Ergebnisse nahezu aller Wissenschaften auszudrücken und zueinander in Beziehung zu setzen imstande ist. Das Glasperlenspiel ist also ein Spiel mit sämtlichen Inhalten unserer Kultur, es spielt mit ihnen, wie etwa in den Blütezeiten der Künste ein Maler mit den Farben seiner Palette gespielt haben mag. Was die Menschheit an Erkenntnissen, hohen Gedanken und Kunstwerken in ihren schöpferischen Zeitaltern hervorgebracht, was die nachfolgenden Perioden gelehrter Betrachtungen auf Begriffe gebracht und zum intellektuellen Besitz gemacht haben, dieses ganz ungeheure Material von geistigen Werten wird vom Glasperlenspiel so gespielt wie eine Orgel von einem Organisten, und diese Orgel ist von einer kaum auszudenkenden Vollkommenheit. (Hermann Hesse, 2021, p. 11-12)

One learns the rules in the same way as for other games which might take several years. (…) These rules, the sign language and the syntax of the game are a highly developed secret language whose development has been established by a variety of sciences and arts, in particular mathematics and music science and which expresses all themes and results of nearly every science as well as their relations. The glass bead game is therefore a game with all themes of our culture, it plays with it like a painter with the colors of his color range. Every insight, every higher thought and artwork that has been developed in their respective creative area and which has been translated afterwards into terms and concepts and therefore into an intellectual property, all of this immense material of ideal values is played by the glass bead game master like an organ by an organist, and this organ is unthinkably complete. (author’s translation) ¹

The glass bead game is therefore a universal language incorporating the major works of the human culture relying on complex syntax. The narrator’s words of a sign language are illustrative, and we need to bear in mind its implications. Adrian Hsia (1974) underlines that the glass bead game is not only about relating several cultural works, eras, intellectual insights one with the other but to lead them into a fertile synthesis. The glass bead game is not comparable to a natural alphabetic language like German for example. The glass bead game is symbolic for Hsia (1974). To find an analogy, one can think of the Chinese ideograms.

Die Spielsprache müsste außerdem – wie das Chinesisch – eine analytische Sprache sein, was an sich schon durch die Ideogramme bedingt ist. Denn ein Zeichen ist frei von Endungen und demzufolge beliebig als Substantiv, Adjektiv, Adverb, oder auch Verb verwendet werden, was die formale Logik sprengt und der Sprache deshalb eine höchstmögliche Elastizität ermöglicht. Diese offene Struktur ermöglicht auch eine bestimmte Reihe von Assoziationen [und so wird] aus der gezielten Gruppierung von Ideogrammen ein Bilderstrom. (Hsia, 1974, p. 195).

The game language needs to be – like the Chinese – an analytical language which is already the case by relying on ideograms. The reason why is that a sign is free of concrete endings and can be used as noun, adjective, adverb or even as verb which breaks the formal rule of logic. The open structure allows also a specific way of associations, and within a particular group of ideograms a pictorial stream becomes constituted.

Hsia (1974) continues to explain that, for example, Yin has a variety of symbolic meanings for the speaker as well as the listener; it can be understood as feminine, shadowy, cold, quiet, and hidden—among many other meanings. That is, if we are confronted with the combination of the Yin symbol with other signs, we deal with a much more complex endeavor. Yin and Yang do show the unity of life, the unity of opposites, the Tao (Alan & AlHuang, 2003; Fischer, 2003). Yin can be combined with the word wind (Hsia, 1974) that is untranslatable; it denotes a wind this is uncomfortably cold and wet and that is frightening and dark. It is something that one needs to imagine in a pictorial way (p. 196).

Durch seine Vielseitigkeit und Elastizität bedingt, kann das Symbol Yin in nahezu allen Gebieten der Wissenschaft und Künste benutzt werden, sei es in der Biologie, Chemie, Physik, Philosophie, Dichtung, der bildenden Künste, der Astronomie, u.a. Und durch eine geschickt manipulierte Anwendung ist es durchaus im Rahmen der Möglichkeit, die Grenze der verschiedenen Disziplinen aufzuheben, diese Disziplinen zu verbinden und auf einen Nenner zu bringen. Eine solche Sprache hat noch den Vorteil, dass jeder, der ihre Gesetze beherrscht, nach Bedarf neue Symbole zu schaffen vermag (Hsia, 1974, p. 196).

By the means of the game’s flexibility and elasticity the Yin symbol can be used in almost every science and arts such as biology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, poetry and astronomy. And by a clever manipulation it might be also possible to break the frontiers of the related disciplines; to interconnect the disciplines and to build a synthesis. Such a language also has the advantage that every person who knows its rules and laws, is able to create new symbols.

Yet, the glass bead game remains abstract for many readers. In the very beginning of the play (Hesse, 2021), the game was performed by using glass beads. Every glass bead stands for a specific theme or a specific symbol; the relations between the symbols or themes are analyzed by the respective player. For example, a psychological use of the Yin symbol (one glass bead) might be closer to another glass bead that symbolizes a philosophical theme (second glass bead). Yet, this glass bead might be in closer connection to the scientific field of logics and logics closer to the field of mathematics. By means of the glass beads’ composition the player can now analyze the interrelation between the Yin symbol and the different field of scientific inquiries, investigate similarities as well as divergencies potentially finding ways how to relate the psychological Yin use with the mathematical Yin use. The process that yields into the synthesis is the actual sequence of play, the notes for the organist to play his organ. However, the glass bead game does not only incorporate specific relations and syntheses between the sciences themselves; for example, a poem is also a complex glass bead game in which different experiences are melodically divided and stratified, arranged—relations examined—to create a complex stream of symbols. Different themes—within the poems—are openly structured and arranged in a pictorial, microgenetic way (Freiherr von Fircks, 2022) to create a specific Gestalt or ground-theme that can be experienced by a variety of human beings. Or in Hsia words:

