The Fourfold Philosophical Fire: Ego Development and Cosmic Love
GA 266I — 14 March 1908, Berlin
Esoteric Lesson
Record A
Strive for fire
Seek fire
Then you will have fire
Kindle the fire
Add the fire
Cook fire in fire
Throw body, soul, and spirit into the fire
Then you will have fire, dead and alive
It will turn black, yellow, white, and red
Give birth to your children in the fire
Feed, water, and nourish them in the fire
Thus they live and die in fire
And are fire and remain in fire
Their silver and gold will all become fire
And will finally become a fourfold philosophical fire.
These lines and the diagram above are meditation material which, when used by the esoteric student for practice, will give him much strength.
During the Saturn period, there was no material planet, only a globule of heat on which the spirits of darkness, the Asuras, reached their humanity. The blood we had at that time was dark. It was a hidden smoldering fire, or rather heat on that planet, but no light. The Saturn principle is masculine.
When Saturn disappeared and the sun rose out of the darkness, the second element, air, with its fuel, oxygen, caused the Saturn fire to burst into flames (flare up), and now there was light, as symbolized by the alchemical substance “sulfur.” Then the black blood turned yellow.
During the lunar period, the entire atmosphere was watery. It was not water as we know it. The water was divided into very small particles that were spherical and moved around with tremendous speed. This state of the lunar substance is found again in the liquid “Mercury,” which also separates into very small globules and is more active (more mobile) than all other substances. Just as this substance is white, so is the blood during the lunar period, and it is formed into shapes by the world tone. These shapes are female. The entire moon represents the female principle.
During the Earth period, the fourth element, Earth, appears in connection with the third alchemical substance, “salt,” which is the symbol of crystallization and dissolution. And here the masculine appears first. Thus, our present humanity on Earth is formed with its red blood. Everything that dissolves is salt 🜔.
We thus have four types of fire in the four types of blood that we have had in the past: black blood or black fire in the Saturn period, yellow blood or yellow fire in the Sun period, white blood or white fire in the Moon period, and red blood or red fire in the Earth period. The heat or warmth that now lives in our blood is the heat of the planet Saturn.
These different types of blood or fire are still within us and form the tools for spirits that work within us and upon us until we become sufficiently individualized to take over all the functions performed by these spirits. The air we breathe is the tool, the carrier or body of a [certain] type of spirit; the rays of light that enter our eyes carry within them a spirit of light that acts on our eyes; in the warmth of our blood, the ego, the spirits of Saturn find their point of attack. Some of them are very evil and dangerous.
The path to mastering our tools is shown in the lines on the first page.
The four types of fire refer to the essential part of our four lower shells, which are the “children of the ego.” These must be “burned in the fire of the spirit” so that they can become the fourfold philosophical fire in the volcanic period. We must “add fire to fire”; the fire of the lower passions must be purified through union with the higher, spiritual fire.
How this happens may become clearer when we see that our whole life is filled with four types of activity:
With our physical senses, we perceive the environment.
With our life body, we feel sympathy or antipathy toward others.
With our desire body, we feel desires and emotions.
With our intellect, we form conclusions and decisions. This is the most important part, that we form conclusions and decisions. We can change our opinion about something, but once a decision has been made, it remains, and the result of an entire manvantara depends on the decisions made during its duration.
Just as fire leaves behind the ashes of the burned material, so a decision or resolution leaves behind something good or bad that remains forever. The occult principle therefore states:
Never act when you are in doubt.
Just as thought leaves ashes behind, it strengthens the bones. Therefore, if someone suffers from rickets, they are taught to practice abstract thinking, such as geometry, which is free from sensuality. They will then fare better than someone who has no such education.
Our sympathy or antipathy affects the etheric body. We can easily recognize this through ordinary observation. We know that the etheric body controls the glands. When, for example, a gourmet sees delicious food, his salivary glands are stimulated and his mouth waters. To the extent that we learn to control ourselves and bring our sympathy or antipathy into balance, the glands in our body dry up and become like the bark of a tree, protecting the interior. In plants, the sap rises and falls. Therefore, they cannot resist the cold of winter; they die. The tree, on the other hand, allows the outside to dry out and become bark, thus protecting itself from the harsh effects of storms and cold. So is the initiate. His life body does not die from one incarnation to another. Such were the Druids. And “Druid” means “oak,” which is the strongest of trees.
Blood is the tool of the ego. The spirits of Saturn work in the warmth of our blood, just as Christ worked in the blood of Jesus. Jesus was thirty years old when Christ entered him. During those thirty years, Jesus had worked on his physical, etheric, and astral bodies. Then Christ took possession of the blood and purified it in three years. That is why the blood had to flow. When we have purified our four bodies in the same way, we will have the fourfold philosophical fire that belongs to the Vulcan period.
Record B
In the previous esoteric lesson, we saw how the matter of Saturn consisted of fire, of heat. The Saturn fire was dark, black. On the sun, this fire differentiated into air and light. Through the burning of the air, the old sun shone forth into the world space. Thus, a process of combustion took place. The old moon consisted of water matter. There were many drops swirling back and forth, which is expressed in the mercurial principle. The drops were separated from each other and arranged in manifold ways by the sound that penetrated the moon from the universe. In this way, the female principle came into being. On Earth, the part of the Earth's matter that dissolved in water was called salt. This is a significant fact in world history. Only on Earth could the male principle arise from the essence of the Earth's matter. And only from this could human beings develop as the crowning glory.
Human beings today carry the four elements within themselves, as it were. If we look at human beings on ancient Saturn, we find them to be a reflection of the divine. They were surrounded by fire matter. This fire matter, which was outside of humans on Saturn, is now their blood heat. The fire matter of Saturn finds expression in our blood today. We know that the spirits of personality brought us egoism, with its benefits and harm to us. These spirits of personality underwent their human development on Saturn. They bathed in fiery blood; they swam in it. These spirits therefore remained in a certain connection with human beings. And those spirits of the personality that have remained behind in their development and still carry within themselves the desire to bathe in human blood will have a very bad influence in the future, especially on the lowest instincts of the blood, if they anchor themselves in it. Only spiritual development that is aware of such dangers can help here. Today we only know what is called mineral fire. Fire plays a very important role in the process of development. On the moon, human beings still had a white sap. On the sun, human beings were still like a mirage. They became more and more solidified. On Earth, their blood turned red. On the sun, human beings were beings that glowed in yellow rays. Today we want to look particularly at the element of fire. When we look at human beings, we find that, insofar as they are earthy, this is expressed in their sensory organs. Insofar as they are water, this is expressed in their glandular system. Insofar as he is air, this is expressed in his nervous system, and insofar as he is fire, this is expressed in his blood.
Now we also know that the physical expression of the ego is the blood, the physical expression of the astral body is the nervous system, and the physical expression of the etheric body is the glandular system. Human development proceeds in such a way that, starting from the ego, the astral body and etheric body are first transformed into manas (spiritual self), then into the life spirit and finally into the spiritual human being. The “children of the ego,” as the lower bodies are called in occultism, must therefore be gradually taken hold of by the ego, as if permeated by fire.
You know that Jesus of Nazareth left his astral, etheric, and physical bodies at the age of thirty and that the Christ's ego entered. Since the ego expresses itself in the blood, this blood was seized by the Christ. The Christ lived, as it were, physically in his blood body. Hence the significance of blood in Christianity. You will recall that at the fourth Christian stage of initiation, the carrying of the cross, the parts of the blood flow together in the person concerned to those places in the body where they flowed in Christ during the carrying of the cross.
The four elements found in human beings are linked to four types of soul activity:
- Looking
- Sympathy and antipathy
- Desire
- Decision-making.
The earthly principle is active in seeing, insofar as human beings perceive through their sense organs. Sympathy and antipathy affect the glandular system, the watery principle. Desire affects the nervous system, and decisions must be made by the ego.
Human beings first look at objects. They must perceive them—this has a beneficial, stabilizing effect on the formation of their bodies. It is beneficial for people suffering from rickets to be taught non-sensual thinking and mathematical propositions.
