The History of the Esoteric School 1904–1914, Volume Two

GA 265

The Content of the Fourth Degree

From a teaching session in Berlin, February 10, 1913

The human being is connected to the self in thirty-three ways. We have to overcome this self through our I. This self is anchored in the human body in the 33 currents in the spinal cord. The seer sees how currents emanate from the etheric and astral bodies, which can then express themselves in the movements of the limbs, which are half held back in the speech organs, in the larynx, and there form the sound and are then rigidly held back in the human head, brain and skull, cerebral lobes. The brain: the symbols for it in the Lodge...

Beginning with the left hand: J – striving outwards.

The sound J – fix the right eye on an indeterminate point.

Stretching = A – both eyes to infinity.

Enclosing = O – look firmly at a specific point.

Crossing = E – place your right hand over your left hand, and cross your right foot over your left foot, just as the optic nerves are crossed in the human head.

Cupped hand = AO - bend the body in a semicircle.

Fist or clenched hand = U

You should not carry out the movements, but inhibit the movement, press the limbs firmly against the body, but feel the same as if you were carrying out the movements.

We are the lost word of creation ourselves.

The Holy Word is to be used only in the sign.

Where are we?

In the sign of the four.

Name the four:

Earth, Water, Air, Fire.

The four are also understood by the four sentences that are always spoken in

the lodge and that we know:

Learn to be silent and you will have power.
Give up power and you will have will.
renounce volition and you will have feeling;
renounce feeling and you will have cognition.

The four added up make seven: salt, sulfur, mercury,

Now the holy word is broken down again into the four:

One column is the sun, the other the moon; both