Eben wegen der angeführten Eigenschaften einer Ideographie ist es möglich, dass ein Glasperlenspiel seiner eigenen Gesetzmäßigkeit nach formal konstruiert wird – denn ohne gewisse Regeln und Logik wird es chaotisch und unverständlich -, ohne dass die persönliche Phantasie des Spielers verlorengeht. Denn dieser muss die Auswahl bestimmter Charaktere treffen, um gezielte Bilder und Assoziationen, die auch durch seine Handschrift beeinflusst werden, bei den Teilnehmern suggestiv hervorzurufen. (Hsia, 1974, p. 197)

Due to the above-mentioned characteristics of an ideography, it is possible that a glass bead game is – under its own laws – formally constructed because without rules and logic it becomes chaotic and incomprehensible -, without ignoring the personal fantasy of every player. The reason why is that the player needs to select a particular range of characteristics in order to trigger pictures and associations that are influenced by his handwriting, suggestively.

The glass bead game is therefore performed, it is like music performed for an audience that listens, experiences, and feels the composition of the respective play.

The meditational character of the glass bead game

Like for music, it is necessary to sink deeply into the composition, to meditate about it and to open up a new horizon of experiences (Humm, 1974) that is triggered by the actual play (Klee, 1974; Lee, 2002). It is within meditation, ² immersion into the play that I do turn my gaze into the inner circle of myself. It is here that I let go of the formal structures of the play, that I let go of my surroundings in order to fully concentrate myself upon the play’s impact on my soul. I breath and I let go. I breath and I let go. New ideas come; old ideas go. Peace, quietness. Ideas come; ideas go. I breath and I let go. Meditation is key for that process in order to flow with the pictures and associations that might lead into a listener’s own personal glass bead game (Hesse, 2002), for example, the poem has moved me so inherently that I am writing my own poem for my girlfriend or I draw a picture for her.

Denn es ist ein Gebot, dass Spieler sowie Zuschauer und -hörer sich eigener Meditation über jedes Zeichen, seinen Gehalt, seine Herkunft und seinen Sinn hingeben. Dadurch wird nicht nur die Lebendigkeit der Aussagekraft der Ideographie gesichert, verstärkt und jedes Mal bei dem Ausübenden erneuert und erweitert, sondern die Versenkung stärkt auch das Individuelle inmitten der Gesetzlichkeit des Spiels und macht die Zuschauer und Zuhörer zu Mitspielern, da die Meditation immer vom Einzelnen, von dessen Konzentrationsvermögen, Anlage und Intensität der Hingabe abhängt. So wird ein Spiel zu tausendfach verschiedenen Spielen und bleibt doch dasselbe Spiel, vergleichbar mit Tao – der Einheit, - das durch Yin und Yang den Kosmos mit all seinen Einzelheiten hervorbringt (…). (Hsia, 1974, p. 199)

It is a requirement that every player as well as listener is doing his own meditation about every sign, its content, origins and meaning. Hereby, the vividness of the ideography’s meaning is not only ensured, strengthened and for every practitioner renewed and expanded, but the immersion strengthens the individual within the actual lawfulness of the play, and makes the listeners to players themselves, as meditation is always depending upon the activity of oneself, of concentration, disposition and intensity. It is by this means that a play becomes a thousand different plays and remains nonetheless original, comparable to the Tao – the unity – that is through Yin and Yan the cosmos with all its particularities.

The glass bead came is therefore—like the Tao—ever-flowing. And every player and listener is thus appealed to develop the play as well as himself—which is mutually dependent. The glass bead game is water-like, the play itself triggers listeners to play themselves privately or publicly with their unique relation to the fellow human being. Every person is thus participating in the glass bead game and is responsible for the further development. Like every author, poet, or scientist, we do rely on the work of our fellow man, and we are instructed to experience his work and to expand it (Graumann, 1984; 2002).

The purpose of the glass bead game: The education of a meaningful mind

This is the poetic nature of every human being. The goal of this game—which we could call glass bead game—is education towards a meaningful mind (Hausmann, 1974a, 1974b; Muschg, 2002), the conservation of the aesthetics to create, structure, re-structure, expand, improve current or old works, to relate them one with the other or even to synthesize something new (Cube, 1974). This creation is then a symbol for the education towards the sublime (Schiller, 2016). Hesse accomplishes to show something achievable for mankind: the domestication of the mind by means of meditation. Hesse was here a pioneer showing the benefits of an old Chinese or Indian tradition—meditation—that has become popular in the last two decades in Europe leading, for example, into mindfulness-bases therapeutic approaches for psychiatric diseases (Khoury et al., 2013). Yet, Hesse accomplishes something more than that. It is the reconciliation of Eastern and Western philosophy for the purpose of education. The class bead game has therefore inherent pedagogical goals (Carlson, 1974) wanting to educate the individual to reach his/her inner unity of mind and body (Faesi, 1974) with the purpose of helping or assisting other people to reach theirs. In Yuri Lotman’s words (Lotman, 1990):

We find the different mechanisms of the single intellectual life of humanity [within education]. We are within it, but it - all of it - is within us. We are at the same time like matryoshkas, and participants in an endless number of dialogues, and the likeness of everything, and 'the other; both for other people and for ourselves; we are both a planet in the intellectual galaxy, and the image of its universe. (p. 273)