When human beings look at things, they must feel either sympathy or antipathy. These have an effect on the glandular system. This can be observed in gluttons, whose mouths water at the sight of delicious food. If a person wants to undergo occult development, the glands must gradually dry up — at least part of their activity — and trigger something new at a higher level. Something similar happens with a tree, which can only survive and develop permanently because, unlike plants, it hardens part of its internal juices into bark. The Germanic tribes therefore gave their initiated priests the meaningful name of Druids or Oaks, because part of eternity pulsated within them, protected by the drying up of the glands. - Man must strive to harmonize sympathy and antipathy, to bring them to maturity, not to be ecstatic one moment and deeply saddened the next.
After sympathy and antipathy, desire arises. This affects the nervous system. A person who desires many objects at once ruins their nerves. One must strive to limit the circle of objects.
Now comes the main point: man must decide. It should be noted that what causes fire in the physical realm, the burning of matter to ashes, is decision in the spiritual realm. Only through decision is the deed classified in the karmic connections. Therefore, decisions must be made with caution. The sum of human decisions results in the volcano. In the decision, a part of our ego falls away. Confucius says: If you do not know which of two things to choose, it is better not to decide at all, but to wait! This occult saying naturally has two aspects, like everything else!
If you do not know which of two things to choose, it is better not to decide at all, but to wait! - This occult saying naturally has two aspects, like everything else! It follows from this that we should prepare ourselves for decisions, that we should educate ourselves to maturity. The ego makes the decisions. The more mature it becomes, the more correct decisions it will make, and the more intense the combustion process will be. The ego permeates the lower bodies as if with fire and gradually burns them up. The fire then separates into dead and living fire. - The impressions that surround a person are important.
A great power, an awakening of dormant forces, is signified for the Rosicrucian student by the following saying, which was given to him at a certain stage of initiation:
Strive for the fire.
The white, yellow, and black fire must be acquired again.
Gold is associated with the sun, silver with the moon.
These considerations are intended to awaken feelings and sensations and should be understood not only with the mind, but with the soul.
Record C
A power saying of the Rosicrucians at a certain level:
Strive for the fire ...
Human beings now stand on Earth, divided into male and female. We have followed his development through the planetary states to the Earth. We have seen what cosmic events have taken place to make him what he is to become: a knowing being, aware of himself and his origin; and how, through this, he learns to grasp the goal of his becoming. Sublime divine beings guide the development for the good of the whole. These are the creative beings of our cosmos.
On Saturn, the element of heat and fire was an element in itself, a fine material state of which we cannot form a physical mental image, finer than gas and air, a state like the warmth of our blood today. This was the basis of the human bodies of that time. Spiritual beings surrounded Saturn like a cloak, including the spirits of form. They also underwent a process of development. On Saturn, they had a lower limb, which can be compared to the etheric body of humans today. Then they had the astral body, the ego, the spirit self, the life spirit, spirit man, and a limb that is one degree higher than what humans can achieve. These spirits of form radiate fertilizing matter, life juices, from the Saturn mantle like a fertilizing, continuous rain. Saturn does not retain this radiation, but reflects it back like a mirror, just as the Earth collects rain and allows it to rise again as vapor. The spirits of form reflected their own image in the fiery mass of Saturn, and man already becomes an image of the deity there. The myth of Cronus and Gaia, his wife, tells us that Saturn devoured his children. The connection between the myth and the events surrounding Saturn is revealed in the following passage from a lecture given shortly before (Berlin, February 29, 1908) in “The Activity of Spiritual Beings in Man” (GA 102): "On ancient Saturn, the life-giving forces radiated out, were reflected back, and were taken up again by the mantle, by the atmosphere of Saturn. In ancient Greek mythology, the warm sphere of Saturn was called “Gaia” and the atmosphere was called “Cronus. Now consider the myth: the life-giving forces of Cronus continually radiate onto Gaia, onto Saturn, and then return, being absorbed. It is Cronus who continually devours his own children!”
