“My ballet is not a ‘mystery,’” said G. “The object I had in view was to produce an interesting and beautiful spectacle. Of course there is a certain meaning hidden beneath the outward form, but I have not pursued the aim of exposing and emphasizing this meaning. An important place in the ballet is occupied by certain dances. I will explain this to you briefly. Imagine that in the study of the movements of the heavenly BODIES, let us say the planets of the solar system, a special mechanism is constructed to give a visual representation of the laws of these movements and to remind us of them. In this mechanism each planet, which is represented by a sphere of appropriate size, is placed at a certain distance from a central sphere representing the sun. The mechanism is set in motion and all the spheres begin to rotate and to move along prescribed paths, reproducing in a visual form the laws which govern the movements of the planets. This mechanism reminds you of all you know about the solar system. There is something like this in the rhythm of certain dances. In the strictly defined movements and combinations of the dancers, certain laws are visually reproduced which arc intelligible to those who know them. Such dances are called ‘sacred dances.’ In the course of my travels in the East I have many times witnessed such dances being performed during sacred services in various ancient temples. Some of these dances are reproduced in The Struggle of the Magicians.’ More-over there are three ideas lying at the basis of “The Struggle of the Magi­cians.’ But if I produce the ballet on the ordinary stage the public will never understand these ideas.” Fragments: One

“According to an ancient teaching, traces of which may be found in many systems, old and new, a man who has attained the full development possible for man, a man in the full sense of the word, consists of four BODIES. These four BODIES are composed of substances which gradually become finer and finer, mutually interpenetrate one another, and form four independent organisms, standing in a definite relationship to one another but capable of independent action. Fragments: Two

“The reason why it is possible for four BODIES to exist is that the human organism, that is, the physical body, has such a complex organization that, under certain conditions, a new independent organism can grow in it, affording a much more convenient and responsive instrument for the activity of consciousness than the physical body. The consciousness manifested in this new body is capable of governing it, and it has full power and full control over the physical body. In this second body, under certain conditions, a third body can grow, again having characteristics of its own. The consciousness manifested in this third body has full power and control over the first two BODIES; and the third body possesses the possibility of acquiring knowledge inaccessible either to the first or to the second body. In the third body, under certain conditions, a fourth can grow, which differs as much from the third as the third differs from the second and the second from the first. The consciousness manifested in the fourth body has full control over the first three BODIES and itself. Fragments: Two

“These four BODIES are defined in different teachings in various ways.” G. drew a diagram and said: “The first is the physical body, in Christian terminology the ‘carnal’ body; the second, in Christian terminology, is the ‘natural’ body; the third is the ‘spiritual’ body; and the fourth, in the terminology of esoteric Christianity, is the ‘divine’ body. In theosophical terminology the first is the ‘physical’ body, the second is the ‘astral,’ the third is the ‘mental,’ and the fourth the ‘causal.’1 Fragments: Two

“Such comparisons and parallels may be found in most systems and teachings which recognize something more in man than the physical body. But almost all these teachings, while repeating in a more or less familiar form the definitions and divisions of the ancient teaching, have forgotten or omitted its most important feature, which is: that man is not born with the finer BODIES, and that they can only be artificially cultivated in him provided favorable conditions both internal and external are present. Fragments: Two

“This applies still more, of course, to the ‘mental body’ and the fourth body. Ordinary man does not possess these BODIES or their corresponding functions. But he often thinks, and makes others think, that he does. The reasons for this are, first, the fact that the physical body works with the same substances of which the higher BODIES are composed, only these substances are not crystallized in him, do not belong to him; and secondly, it has all the functions analogous to those of the higher BODIES, though of course they differ from them considerably. The chief difference between the functions of a man possessing the physical body only and the functions of the four BODIES, is that, in the first case, the functions of the physical body govern all the other functions, in other words, everything is governed by the body which, in its turn, is governed by external influences. In the second case, the command or control emanates from the higher body. Fragments: Two

“The functions of the physical body may be represented as parallel to the functions of the four BODIES.” Fragments: Two

G. drew another diagram, representing the parallel functions of a man of physical body and a man of four BODIES. “In the first case,” said G., “that is, in relation to the functions of a man of physical body only, the automaton depends upon external influences, and the next three functions depend upon the physical body and the external influences it receives. Desires or aversions — ‘I want,’ ‘I don’t want,’ ‘I like,’ ‘I don’t like’ — that is, functions occupying the place of the second body, depend upon accidental shocks and influences. Thinking, which corresponds to the functions of the third body, is an entirely mechanical process. ‘Will’ is absent in ordinary mechanical man, he has desires only; and a greater or lesser permanence of desires and wishes is called a strong or a weak will. Fragments: Two