The glass bead game as an answer against the editorialized era

Having now clarified the inner nature of the glass bead game—as far as this is possible, we need to turn our gaze slowly to the purpose of the glass bead game. In short, what is the historic purpose of the glass bead game? The narrator in Hesse’s work reports that a specific spiritual Order has been built as an answer towards the editorialized era (feuilletonistisches Zeitalter) called Kastalien (Hesse, 2021). The editorialized era was characterized by an inflation of cultural goods that were threatening the inner unity of the human being (Klee, 1974; Schirmbeck, 1974). In the editorialized era, there are—like today—thousands of newspapers feeding content over content towards the citizens. It is not about the actual quality of the articles or newspapers but more about who is reporting a specific event first and with a certain degree of sensationalism in order to increase readership. This goal of increasing readership and commercializing culture as fast as possible—also by means of advertisement today—shows that in an editorialized era like ours it is not about the ideal values, about ideal development, about the mind but about readership and money. All cultural products directed towards such a purpose are doomed to become mass products not helping the individual to cultivate his mind and body for the purpose of reaching his inner unity. No, these mass products are made to disperse the individual, continuously. Individuals are not individuals anymore but a source of consumption; culture is a source of consumption. The human need for culture is used to commercialize the individual. The need for culture is therefore manipulated not only for economic reasons but also for political ones. In an editorialized era, newspapers, documentaries, films, novels, all cultural goods can be appropriated easily by political movements that want to spread their political goals and views in every area of public life. Culture becomes politized with the goal of spreading the popularity of certain political appeals and discrediting others (Hesse, 2021). Again, culture is not something individually appropriated to reach an inner unity of body and mind, it is rather a speaking tube for political movements to spread their agendas. Culture becomes ideological and patronized in such an era. All of the true pedagogical goals are missing in such an area (assisting the individual to realize his drive for meaningfulness within a specific culture, see also Leontev, 1978). It is no wonder that Hesse wrote his opus magnum in light of National Socialism as every cultural area of inquiry was appropriated for ruling the public life. Furthermore, the cultural elites of the country not only accepted it but were enthusiastically participating because they were promised higher positions, money, popularity, and so forth.

That’s why Kastalien—an Order that was directed towards the education of the mind—was built: Kastalien was separated from the secular world; its members did not gain any money, did not have wives/husbands and families nor a classic career. Kastalien was for Hesse the response to the editorialized era. But how is Kastalien built up in detail?

Kastalien as educational province

Kastalien is an educational province that is based upon a wise and flexible selection process (2021, p. 62). The foundation of Kastalien are the so-called elite schools guided by 20 senior teachers who represent equally the Education Authority as well as the spiritual Order of Kastalien. These senior teachers are responsible for educating children and adolescents for their respective school.

Der Zugang zu ihnen bilden nicht Prüfungen, sondern die Eliteschüler werden von ihren Lehrern nach deren freiem Ermessen ausgewählt und den Behörden von Kastalien empfohlen. Es wird etwa einem Elf- oder Zwölfjährigem eines Tages von seinem Lehrer bedeutet, er könne im nächsten Halbjahr in eine der kastalischen Schulen eintreten und möge sich prüfen, ob er sich berufen und gezogen fühle. Sagt er nach Ablauf der Bedenkzeit ja, wozu auch das bedingungslose Einverständnis beider Eltern gehört, so nimmt eine der Eliteschulen ihn auf Probe auf. (…) Wer einmal Eliteschüler ist (…) für den kommt kein Fach- und Brotstudium mehr in Betracht, sondern aus den Eliteschülern rekrutiert sich der Orden und die Hierarchie der gelehrten Behörde, vom Schullehrer bis zu den obersten Ämtern; den zwölf Studiendirektoren oder Meistern und dem Ludi Magister, dem Leiter des Glasperlenspiels. Meist wird der letzte Jahrgang der Eliteschulen im Alter von zweiundzwanzig bis fünfundzwanzig Jahren abgeschlossen, und zwar durch die Aufnahme in den Orden. Von da an stehen nun den ehemaligen Eliteschülern alle Bildungsanstalten und Forschungsinstitute des Ordens und der Erziehungsbehörde zur Verfügung. (Hesse, 2021, p. 63–64)

The access to these schools is not determined by examinations, but the elite scholars are chosen by their teachers and are recommended to the Castalic Order. An eleven-year-old or twelve-year old is told by his teacher that he can enter one of the Castalic schools, and he might consider sincerely whether he feels competent and attracted to these schools. If he answers yes – after some time for consideration – for which the parental agreement is equally necessary, the scholar is accepted on trial. (…) The one who is an elite scholar does not work for professionalized studies nor for breadwinning; yet the elite scholars will constitute the Order and the hierarchy of the Educational Authority including schoolteachers as well as the higher positions like study directors and master as well as the Ludi Magister, the leader of the glass bead game. Often, the oldest cohort of elite scholars is finishing their studies between the age of twenty-two and twenty-five and get admission to the Order. From this point onwards, every educational and scientific institution of the Order and Educational Authority is at disposition for the scholar.

The narrator continues to report the specific professions for the elite scholar (Hesse, 2021). Some that demonstrate particular skills for philosophy, languages, or mathematics are appointed as teachers within the elite schools. Others leave Kastalien to become teachers at the regular schools and universities yet they remain members of the Order and Educational Authority their whole lives. A small number of students continue their studies with a life-long project, others become consultants for dictionaries, archives, libraries and so forth. The elite scholar’s actual profession is an interlude between the scholar’s interests, dispositions, talents, skills, and the hierarchy’s needs that ensure its continued existence. Becoming a part of the Order’s hierarchy is indispensable for every scholar, yet it remains important that the specific position for the respective scholar is not arbitrarily chosen but is in accordance with his very own being (interests and talents). Only then, sustainable living within the Order is possible both for the hierarchy as well as for the individuals representing the hierarchy at all levels. Hesse uses here a prominent Confucian principle; every human being manifests the Tao in a very unique way. Yet, this unique manifestation can be made fertile for a specific system that guarantees integration of each and every one for the purpose of individual and orderly development. Both orderly and individual development are symbiotically interlocked with each other, and the Order gets necessarily personalized by means of its individuals and their dispositions. Yet this personalization does not happen randomly but is the indispensable orientation for the Order’s survival. In his utopia, Hesse accomplishes something rarely happening in society nowadays, the reconciliation of the personal and over-personal. For better understanding of Kastalien it is notable to underline another time that the Order is separated from the world; the ideal is independent from the secular, the ideal cultural development apart from the material cultural development. Here, it is no wonder that Hesse speaks of an Order, a world within the world yet not reaching out to the other side. It is noteworthy that Knecht—from a very early age onwards—becomes aware of Kastalien’s blind spots. In his various disputes with his long-lasting friend Pilnius, Knecht defends Kastalien but acknowledges its dangers potentially undermining the Order’s goals and hence its sustainable existence. The exclusive and selective context of Kastalien is for Knecht the highest issue as it organizes the cultural world into an elite and non-elite that are opposing each other (Hesse, 2021)

In dieser Ordenswelt wächst Josef Knecht heran, wird in Eliteschulen, im Glasperlenspieldorf und als frei Studierender mit Meditationsübungen, Wissenschaften, Musik und dem Glasperlenspiel vertraut, geht als bündnisstiftender Emissär für einige Jahre in ein Benediktiner-Kloster, kehrt nach Waldzell zurück, wird zum Glasperlenspiel-Meister erhoben, zum Magister Ludi, und bricht nach Jahren hochgerühmter Wirksamkeit aus der Hierarchie aus, in die Welt der anderen, der Weltlichen und Normalen, wo er nach sehr kurzem Glücklichsein einen raschen, untragisch-bedeutungsvollen Tod findet. (Maass, 1974, p. 37)

Josef Knecht grows up within this orderly world, within [two] elite schools, within the glass bead game village and gets in touch with meditation, sciences, music and the glass bead game, leaves Kastalien for several years as alliance partner and lives in a Benediction abbey, comes back to Waldzell, becomes glass bead game master, Magister Ludi, breaks out from this very famous hierarchy, goes into the world of the others, the secular world and the world of the normal citizens in which he finds – after a short period of happiness – a fast, non-tragic yet meaningful death.

Knecht leaving Kastalien to spread its message

Why does Josef Knecht leave Kastalien to go into the secular world? The answer is complex, and I am inclined to say that Knecht does not really leave Kastalien. He might leave it, geographically but he remains a comrade within his spirit. During his early years in Waldzell (elite school) while having public debates with an antagonistic figure of Waldzell (but also friend), his conversations with Pater Jacobus—a historian—and his close relationship to the music master, Knecht realizes that the separation between spirit and world is not only arbitrary but endangers the future of Kastalien (Hesse, 2021). Knecht becomes aware that Kastalien is dependent on the worlds’ insight that the Order and Educational Authority is beneficial for every actor implied. Yet, this insight might change in time, eventually threatened by war, economic crisis, or simple political oppositions. It might be perceived as a luxury that is worth cutting in order to use the money for different purposes than to cultivate a mind that is not preoccupied with the development of the world but rather with its very own development. The cultivation of the mind is then an end in itself (Korn, 1974; Schmid, 1974). Yet, the mind has to be a servant for Knecht (Hesse, 2013; 2021).

Knecht bezeichnet den Konflikt, der seine kastalische Existenz von Zeit zu Zeit immer wieder mit Zweifeln heimsucht, als den Konflikt der ästhetischen und der ethischen Einstellung zum Leben. Der Angelpunkt dieses Konflikt ist das Verhältnis von Geist und Welt, welches überhaupt das Kernproblem der Dichtung vom Glasperlenspiel darstellt. Je länger Josef Knecht in Kastalien lebt, dient und lehrt, je mehr die kritischen Stimmen von draußen aus der eigentlichen Welt seinen Blick für das kastalische Gemeinweisen schärfen, desto unabweisbarer muss sich ihm die Frage stellen, ob dies überhaupt die Aufgabe des Geistes sein könne, sein dürfe: Selbst-Herrlichkeit zu entfalten, unbekümmert um alles, was an dieser Herrlichkeit nicht teilhat. Das Glasperlenspiel ist der vollkommenste und gleichzeitig fragwürdigste Endpunkt jenes Weges nach innen (…). Josef Knecht erkennt: der kastalische Gegensatz von Welt und Geist ist im Grunde ein falsch abgeleiteter Gegensatz. Die Vorbilder Kastaliens – die alten Mönchsorden – sahen hinter dem asketischen Gegensatz Welt-Geist doch immer die eine absolute Realität: Gott, die Geist und Welt umschloss, an deren Kraftsphäre der kleine geistliche Mönchsstaat stets angeschlossen blieb, deren Ausstrahlungen das Ordenswesen vor jeder Abspaltung und Erstarrung behütete. Der kastalische Geist hat den Anschluss an eine Wirklichkeit, die über ihn hinaus geht, nicht mehr. Er, der sich einzig selbst als göttlich begreift, der nichts Höheres erstrebt als das bewusste Durchlichten der eigenen Unendlichkeit, müsste in seiner aufgeklärten Frömmigkeit auch wissen, dass er zwar die Krone der Schöpfung, aber doch eben nur ihre Krone ist, dass er verpflichtet bleibt der Welt, der er entstammt, dem Gang der Geschichte, an dem er von je beteiligt ist. Josef Knecht erkennt: ein kastalischer Geist-Staat, der von Welt und Geschichte absieht, um seine Kräfte nur an die eigene geschichtslose Herrlichkeit zu wenden lebt an den Aufgaben des Geistes vorbei. Diese fordern gerade: Mitarbeit an der Welt, aus der Geist doch hervorgeht (…). (Carlson, 1974, p. 51)