Secondly: on the sun, the spirits of form radiate their life body completely inward; it is no longer radiated back, and human faculties permeate it. Previously, the spirits of form mirrored their image; now they permeate these images with their own life forces, giving off their etheric body. Now they have the astral body as their lowest link and add another link above it. This astral body of the spirits of form is the carrier of the astral light, which manifests itself all around in lightning, fire, and passions. These cosmic affects are the Titans in the myths, who create in passions. Through these passions acting from outside, from the air circle on the sun, combustion takes place—the sulfur process.
Thirdly: on the moon, the spirits of form also shed their astral body and retain the I as their lowest link. In its place, they add another link, the tenth link. Outwardly, they form nothing but I's. Through space, these spirits of form work from outside into the moon with the I's, having given their astral bodies to human beings. Everything that human beings have has flowed down from the cosmic environment; it is a sacrifice to this cosmic environment.
Fourthly: now comes the earthly state. In the earthly constitution, human beings form their bodies from the elements of the earth. The high sun beings come over; the spirits of form sacrifice their lowest member, the I, completely. They then retain for themselves as their lowest member manas, the spirit self, the flowing wisdom of the world. This surrounds us as the lowest member of the spirits of form. In this wisdom life of the spirits of form, we live, weave, and are.
The human being receives the I. At first it approaches from the cosmos of the earth. It already has an effect on the emerging physical body, initially through the astral body, which surrounds the emerging human body like a shell. This happens around the time of the Lemurians. At that time, the human body was still very soft, a very soft mass, permeated by magnetic currents. Under the influence of the approaching ego, something like an invagination arose within it. Through this, one can see down to the etheric body. A dim perception begins, which opens more and more toward the outside. Previously, humans had a kind of dim perception inward, through which they could perceive other humans, animals, and their group souls.
Rickets in children can be improved through appropriate geometric visualizations. What people went through back then is repeated.
Now, little by little, people develop a liking or dislike for what they encounter from outside: the ego acts on the astral body; the glands, what is occultly referred to as the water element in humans, cause feelings of sympathy and antipathy.
Now the influence of the Luciferic spirits comes into play. They radiate lower forces into human beings because they did not mature their ego on the Moon to such an extent that they could let it go. They strive to do on Earth what should have happened on the Moon. The human astral body was exposed to these beings: Ego spirits that had not ascended to the state of spirits of form radiated lower forces into it, causing this astral body to split into a higher and a lower part. Through the spirits of form, human beings received the ego predisposed to selflessness; through the Luciferic spirits, they received the ego predisposed to egoism, to the desire for things in the outer world. Desire acts upon the nerves, forming them into the outer sense organs (air, astral body). This acts upon the etheric body, which thereby gains the power to see outward, opening the senses to the outside world. Human beings recognize what is good or evil for them. This was in the first third of Atlantis. Finally, in the last third of Atlantis, the ego takes hold of the physical body. Gradually, the physical body is transformed into its present form. Now human beings really begin to know the external world. We now have the astral, etheric, and physical bodies that have been opened up by the impact of the ego. The three soul members are formed through the work of the ego from within. This is how humans are called to participate in the work of the gods.
Just as the ego was around us in the past, then drew into us and works in us as God, so the lowest member of the spirits of form is spread out around us: manas-wisdom.
Through the ego, we can initially develop human wisdom, but divine wisdom is spread out around us in the cosmos. What human beings are gradually meant to attain is spread out and hidden in the world that surrounds us. And when the earth has reached the goal of its development, we ourselves will be filled with this divine wisdom, because the God in man, the I, is active within us. Wisdom belongs to the members of the spirits of form; wisdom is to them what the physical body is to us. Wisdom-light is the garment of the Godhead. Then comes the life spirit! And just as those exalted spirits instilled their manas in us, so we receive the life spirit—Buddhi—as a further member. Surrounding our earth and connected with it is a highly exalted being whose lowest member is Buddhi, which is to this being what the physical body is to us. At a certain point in the Earth's development, we encounter the being that instills the forces of the life spirit into human beings. This is of fundamental importance for the Earth and for all subsequent planetary developments. And this instilling of this member into human beings took place during the Mystery of Golgotha.
