Lecture XI

When ancient initiates described their initiation they would say that after they had crossed the threshold they were first made acquainted with the activity of the elements. In olden times, “elements” was the name given to what today would be called physical conditions. That is, the solid, which was called “earth”; all fluids, which were called “water”; everything gaseous, which was called “air”; and everything to do with “warmth,” which was ascribed to the warmth ether and which was called an element. Modern physicists deny all this. For them these four elements do not exist. For them there are from sixty to eighty elements, which have qualities. Under certain conditions one is fluid, another solid or gaseous. The condition of warmth belongs to all. What was described as an element in olden times does not exist today. There are now only qualities of things; the qualities have no existence of their own. What today are called elements are actually only “real” in the coarse, tangible physical world. And what in olden times were called elements were understood not as reaching down into tangible matter itself, but only to the intangible, living activity of matter.