Knecht calls the conflict – that breaks through from time to time – as the conflict of the aesthetical and ethical attitude towards life. The core issues of this conflict are the relation between mind and world which is in general the core issue of the glass bead game’s poetry. The more Knecht lives in Kastalien, serves and teaches, the more the critical voices increase and sharpen his sense for the world outside, the more he needs to raise the question whether this might be the actual task of the mind: to unfold self-importance not caring for anything that is not part of this glory. The glass bead game is the most complete and yet most questionable end point of the way towards one’s inner unity. Josef Knecht realizes: The Castalic contradiction between mind and world is in principle a false conclusion. The role models of Kastalien – the old monasteries – did conceive beyond the initial world-mind contradiction the absolute reality: god, which was encompassing mind and world and which was always connected to the little spiritual Order (…). The Castalic spirit has lost its connection with a certain kind of reality that is going beyond it. The Castalic spirit which is perceiving itself as god-like and which is striving for the highest transparency of one’s inner infinity, should need to know in its very own piety, that it might be the pride of the creation, yet only is the pride and that it remains responsible for the world from which it emerged and for the course of history which it is actively co-shaping. Josef Knecht realizes: A Castalic spiritual state that ignores world and history in order to live in its own glory, does not do justice to its actual duties. These duties ask for the participation within the world from which it arises.

These are the reasons for Knecht to leave the Order and to step out into the secular world. In his apologia towards the Order, Knecht argues that he is still connected to the purpose and duties of the Order and Educational Authority. Yet, this connection demands that he spreads the Castalic message into the secular world, that he reconciles Kastalien with the other side of the coin, the material world. He wants to serve the Order on the basis of making his knowledge and skills available to the non-Castalic world. Teaching individuals the spirit of Kastalien, the education, and philosophy that is underlying the glass bead game is for him the foundation to synthesize the ideal and material world (Pfeifer, 1974). Yet, this teaching is not comparable to standard educational settings. Knecht rather understands teaching as an individual, eye-to-eye learning experience that is happening day-to-day grounded upon nature (polarity of being, cyclic, and rhythmic modes of existence), meditation, history, creative involvement, and so forth. As he knows from his personal tutor, the music master, a certain kind of reality cannot be taught but needs to be experienced, felt, and lived through. Here, an experience can be appropriated or assimilated and can become a central cornerstone within the life philosophy of an individual (Ehrhart, 1974). For Knecht this was the experience of making music with the music master and meditating about the music. The music master was his role model for teaching actively rather than passively. Teaching needs to be active rather than passive for Knecht. Music demands exactly that activity; the glass bead game demands such a creative activity. If learning happens on the basis of individual experience, the teacher student relationship becomes intimate, personal, and meaningful. It is this meaningfulness of the relationship that is negotiated with the student, that can then be shared by the student who might become a master afterward, too (the student is thrown into a culture where mutual learning is not only facilitated but experienced as the ultimate goal to transmit knowledge which will transform the student’s own ability to learn and to spread knowledge). That’s why Knecht steps into the world and decides to teach the child of his friend Designori. Knecht then does not leave the Order but transcends its material structure (the actual place and his position) in order to do justice to the human beings and to the convictions of Kastalien. Knecht remains a Kastalier; he just expands his position within the hierarchy. And he expands the hierarchy. Knecht’s very own death needs to be understood against the background of his teaching and his task to reconcile the material and ideal world (Karalaschwili, 1974). He dies wanting to contest with his newly appointed pupil by means of some sort of swimming competition. Let’s see how the pupil (Titus) experiences the master’s death:

O weh, dachte er entsetzt, nun bin ich an seinem Tode schuldig. Und erst jetzt, wo kein Stolz zu wahren und kein Widerstand mehr zu leisten war, spürte er im Weg seines erschrockenen Herzens, wie lieb er diesen Mann schon gehabt hatte. Und indem er sich, trotz allen Einwänden, an des Meisters Todes mitschuldig fühlte, überkam ihn mit heiligem Schauer die Ahnung, dass diese Schuld ihn selbst und sein Leben umgestalten, und viel Größeres von ihm fordern werden, als er bisher je von sich verlangt hatte. (Hesse, 2021, p. 471)

He thought horrified that he is guilty of the death. And only now, where there was no pride to maintain and no resistance to show, he felt on the way towards his frightened heart how he cared for this man. And insofar as – despite all objections – he felt guilty for the master’s death, he felt with a shiver that this guilt will transform his life and will challenge him more than ever.

Knecht’s sudden death is the last accord of his very own glass bead game that could be described as serving. Like music, Titus experiences the sound of these last accords and by that he becomes a part of them which denotes the beginning of his very own glass bead game. Knecht transcends here the last stage of his life, for example, death—as his death is more than the mere termination of his bodily functions; Knecht’s death becomes the first accords of Titus’ glass bead game. Hesse accomplishes to show that people leave meaningful traces in their lives, and that human lives are mutually interdependent or symbiotically intertwined. For Hesse, it is this symbiosis that should mark the beginning and the end of life-long teaching, an end that becomes then a new beginning—the essence of culture.