How does humanity come to gradually receive and attain what was then instilled into the Earth and human beings as an effect from the environment?
Through right determination and decision, says the Rosicrucian teacher; through a decision and determination that is not brought about by the lower, erring ego, which is permeated by desire, through a decision and determination that cannot be reversed, that brings about karma and its transformation. This decision, which flows from the I that the spirits of form, filled with wisdom, have given us, is in the right relationship with the organ of the I, the fire that permeates everything. Confucius says: “If you cannot decide for or against something, then it is better to leave it alone!” - Here, the human being vacillates between the ego that originates from the spirits of form and the ego that originates from the Luciferic spirits. However, this statement is only for esotericists, because otherwise little would happen in the world and no experience would be gained. The Rosicrucian teacher says, after the student has asked:* “How do I find the right decision that comes from my higher self? How do I find the way to the higher self?” “Find the place that is free from everything personal!” - The student: “Where do I find this place?” - The teacher: “In your ego, which wants without self, which thinks without sensory perception.” - The student: “How can I want without self and think without perception?” - The teacher: “Want without the ego, and think outside of your self!” This ego makes decisions and resolutions, and through these, the transformation of the earth is brought about. — The actual further development of humanity, the Earth, and the cosmos happens through the right decisions of this inner ruler in man. He must initiate the right decisions, that is, those gained in serenity and in accordance with development, which drive man to his actions.
However, human beings cannot act solely under the influence of the wise impulses they owe to the spirits of form; another impulse is necessary to enable them to develop the life spirit or Buddhi. Like the others, this impulse also comes from the environment. From the world space, cosmic love, whose bearer is the Christ spirit, flows into the aura, into the atmosphere of the earth, through the mystery of Golgotha. Yahweh, the summary of the spirits of wisdom, and Christ, the sublime spirit of love, now divide themselves between the earthly mission. Yahweh gives the spirit of love the special earthly mission, the development of love. What had been love on earth up to that point is only a preliminary stage for the purely spiritual love to which human beings are to rise. This love will be the creative element for Jupiter, and Jupiter can only come into being when human beings recognize and experience the deed on Golgotha and let it flow into their deeds. Thus the spirits of wisdom (Yahweh and his hosts) withdrew and continued to work from outside, from the periphery. They became spirits of the cycles, working down from the other stars. Through them, the true earthly experience, the active power of love that forms and creates (Goethe's fairy tales), could not be gained. The secret that a being must have in order to bear the fruits of love was hidden from them. That is why occultism says that they veiled their faces before the mystery of the being who was to accomplish this cosmic deed, the mystical Lamb. The secret of the Lamb is to redeem the bodies from the earth through the active power of the I that permeates it. The great sacrifice, the mystery of the Lamb, became the center of earth's development, the axis around which everything revolves.
Thus, in the development of the earth, we have two inflowings: one acting from without as the inflowing of the spirits of wisdom, and one acting from within as the inflowing of love, which appears anew in the mystery of Golgotha. And the spirits of wisdom work together with the spirit of love in such a way that they leave the individual human being to him between birth and death; for themselves they take the guidance of the individuality that passes through incarnation.
Thus, that through which human beings stand on the earth is under the guidance of the spirit of love, of Christ. Human beings experience their earthly life in a human body built from the elements of the earth. The spirits of wisdom could not redeem, that is, spiritualize, this body. They could build it up wisely. The fruit of earthly development will be the human form spiritualized through the act of love of Christ, which will be the image of its archetype. Before this mystery, the spirits of the cycles veil their faces in humility. Through Christ will come the latest crisis [?], that is, the resurrection, the spiritualization of the flesh, that is, of matter. From the mystery of Golgotha, he has taken the development of the earth into his own hands, in such a way that he works in the individual personalities. There he works together with the Luciferic beings who bring freedom to human beings. In freedom, human beings must find their way to love. First, wisdom works in humans as the light of knowledge; we are still in the midst of this work. When humans are completely illuminated by wisdom, it leads them to be warmed by the power of love. Wisdom imbued with love will be their true knowledge of Christ in the future. And this will also lead humans in their social coexistence to the deeds that will build the future.