“In the second case, that is, in relation to the functions of the four BODIES, the automatism of the physical body depends upon the influences of the other BODIES. Instead of the discordant and often contradictory activity of different desires, there is one single I, whole, indivisible, and permanent; there is individuality, dominating the physical body and its desires and able to overcome both its reluctance and its resistance. Instead of the mechanical process of thinking there is consciousness. And there is will, that is, a power, not merely composed of various often contradictory desires belonging to different “I’s,” but issuing from consciousness and governed by individuality or a single and permanent I. Only such a will can be called “free,” for it is independent of accident and cannot be altered or directed from without. Fragments: Two

“An Eastern teaching describes the functions of the four BODIES, their gradual growth, and the conditions of this growth, in the following way: “Let us imagine a vessel or a retort filled with various metallic powders. The powders are not in any way connected with each other and every accidental change in the position of the retort changes the relative position of the powders. If the retort be shaken or tapped with the finger, then the powder which was at the top may appear at the bottom or in the middle, while the one which was at the bottom may appear at the top. There is nothing permanent in the position of the powders and under such con­ditions there can be nothing permanent. This is an exact picture of our psychic life. Each succeeding moment, new influences may change die position of the powder which is on the top and put in its place another which is absolutely its opposite. Science calls this state of the powders the state of mechanical mixture. The essential characteristic of the interrelation of the powders to one another in this kind of mixture is the instability of these interrelations and their variability. Fragments: Two

“When the third body has been formed and has acquired all the properties, powers, and knowledge possible for it, there remains the problem of fixing this knowledge and these powers, because, having been imparted to it by influences of a certain kind, they may be taken away by these same influences or by others. By means of a special kind of work for all three BODIES the acquired properties may be made the permanent and inalienable possession of the third body. Fragments: Two

“And only the man who possesses four fully developed BODIES can be called a ‘man’ in the full sense of the word. This man possesses many properties which ordinary man does not possess. One of these properties is immortality. All religions and all ancient teachings contain the idea that, by acquiring the fourth body, man acquires immortality; and they all contain indications of the ways to acquire the fourth body, that is, immortality. Fragments: Two

During one of the talks G. again returned to the idea of the different BODIES of man. Fragments: Three

“That man can have several BODIES,” he said, “must be understood as an idea, as a principle. But it does not apply to us. We know we have the one physical body and we know nothing else. It is the physical body that we must study. Only, we must remember that the question is not limited to the physical body and that there are people who may have two, three, or more BODIES. But it makes no difference to us personally either one way or another. Someone like Rockefeller in America may have a great many millions, but his millions do not help me if I have nothing to eat. It is the same thing in this connection. Everyone must think of himself; it is useless and senseless to rely on others or to console oneself with thoughts of what others possess.” Fragments: Three

“All the matter of the world that surrounds us, the food that we eat, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, the stones that our houses are built of, our own BODIES — everything is permeated by all the matters that exist in the universe. There is no need to study or investigate the sun in order to discover the matter of the solar world: this matter exists in ourselves and is the result of the division of our atoms. In the same way we have in us the matter of all other worlds. Man is, in the full sense of the term, a ‘miniature universe’; in him are all the matters of which the universe consists; the same forces, the same laws that govern the life of the universe, operate in him; therefore in studying man we can study the whole world, just as in studying the world we can study man. Fragments: Five

Then G, repeated briefly all that had been said before about the structure of man and the world. He drew the diagram of the ray of creation and the diagram of the four BODIES of man. But in relation to the BODIES of man he introduced a detail which we had not had before. Fragments: Five

“Man is a complex organization,” he said, “consisting of four parts which may be connected or unconnected, or badly connected. The carriage is connected with the horse by shafts, the horse is connected with the driver by reins, and the driver is connected with the master by the master’s voice. But the driver must hear and understand the master’s voice. He must know how to drive and the horse must be trained to obey the reins. As to the relation between the horse and the carriage, the horse must be properly harnessed. Thus there are three connections between the four sections of this complex organization. If something is lacking in one of the connections, the organization cannot act as a single whole. The connections are therefore no less important than the actual ‘BODIES.’ Working on himself man works simultaneously on the ‘BODIES’ and on the ‘connections.’ But it is different work. Fragments: Five