Defining cultural psychology

But how does Cultural Psychology now relate to all of this? Before examining the specific relationship between Cultural Psychology and Hesse’s prominent work, we need to define Cultural Psychology, in a first instance.

Culture can be defined as an action field (Boesch, 1991; 1998) that is constituted by a person’s needs and goals (Boesch, 2002). These needs and goals develop while the person is relating to his/her specific environment (Lewin, 1926; 2000). A need for social contact develops while experiencing an isolated environment. The need for peace develops while experiencing a war-like environment. ³ Yet, this is only half of the truth. Not every person in social isolation develops the need for ongoing social contact such as for the ascetic. Culture remains personological (Valsiner, 2014; 2019) as the individual interprets specific environmental demands, subjectively (Toomela, 2021). This cultural interpretation of one’s very own environment and its demands, makes the individual to structure his action field in very unique ways (Lang, 1992; 1993). Personal culture is born in this process (Fircks, 2021a, 2021b). Yet, the interpretation processes are learned in a social way (Bruner, 1997). Let’s imagine the following situation that I elaborated elsewhere (Fircksvon, 2021c). A child grows up in a small village. While parents and siblings are walking to the playground, the child’s parents greet a person on the other side of the street. The child hesitates and asks his parents whether they know the person. The parents disconfirm. Then, the child continues to ask why they (the parents) are greeting the person. The father might answer because we live in a small village. You greet the other. It’s a way of being polite. Some years later, the child goes to the playground all alone. On the way to the playground, another stranger comes across. The child greets. Yet, there is no answer from the stranger. The child says to himself what an arrogant and impolite human being. The next day the child sees the stranger again, yet not greeting anymore. The example illustrates that culture is a symbolic field (Boesch, 2002) where different activities are interpreted in a symbolic way meaning that the interpretation goes beyond simple denotative meaning sequences (raising one’s arm becomes greeting or non-greeting and non-greeting becomes impolite) and includes symbolic interpretations organized in a certain pictorial stream.

The social imperative of cultural psychology

Interpretation processes unfold within a specific goal-oriented human conduct (Lewin, 1926; 2000) and are learned in a social way (Bruner, 1997; Valsiner, 2019). Greeting the social other is embedded in the wider goal of living in a close and knit community where everybody can rely upon each other. Non-greeting threatens this goal-oriented human conduct and thus the actual composition of the social network all agreeing upon the specific goal. These goals are important to reach a certain systemic equilibrium within one’s Self as well as within one’s group (Lewin, 1926); the action field that is directed towards the goal pursue becomes relaxed if the social environment makes it possible to satisfy the goal, continuously. If this is not the case, the action field remains in a tensed state (Lewin, 1926); goal pursuit is not possible despite the goal’s importance and the permanent distance towards the goal’s satisfaction might cause aggression, apathy, and depression (Lewin et al., 1939). Cultural Psychology wants to shed light onto the individual’s action field that is striving towards certain kinds of equilibriums (Valsiner, 2014; 2017) or to reach inner unity within one’s Self as well as within one’s group.

Cultural psychology as a complex glass bead game

Cultural Psychology relies on complex, open ideograms that are structured in specific sequences and bear symbolic meaning. This symbolic meaning expresses a person’s relatedness towards specific objects and events that are important to reach inner unity (Freiherr von Fircks, 2022). Not raising one’s arm becomes non-greeting and non-greeting becomes a sign for impoliteness that is threatening a particular kind of neighborhood. Complex signs are here interlocked one with the other and become specific interpretation processes that are learned in a social way (Toomela, 2021). In other words, they become personal culture ⁴ (Valsiner, 2007). Within such a scientific scope, Cultural Psychology can analyze a multitude of cultural products and activities. The emergence of mathematics and logics can be explained when shedding light onto the specific goal-directed behavior that was catalyzing its development, for example, to structure one’s environment or to deal with currencies. For example, the emergence of some Goethe works such as Wilhelm Meister and the purpose of initiating different pedagogical provinces can be seen in a new light. The invention of cars can be explained for the purpose of mobility and nowadays as a status symbol. Coming-of-age novels need to be interpreted in the light of young people wanting to understand their own development, feelings, experiences (e.g., sexuality), and so forth. Cultural Psychology is such a universal language being able to decipher the emergence of cultural products while doing justice to the subjectivity of every cultural good, thus the synthesis of complex signs learned in a social way (Bruner, 1997). In short, Cultural Psychology is a complex glass bead game.

Cultural psychology as an argument against the editorialized era of mainstream psychology