Where did this cosmic, universal power of love first live on Earth? In the blood that pulsed through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. This blood was actually the physical field of activity of Christ — he took over the three bodies, the physical, etheric, and astral bodies, from Jesus of Nazareth, but the blood was entirely his own, pulsing entirely with his spirit, with the fire of his cosmic, universal power of love. This blood sacrificed itself for the Earth and all human beings on Earth. This blood lives on in etheric form in the Earth's atmosphere. This blood fire works on all people who are willing to receive it, who strive for it, who seek it. The body, soul, and spirit of human beings should gradually take it in. The children of human beings, their insights, should be transfigured by this fire and make them the bearers of deeds that bring about progress on Earth. The lower blood fire, saturated with desire, will die, and in this light fire the higher, the Christ in man, will rise again. On Saturn there was no light yet; it was black; on the sun light shone in, became glowing, yellow. On the moon there was no red blood yet, it could not yet be red blood; illuminated by wisdom, the wisdom light of the moon was white-silvery, as now the moonlight shimmers on a surface of water. On earth is the I, which radiates through the red blood with the fire of love, the bearer of the wise insights of man, through which he is to be led to his earthly deeds. He will recognize the influences of the sun and the moon, the correct relationship of the earth and the people of the earth to them. The fire of his I will permeate everything, he will see the path of his becoming: in a wise look back at the past, he will see how he is the work of the gods; in a loving look ahead to the future, he will recognize himself as a tool of the gods in all parts of his being, which are permeated by the Christ fire: the ego, the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body.
This is what the Rosicrucians call the fourfold philosophical fire.
Record D
A power saying of the Rosicrucians at a certain level:
Strive for the fire ...
Looking, sensory perception affects the outer, solid physical body — earth. Rickets in children can be improved by appropriate (practiced) geometric visualizations. Sympathy and antipathy affect the glandular vessels (etheric body) — water.
Desire affects the nerves, the organ of the astral — air.
The decision that cannot be reversed like everything else, that brings about karma, is connected with the blood, the organ of the ego — fire. “If you cannot decide for or against something, then it is better to leave it alone,” says Confucius. But on the other hand, we should learn to make the right decisions. Indecision brings about the transformation of the earth; actual development occurs through decision.
Christ took over the physical, etheric, and astral bodies from Jesus for three years of his earthly life; Christ entered into them with his ego, and thus the work of Christ was truly present in the blood.
This was entirely his own. That is why the blood of Christ plays such an important role.
With the ego, all the members, the “children” of the human being, must gradually be worked through, body, soul, and spirit, that is, worked through fire, cooked in fire, nourished with fire, etc. In death, what must go away is burned, and what remains becomes all the more alive.
On Saturn, the “fire” was still without light—black fire.
On the sun, the fire was transformed into one that had light—yellow light—hence yellow fire.
On the moon, the juices in the beings were not yet red blood, but white, as in beings so far behind — hence white fire.
On Earth, human beings had progressed far enough to keep within themselves the warmth that was outside on Saturn, in red blood — hence red fire.
Silver and gold represent the influences of the moon and sun, the forces that must all be worked through and purified by the fire of the ego.
The result achieved when all four members, the physical, etheric, astral, and ego bodies, are completely permeated by fire is called “philosophical fire.”
Conversation between master and disciple:
The disciple said to the master: What is the path to life in the realms of the supersensible, where spirits create and souls recognize?
The master said: If you can remain for a while where none of the dependent beings touch you, you will stand in the realm of spirits. If you can remain for a while where none of the perceptive senses speak to you, you will recognize through the power of the soul.
The disciple said to the master: Where is the place to which I am thus directed?
The master said: The place is within the self; but you will find it only when you leave your self, when your will is silent and your senses are extinguished; and when you say “I will” and “I think” with living words.
The disciple said to the master: How can I say: “I will,” when my will is silent; how can I give life to “I think,” when my thinking is extinguished?
The master said: Only the will that you do not want reveals ‘I’; only the thought that you do not think proclaims the “spirit.”