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

GA 265 — Hildesheim

The Three Candles

From the instruction hour in Berlin, December 16, 1911.

The three lights that now burn symbolize the three higher principles that shine in the darkness in our higher being. They also represent the wisdom, beauty and strength whose words (names) were pronounced when the lights were just lit on the altars of the east, south and west. We will find the light of wisdom if we always strive for truth in our thinking, if we learn to recognize that a new kind of thinking should arise in us, that world thoughts live in our thoughts. We should become aware that it “thinks in us” and that what is thought in us are revelations of spiritual entities that want to bring us wisdom. From the astral world, living, weaving, moving wisdom flows to us, and by letting wisdom permeate our thinking, we can catch the wisdom of those spiritual entities and our soul will attain wisdom.

Beauty flows into us when we acquire true piety. When our soul can open in admiration and devotion to the beauty that is around us, this beauty becomes for us the expression of spiritual beings who want to reveal their language with it and make themselves understood to us. Only heartfelt, true piety can reveal true beauty to us. For you all know that in the spiritual (astral) world, devils can show themselves in the guise of angels under the mask of beauty. But you also know that this is only possible if our soul is not permeated by that purity which is coupled with heartfelt devotion. In the lower Devachan, those beings can be found who send their beauty down to us in truly beautiful images and forms.

Strength or power flows down upon us from the higher Devachan and will strengthen our inner being if we transform our power into virtue, into active virtue. True, active virtue arises when we transform all the qualities that stand out in our lower nature through the power of our will, so that they become forces that can work as spiritual forces in the world.

From the instruction session in Berlin, December 17, 1911

We see here the flames on the altars, which represent wisdom, beauty and strength. These are very deep symbols that we can also find in the human being.

Where can we find wisdom in the human form? It cannot be found on the outside, it is hidden within the form in such a way that it is not currently adapted to the present stage of development, so that the form does not form a cohesive whole. Wisdom can be depicted as follows:

It is different with beauty, which finds its full expression in human hands when they are raised in an outstretched position, with the head forming the center. In the hands one finds the symbol of beauty and this is represented as follows:

The purpose of the hand is to be beautiful, not to be strong; the arm may be strong and muscular, but at the bottom it tapers into the beauty-tending form of the human hand.

Strength is found in the opposite of the hands, in the feet. No one who is an occultist will see anything beautiful in the feet, and anyone who wants to see something beautiful in them in their ordinary lives will see nothing but a caricature of beauty. The feet represent power or strength; they must be able to carry the whole body. This is represented as follows:

Thus we find in the human form these three important symbols, which in occultism are called the “three world mothers”, which Goethe also calls so in his “Faust”.

From the instruction session in Hanover, December 31, 1911

One of the most important symbols is represented by the three flames that stand on the altars of the East, the West and the South, and to which our attention should be drawn first. In them we should see the symbols of wisdom, beauty and strength, but we should not understand them to mean worldly wisdom, worldly beauty and worldly strength.

Wisdom is not to be found in the physical plane. Anyone who is involved in the occult life should make up their mind never to pronounce the word “wisdom” and to think of it as the worldly wisdom that we encounter in the external sciences, for example, or that is generally associated with learning. A learned person is not wise; a wise person does not need to be learned, and may even be a very naive person; but a wise person is the one who keeps wisdom in his heart, who speaks and feels as it were from his heart: I see my God at work in every petal; a person who senses and perceives his God in all of creation and feels connected to creation and the divine. But it should be borne in mind that this does not mean that one should be a pantheist to do so; one must form a much more intimate mental image of such a sage, an inexpressible feeling of being sheltered in the divinity of the world, which gives him peace and bliss in his being.

We must acquire such wisdom for ourselves, it must permeate our entire being so strongly that it is no longer possible for us to think that we are not always and forever surrounded and cared for by the spirit of the world, so that inner peace and security can no longer leave us.

Such perceptions and feelings will flow into us from the astral world, which consists of living, flowing, moving wisdom, which forms the background, the source of the nature that surrounds us and permeates the entire physical world. From there we must draw the strength to become wise. It cannot be found in the physical world itself.

The beauty symbolized by the second flame also has nothing in common with the beauty in the world; it does not refer to any worldly object. To glimpse something of this beauty, we must turn our gaze to the starry night sky and immerse ourselves in it, so that we feel, as it were, that spiritual beings rule behind it. A deep, heartfelt devotion should fill us with this. Or, when we experience a sunset and feel how the radiant orb sinks slowly below the horizon in a purple glow, so that the shadows grow longer and longer and finally the whole of nature around us is shrouded in darkness, then again, a deep, heartfelt devotion should permeate our being and identify so strongly with the divine power in our soul that the inner sun will shine and shine in our soul, as the midnight sun can shine into the dark Christmas days for the student of occultism, and the spiritual beings can be seen in their sublime beauty, in all their majesty. We must think in this sense when we speak of beauty, and these thoughts should transform the concept of beauty.

Beauty can be found in the lower Devachan; from there it streams down upon us from the beings in beautiful images and forms. But on this plane one also still finds ugliness, and precisely in that which on earth is often called “beautiful”. We find every lie there as something ugly. We can even find beauty in this world, but it is only based on illusion, on delusion. We find, for example, beautiful figures and forms there, even angelic figures, which have been created by black magicians, with which they envelop themselves as with a veil to hide their own selfish goals. One can have come quite far in the esoteric life and deal with magical arts or black magic in a particular life, then such people can show themselves in the lower devachan plan in such angelic forms, wrapped in a veil of beautiful garments. So there is no absolute, true beauty in this realm, and only genuine, heartfelt devotion can reveal the true devachanic beauty to us.

The third flame symbolizes power, again not what we know as power in the physical world; but this power from the higher devachan is to flow into the physical world and unfold there in man as “active virtue”. This is the virtue that consists in continually allowing our personality to recede, that we fight our ambition, especially when it expresses itself in that we want to shine with our gifts. This virtue should make us aware that we rest in the Godhead, that we are only a small part of the true, great perfection, so that we feel how all vanity and pride are unreal, so that it would be foolishness to want to be proud of something.

Particularly at the beginning of their occult path, people often become haughty or vain and proud. For example, when they start to notice small successes in themselves, they soon feel superior to others. But that is not the way to achieve active virtue. Those who seek to share their knowledge or powers with others, to teach what they have received as higher teachings, and who then allow themselves to be venerated by those to whom they impart knowledge, will not find the way either. These vices are great obstacles which man himself places in his own way. But also those who thus offer homage place these obstacles in the way of the esotericist. By combating these vices in the physical world and constantly guarding against falling prey to them by practicing “active virtue,” the power found in the higher Devachan as a sum of high spiritual beings will flow into us as spiritual power and strengthen our inner being.

Higher Devachan Power

Lower Devachan Beauty

Astral world Wisdom

Man in truth True piety

Physical world in thought Piety