Moreover, Cultural Psychology—too—was initiated as an answer against the editorialized era (Bruner, 1997). For more than 60 years, psychology is relying upon the quantitative imperative (Michell, 2003, 2005) based on the large accumulation of data within inferential statistics (Michell, 2009; Ohlsson, 2009; Toomela, 2009): Questionnaires and abbreviated introspection (via items) are the most common methods in psychology, nowadays (Rosenbaum & Valsiner, 2011; Valsiner, 2017). Relating variables has become more important than understanding actual human conduct that can only be grasped within the context of a person’s environment (Smedslund, 2012, 2016). These correlational designs or linear models mostly include a limited population—mostly undergraduate students—that are answering strange items whose meaning cannot be negotiated (Rosenbaum & Valsiner, 2011). If questions arise during an interview, for example, how to interpret a specific item—those questions are not answered or only vaguely. Yet, psychology should be interested in the different interpretation processes that are learned in a social way and within a particular action field. For the sake of standardization or variability constriction (Maruyama, 1963), these interpretation processes are bracketed and henceforth personal culture that might be able to explain the phenomenon better and qualitatively more complex than abbreviated introspection (Graumann, 1984). Yet, the large accumulation of data allows to perform correlational studies in a small amount of time with limited resources in order to enhance the speed of publication, for example, to push one’s very own career. The high number of journals—most of them with common aims and scopes—are a clear example of the editorialized era where it is about the quantity of publication and not the quality. In this regard, psychological sciences have become mass-distributors of questionable cultural goods that do not help people to understand their culture and the impact it might have upon their Seelenharmonie. It is implicit here that sciences are also part of culture, not existing separately in a different dimension of human learned knowledge. Science originates from culture, and it is the researcher being interested in certain meaningful phenomena who appropriates that culture personologically.

To illustrate the discussion above I want to bring an example that has been elaborated by Smedslund & Ross (2014). It is about a boy with a headache that has been treated by various doctors, yet without any effects.

The (…) boy is brought to me by the parents because he had a persistent headache with no obvious somatic reason. As always, I tried to determine the conditions of his daily life. During a home visit, I discovered that he was forced to do his homework in the small kitchen where his mother prepared food and his younger siblings ran in and out. The family lived in a three-storied building where the second floor contained a large living room. To my surprise, this room looked as if it was almost never in use. It turned out that the family had recently moved into the big city from a large farm. The farm houses in this part of Norway contain large houses and large main rooms who were only used during festivities like Christmas and birthdays. The family had unthinkingly taken this custom for granted also when moving to a modern city building, and consequently the family lived their daily life under very cramped conditions. I gently pointed this out to the family, and they gradually started to use the large living room, so that the boy could do his homework with less disturbance. Gradually the headache disappeared. (Smedslund & Ross, 2014, p. 367–368)

Quantitative psychology would argue that stress or wrong body posture are likely to increase the probability of getting headaches (e.g., Sharma & Majumdar, 2009). Yet, it does not ask how stress comes into being. Quantitative Psychology is not interested in the microgenetic (Wagoner, 2009) factors that conditionally explain the emergence of a certain phenomenon. Stress is a polyvalent phenomenon, and it emerges while the person is relating to his/her environment in a specific way, in a learned social way. Stress is a cultural phenomenon. If I want to deal with stress more adequately, I need to become aware of how I relate to my environment, for example, in maladaptive ways (Fircks, 2021b; Fircksvon, 2021c). As personal culture is like a complex glass bead game divided into different accords that form a Gestalt (Freiherr von Fircks, 2022), I need to assess the different accords—that are only to be understood while getting a glimpse into the personal action field of the person. Smedslund was only able to determine the microgenetic factors of the child’s stress while immerging into the family’s action field, thus while experiencing their personal culture (or glass bead game) at first hand. Questionnaires or correlational designs would not have helped Smedslund to mediate change. Cultural Psychology, on the contrary, was able to not only understand the phenomenon at stake but to produce adequate interventions to relax a tensed action field. Cultural Psychology is thus the necessary antithesis to the editorialized era of psychology.

Smedslund used his personal knowledge of relating to his environment (using a larger living room) in order to show the family another cultural way of relating to their daily functioning that is more supportive for the child’s development. The psychologist was synthesizing knowledge from his only cultural background (urban) with the knowledge of the family’s former cultural background (rural) trying to reach a specific sort of synthesis of both cultures, for example, to use the living room for festive activities as well as daily duties. Smedslund helped the family to solve their issues through showing them alternative ways of relating to a specific object. His glass bead game was the initiative of the family’s actualization of their very own glass bead game. Signs are here re-structured or re-interpreted for the benefit of reaching inner harmony. This is what Hesse tried us to show with his glass bead game. And this is also the complex task of Cultural Psychology. ⁵

Cultural psychology needs to be better institutionalized

Institutionalization is an important step to materialize needs and goals, as we see in on the example of Kastalien that has institutionalized search for the inner unity and ideal world. This institutionalization ensures and promotes the further development of a specific discipline such as the glass bead game in Hesse’s work. By means of schools, orders and authorities (hierarchy), the further development of an institution or ideal values can be guaranteed. By means of the individual’s skills and disposition, s/he can join the hierarchy to develop it further and himself/herself. This is sustainable anthropology (Kielmannsegg, 2017). Having clarified the importance of Cultural Psychology in order to understand human phenomena and to trigger change, we need to be pessimistic about its institutionalization. Cultural Psychology is only weakly institutionalized: There is the prominent Cultural Psychologist Jaan Valsiner, initiator of Cultural Psychology of Semiotic Dynamics in Aalborg (Denmark), Yrjö Engeström with his activity theory and cultural-historical approach towards organizational psychology in Helsinki (Finland), Guiseppina Marsico trying to apply Cultural Psychology to the domain of education at the University of Salerno, Luca Tateo with similar goals at the University of Oslo.

Yet, there is no specific Cultural Psychological PhD or master’s program to educate individuals within Cultural Psychology. If there is an unclear institutionalization of Cultural Psychology, there will be no hierarchy, and thus, no individual can align himself/herself with that hierarchy. This hierarchy is important for attracting interested individuals and to educate them, appropriately in regards to their skills and dispositions. How can we integrate those individuals with their skills and dispositions if there is only a weak institutionalization of Cultural Psychology? How can we develop Cultural Psychology further if there is only an informal integration process? We need to improve the institutionalization of Cultural Psychology, immediately.

Some pioneer institutionalization

However, not everything is bad within the development of Cultural Psychology as popular glass bead game. I myself, for example, had a qualitative research class with Jaan Valsiner in Luxembourg. For sure, we had some classic teaching in order to get acquainted with the complex underpinnings of Cultural Psychology. Some theory is always necessary. Yet, Valsiner was going beyond that and doing a field experiment with students. We were blocking the escalators while saying they were broken. Some people ignored our utterances and moved past us, others used the stairs. At the escalator’s end we were asking the persons why did they ignore our utterance or why did they use the stairs in order to shed light onto the microgenetic mechanisms targeting the notion of resistance. Thus, we were immerging into Valsiner’s complex action field by participating and co-constructing an initial experiment. It is within this experiment that I became further enthused for the glass bead game of Cultural Psychology. Hesse himself said that truth cannot be lectured but only lived and experienced (2021). Valsiner is a prominent example of uniting teaching with exploring and explaining complex action fields by means of experiments or other cultural psychological designs. With the above-mentioned I want to underline that Cultural Psychology can already draw on lived teaching, yet we need to institutionalize this teaching in order to integrate more people within the hierarchy of Cultural Psychology. Valsiner, without knowing it, is a pupil of Hesse in his knowing that vivid, participative teaching—like music is taught—is the way of spreading the popularity of a specific science.

Cultural psychological imperative to serve the material world

In order to catalyze the institutionalization of Cultural Psychology, we need to learn from Hermann Hesse’s protagonist, Josef Knecht. We need to serve the material world. We need to become involved with that world and show people what we have to offer. We need to transcend our own intellectual self-glory and ask ourselves how we might make our theories fertile for the individual. Smedslund and Ross (2014) have tried that with a specific Bricoleur model of change. As we have the tools to understand the human being within his personal and collective culture, we can use our knowledge for the purpose of education, for the purpose of organizational psychology, medicine, psychotherapy, and so forth. But we are appealed to do so—not to push our own careers or reputation forwards but to help the human being to reach his/her inner unity. Cultural Psychology is the antithesis to the editorialized era. If we show proof of the superiority of Cultural Psychology in understanding, explaining, and solving common issues, we are inclined to push Cultural Psychology forwards. This push should not become an end in itself but has inherent pedagogical goals for serving the individual in his goals and problems. Hesse has shown us the danger of a discipline hiding itself in self-glory and separating itself from the world, the glass bead game. Yet, Hesse’s work should be a warning sign for us as Cultural Psychologists to re-think our field of inquiry. We need a Cultural Psychological province; we need a Cultural Psychological hierarchy to integrate people and we need to transcend that hierarchy equally in order to serve the individual, sustainably. If we show proof of being able to serve the individual appropriately, the institutionalization will be facilitated and thus the acceptance of Cultural Psychology. ⁶

Conclusion: Understanding the glass bead game’s implications for cultural psychology

In the present chapter I have elaborated the complex work of Hermann Hesse as depicted in his glass bead game. The glass bead game is a universal meta-code that encompasses all sciences and arts. It is a specific language that comes with an open syntax, an ideography relying on the combination of multiple signs or symbols. These signs and symbols are arranged in a pictorial stream to express a certain relatedness towards people or objects. Cultural Psychology draws on similar premises, it analyzes complex symbols that are arranged, structured, and re-structured in a specific manner. Yet, these signs are directed towards a specific individual need or goal of satisfaction: An action field gets tense in order to catalyze psychic and physical energy to satisfy the need or goal. It becomes relaxed once the need or goal becomes satisfied. The arrangement of signs and symbols needs to be understood within a specific action field, thus of goals and needs that develop between person and environment. The need for mathematics (architecture is a good example), the need for mobility (cars), and the need for religion (love) all come with a complex unique syntax: Cultural Psychology might be able to track down the origins for the science’s emergence in a specific social environment.

Moreover, Cultural Psychology is the antithesis to the editorialized era where psychologists developed a science almost purely relying on the large accumulation of artificial data in order to advance individual careers and not for the goal of reaching inner unity. Cultural Psychology, on the contrary, advocates a holistic approach analyzing people within their environments with the goal of helping individuals to reach their inner unity. Smedslund’s Bricoleur strategy is a prominent example of Cultural Psychology trying to understand people within their ecological units, their issues, problems, questions, and goals, thus how they function within their unique culture and how difficulties might arise due to such goal-directed organization. I argue that these interventions are more promising than quantitative, positivist interventions.

Yet, in order to spread the importance of Cultural Psychology as well as its benefits, we need to better institutionalize it. We need Cultural Psychological institutes; we need master programs; we need PhD programs, we need practice-oriented laboratories such as in the past with Lewin’s Iowa group (Marrow, 1969) for organizational psychology. We need a hierarchy. Yet, we need to proof the benefits of Cultural Psychology, continuously, in particular by working closely with the material world. Hesse’s work has shown that a science is threatened if it does not show proof of advancing the material world and people in their concrete action fields. On the contrary, if such a fertile relationship can be negotiated, both a universal language such as Cultural Psychology as well as its listeners (the world outside) might benefit from it. Here, it is important that our glass bead game becomes the people’s glass bead game, that our last accord become the peoples' first accords of their very own play. Lived teaching is the answer for that. This is already something applied by leading Cultural Psychologists such as by Jaan Valsiner or Engeström. From here on, it is up to us—the students of cultural psychology—to take an example of the lived teaching and continue it by creating our own glass bead game not for the sake of career, but for harmony of individuals in our world.