Fire, Page Five

Now let's look at another aspect. All solids, fluids and gases expand when heated, with one partial exception.¹² Solids and liquids expand consistently at rates governed by their individual substance, whereas all gases have the same coefficient of expansion. Consequently, regarding expansion from heat, the property of solids is individualization whereas that of gases is unity. This first came to human reflection in cosmic terms. The Greeks called all that was solid earth and all that was liquid water. The influence of the Earth within the cosmos created solids and the Sun influenced gas. The loss of this awareness necessitated our attention to the way atoms and molecules are arranged in a body so that the ability to bring about change had to be ascribed to these poor, merely reflective, creatures.

Liquid is an intermediate condition between the solid and gas states, which are polar opposites in the sense that the solid has within it what must be applied from the outside to give form to the gas. It is thus self-evident that form is related in some way to changes in the heat state.

Profound spiritual truths are illustrated by these two simple statements of Steiner, that we must go out of space to understand what happens to heat during transitional periods, and that form is related in some way to changes in the heat state. What Steiner called "Imagination" (image-ination) is related to the type of "seeing" whose loss Isaiah lamented (Is 6,9-10)—people who "see and see but do not perceive"; likewise, even earlier, David (Ps 19,1-4). Paul spoke similarly in Rom 1,20-21, saying of the ancients that "his invisible nature … his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made … but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened." But the nature of Christ's fire revealed in these two simple observations by Steiner has not been perceived by modern scientists or theologians of any stripe to my knowledge.

Consider first that, very simply stated, increasing heat causes matter to expand and rise while reducing heat causes matter to condense and fall. Heat causes matter to change elemental form, but in the process of that change disappears from space for the duration of the transition. Consider the course of the human soul (Ego) in the cycle of reincarnation (see the Overview in "Karma and Reincarnation" in The Burning Bush), how it too leaves space. While on Earth it either uses or misuses its "talents," but its treasures are stored up in heaven (Mt 25,14-30; 13,12 and 6,19-20; Lk 19,12-28). At death it leaves space, but returns again in a different form (entirely different person) that reflects its prior uses or misuses of opportunity. If one approached the fire Christ cast during the prior earthly life, then upon return the soul has risen to a higher state; conversely, if one moved away from that fire the soul falls under karmic burden. We have in these simple observations of heat phenomena a portrayal of the ancient hermetic principle, "As Above, So Below; As Below, So Above." When we begin to Imagine (see) higher things out of earthly ones, to see in natural phenomena higher spiritual reality, we begin to reclaim and transform an ancient aptitude about which Paul and the prophets spoke.

Perhaps with this early digression, the reader's own initiative will now be stimulated to recognize similar pictures of the higher world. By proper "seeing" of earthly things (Is 6,9-10), one can begin to draw one's own picture of what the higher reality must be like. It is all bound up in the proper "seeing," for all earthly phenomena are mere images of the spiritual world. The very next statement by Steiner seems to lend itself readily to what has just been said.

Gaseous bodies can interpenetrate each other; solids cannot. The volume of gas and the pressure exerted upon it are inversely proportional. Volume and pressure changes both relate to heat and both are mechanical facts that can be observed. But the being of heat, the third power in the equation, remains unknown for ordinary physics, for some of it appears to be lost in the process, and we are obliged to go out of three-dimensional space. Physics can explain the phenomena only in terms of three-dimensional space, thus assuring it will pass over the real nature of heat. This is the point where science must, as Steiner says, "cross the Rubicon" to reach a higher view of the world. And I might add, that it is also the point at which theology must do so to understand the meaning of fire in the Bible.

Since the nineteenth century, physics has had the mechanical theory of heat which postulates that heat and mechanical effects are mutually convertible, given a loss of heat in the process. But this leaves out the part of the transaction that occurs outside three-dimensional space. When I write, there is a conversion of heat into work, but to say that the two are mutually convertible leaves out the part that the non-three-dimensional part of me plays in the process. Consider the senses. We perceive light with the eye and sound with the ear, but heat and pressure only with our entire organism. We have no organs to directly perceive magnetism and electricity, but can only perceive them through their effects.

Our words represent ideas that are the residues of what our sense organs have provided us. But there is another side of our soul nature in our Will, and we are asleep in regard to that. We are not aware of what happens between our consciousness and the delicate processes of our arm moving. But something is there whose existence cannot be denied simply because we do not perceive it.

How silly, you say, to make this comparison. Of course, we can't perceive the inner processes that translate our Will into the movement of our arm. Why exasperate us with this comparison? Because if we are unable to consider this, we are shut out at the very gate of deeper insight. To even conceive of it, let alone to eventually perceive it, would then be out of the question. The Seraphim's flaming sword is there to guard against it. If we are to know the true nature of fire (heat), and then of light, and then to seriously address the question "What is man?" we must let phenomena such as this speak to us. That we sleep through the inner processes that execute our Will is highly significant. What does it mean? Let us continue.

When Steiner arrived at the newly organized Waldorf School at Stuttgart in late December 1919, he was asked by the teachers there, as part of their preparation, to lecture on the subject of light. As always, he accommodated them, so the first of the three lecture cycles that have been called his "scientific courses" was on this subject. Because of the depth of his genius and spiritual insight, he could speak spontaneously on so profound a subject with no more preparation than this. The ten lectures constituting the Light Course occurred between December 23, 1919, and January 3, 1920. They were followed two months later, upon his return, by the fourteen lectures of the Warmth Course (March 1-14). The third course, which he warned them not to call an "Astronomy Course," has in fact been called that. He entitled it "The Relation of the diverse branches of Natural Science to Astronomy" (eighteen lectures January 1-18, 1921).¹³

Because fire is closer to our mineral-physical existence than light (see I-22), we have reversed the order of these first two subjects. But at the outset of the Light Course Steiner presented something essential for an understanding of both, which he then could refer to but briefly at this point in the Warmth Course. We must consider it carefully.

Three things, he said, must be understood before actually reaching nature, namely, arithmetic, geometry and kinematics. The first two we immediately recognize. The third, kinematics, is defined as "the branch of mechanics that deals with motion in the abstract, without reference to the force or mass" (WNWCD). Steiner called it simply "the science of movement," but emphasized that it was still very remote from what we call the real phenomena of nature.

To illustrate he draws two identical parallelograms with corners a-b-c-d and diagonal a-b, as follows: