I-54 Spiritual warmth/fire

World History in the Light of Anthroposophy, Lect. 8

Steiner tells of how, in the waning days of the Greco-Roman epoch (the time that gave us the likes of Dante and Aquinas, who last spoke of the spiritual Hierarchies—see I-6), the Rosicrucian master, when sought out by students, might give them an understanding of themselves, from a particular perspective. “Behold the stones!” he would say (Shades of Christ! Cf. Lk 19,40). They can exist on Earth by themselves by virtue of Earth forces—but none of the human being’s bodies can do so—only the mineral kingdom. If the human being’s soul leaves, then all of its “bodies,” physical, etheric and astral, are destroyed, driven back to their home, and what is left dissolves to mineral “dust” (Gen 3,19). Our “Three Bodies,” physical, etheric and astral, “are not of this world” (Jn 8,23 and 18,36). The master brought this home to the student in what distills to the following chart:

And then the students could see that they were inhabitants of the Earth purely and solely because of the element of warmth/fire that they bear within. Into none of the baser elements (earth, water or air) could the soul nature be brought, but only into the element of warmth. Our English translations have lost the meaning of Gen 1,2 in this respect, for it says, literally (see 1 Interp 466), that the Spirit was “brooding upon” the face of the waters, a term that paints a picture of providing warmth, as it was also in “fire” that Moses saw the “I Am” in the burning bush (Ex 3,14) and it was with “fire” that the disciples were inflamed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2,2-3). We are here, of course, speaking of an element rarer than that of the heat of molecular action—the element that regulates the human being’s body temperature, for instance, regardless of its environmental temperature (see 2 Brit 317, “body heat”).

A moment’s reflection will show how the order of the human being’s creation from these four elements can still be seen in regard to the maintenance of its life. The element of warmth dwells constantly in it, and leaves at the instant of death. The other three elements must be constantly taken in and then expelled if one is to stay alive. Life exists many days without solid intake, a much shorter time without fluid intake, but only a matter of a few minutes without gas (oxygen) intake. Similarly, the period of time involved in processing these essential elements (in and out)  through the body varies in direct proportion to the length of time life can exist without them.