What is written on the following pages about the playful human was first presented in 1948 at the Eranos conference in Ascona and was published in the XVI volume of the Eranos Yearbooks in 1949. This text will discuss the mystery of human and Christian wisdom of the playful human. For this is a healing necessity for us modern humans, who are entangled in the purposelessness of foolish seriousness or in the meaninglessness of mere worldly existence. The finest minds of our time have grappled with this question or found joy in it. When Hermann Hesse, in his work, sets out to show a culture that has deteriorated into the stubborn seriousness of mere goal orientation that the true and complete human can only be a person of cheerful, relaxed, spirit-filled, and therefore serious play, he addresses a question that belongs to the deepest realms of cultural and religious history as a true Ludimagister, a master of play.