“Work on oneself must begin with the driver. The driver is the mind. In order to be able to hear the master’s voice, the driver, first of all, must not be asleep, that is, he must wake up. Then it may prove that the master speaks a language that the driver does not understand. The driver must learn this language. When he has learned it, he will understand the master. But concurrently with this he must learn to drive the horse, to harness it to the carriage, to feed and groom it, and to keep the carriage in order — because what would be the use of his understanding the master if he is not in a position to do anything? The master tells him to go yonder. But he is unable to move, because the horse has not been fed, it is not harnessed, and he does not know where the reins are. The horse is our emotions. The carriage is the body. The mind must learn to control the emotions. The emotions always pull the body after them. This is the order in which work on oneself must proceed. But observe again that work on the ‘BODIES,’ that is, on the driver, the horse, and the carriage, is one thing. And work on the ‘connections’ — that is, on the ‘driver’s understanding,’ which unites him to the master; on the ‘reins,’ which connect him with the horse; and on the ‘shafts’ and the ‘harness,’ which connect the horse with the carriage — is quite, another thing. Fragments: Five

“It sometimes happens that the BODIES are quite good and in order, but that the ‘connections’ are not working. What then is the use of the whole organization? Just as in the case of undeveloped BODIES, the whole organization is inevitably controlled from below, that is, not by the will of the master, but by accident. Fragments: Five

“In a man with two BODIES the second body is active in relation to the physical body; this means that the consciousness in the ‘astral body’ may have power over the physical body.” G. put a plus over the ‘astral body’ and a minus over the physical. Fragments: Five

“In a man with three BODIES, the third or ‘mental body’ is active in relation to the ‘astral body’ and to the physical body; this means that the consciousness in the ‘mental body’ has complete power over the ‘astral body’ and over the physical body.” G. put a plus over the ‘mental body’ and a minus over the ‘astral’ and the physical BODIES, bracketed together. Fragments: Five

“In a man with four BODIES the active body is the fourth. This means that the consciousness in the fourth body has complete power over the ‘mental,’ the ‘astral,’ and the physical BODIES.” G. put a plus over the fourth body and a minus over the other three bracketed together. Fragments: Five

“In man of two, three, and four BODIES, the most active body also lives the longest, that is, it is ‘immortal’ in relation to a lower body.” Fragments: Five

“Traces of it may be found among the customs of many peoples. You know, for instance, that several nations have the custom of blood-brotherhood. Two men, or several men, mix their blood together in the same cup and then drink from this cup. After that they are regarded as brothers by blood. But the origin of this custom lies deeper. In its origin it was a magical ceremony for establishing a connection between ‘astral BODIES.’ Blood has special qualities. And certain peoples, for instance the Jews, ascribed a special significance of magical properties to blood. Now, you see, if a connection between ‘astral BODIES’ had been established, then again according to the beliefs of certain nations it is not broken by death. Fragments: Five

“The Last Supper was a magical ceremony similar to ‘blood-brotherhood’ for establishing a connection between ‘astral BODIES.’ But who is there who knows about this in existing religions and who understands what it means? All this has been long forgotten and everything has been given quite a different meaning. The words have remained but their meaning has long been lost.” Fragments: Five

” ‘Learn to separate the fine from the coarse’ — this principle from the ‘Emerald Tablets of Hermes Trismegistus’ refers to the work of the human factory, and if a man learns to ‘separate the fine from the coarse,’ that is, if he brings the production of the fine ‘hydrogens’ to its possible maximum, he will by this very fact create for himself the possibility of an inner growth which can be brought about by no other means. Inner growth, the growth of the inner BODIES of man, the astral, the mental, and so on, is a material process completely analogous to the growth of the physical body. In order to grow, a child must have good food, his organism must be in a healthy condition to prepare from this food the material necessary for the growth of the tissues. The same thing is necessary for the growth of the ‘astral body’; out of the various kinds of food entering it, the organism must produce the substances necessary for the growth of the ‘astral body.’ Moreover, the ‘astral body’ requires for its growth the same substances as those necessary to maintain the physical body, only in much greater quantities. If the physical organism begins to produce a sufficient quantity of these fine substances and the ‘astral body’ within it becomes formed, this astral organism will require for its maintenance less of these substances than it required during its growth. The surplus from these substances can then be used for the formation and growth of the ‘mental body’ which will grow with the help of the same substances that feed the ‘astral body,’ but of course the growth of the ‘mental body’ will require more of these substances than the growth and feeding of the ‘astral body.’ The surplus of the substances left over from the feeding of the ‘mental body’ will go to the growth of the fourth body. But in all cases the surplus will have to be very large. All the fine substances necessary for the growth and feeding of the higher BODIES must be produced within the physical organism, and the physical organism is able to produce them provided the human factory is working properly and economically. Fragments: Nine

“All the substances necessary for the maintenance of the life of the organism, for psychic work, for the higher functions of consciousness and the growth of the higher BODIES, are produced by the organism from the food which enters it from outside Fragments: Nine

“For its normal existence the organism must receive all three kinds of food, that is, physical food, air, and impressions The organism cannot exist on one or even on two kinds of food, all three are required But the relation of these foods to one another and their significance for the organism is not the same The organism can exist for a comparatively long time without a supply of fresh physical food Cases of starvation are known lasting for over sixty days, when the organism lost none of its vitality and recovered very quickly as soon as it began to take food Of course starvation of this kind cannot be considered as complete, since in all cases of such artificial starvation people have taken water Nevertheless, even without water a man can live without food for several days Without air he can exist only for a few minutes, not more than two or three, as a rule a man dies after being four minutes without air Without impressions a man cannot live a single moment If the flow of impressions were to be stopped in some way or if the organism were deprived of its capacity for receiving impressions, it would immediately die. The flow of impressions coming to us from outside is like a driving belt communicating motion to us. The principal motor for us is nature, the surrounding world. Nature transmits to us through our impressions the energy by which we live and move and have our being If the inflow of this energy is arrested, our machine will immediately stop working Thus, of the three kinds of food the most important for us is impressions, although it stands to reason that a man cannot exist for long on impressions alone Impressions and air enable a man to exist a little longer Impressions, air, and physical food enable the organism to live to the end of its normal term of life and to produce the substances necessary not only for the maintenance of life, but also for the creation and growth of higher BODIES. Fragments: Nine

“The effort which creates this ‘shock’ must consist in work on the emotions, in the transformation and transmutation of the emotions. This transmutation of the emotions will then help the transmutation of si 12 in the human organism. No serious growth, that is, no growth of higher BODIES within the organism, is possible without this transmutation. The idea of this transmutation was known to many ancient teachings as well as to some comparatively recent ones, such as the alchemy of the Middle Ages. But the alchemists spoke of this transmutation in the allegorical forms of the transformation of base metals into precious ones. In reality, however, they meant the transformation of coarse ‘hydrogens’ into finer ones in the human organism, chiefly of the transformation of mi 12. If this transformation is attained, a man can be said to have ‘achieved what he was striving for, and it can also be said that, until this transformation is attained, all results attained by a man can be lost because they are not fixed in him in any way; moreover, they are attained only in the spheres of thought and emotion. Real, objective results can be obtained only after the transmutation of mi 12 has begun. Fragments: Nine

“If we adopt this point of view, we shall have to admit that the relation of one cosmos to another is the relation of two BODIES of different dimensions. If one cosmos is three-dimensional then the next cosmos, that is, the one above it, must be four­dimensional, the next — five-dimensional, and so on. If we take the ‘atom’ or ‘microbe,’ as you say, that is, the Microcosmos as a point, then relative to this point man will be a line, that is, a figure of one dimension. The next cosmos, the earth, will be a plane relative to man, that is, it will have two dimensions, as is actually the case for direct perception. The sun, the solar system, will be three-dimensional for the earth. The starry world will be four-dimensional for the sun. ‘All worlds’ are five-dimensional, and the Absolute or Protocosmos is six-dimensional. Fragments: Ten

“The possibilities of the earth are actualized in the Ayocosmos; this means that in the Ayocosmos the earth is a six-dimensional body. And actually we can to a certain extent see in what way the form of the earth must change. In the Deuterocosmos, that is, in relation to the sun, the earth is no longer a point (taking a point as a scale reduction of a three-dimensional body), but a line which we trace as the path of the earth around the sun. If we take the sun in the Macrocosmos, that is, if we visualize the line of the sun’s motion, then the line of the motion of the earth will become a spiral encircling the line of the sun’s motion. If we conceive a lateral motion of this spiral, then this motion will construct a figure which we cannot imagine because we do not know the nature of its motion, but which, nevertheless, will be the six­dimensional figure of the earth, which the earth itself can see as a three-dimensional figure. It is necessary to establish and to understand this because otherwise the idea of the three-dimensionality of the cosmoses will become linked with our idea of three-dimensional BODIES. The three-dimensionality even of one and the same body can be different. Fragments: Ten

“If you remember the diagram of the four BODIES of man which has been previously given and in which the ‘average hydrogens’ of the upper story were shown, it will be easier for you to understand what I am now saying.” Fragments: Sixteen