Printed in the Spring 2025 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Hodson, Geoffrey, "Fire and the Spirits of Fire" Quest 113:2, pg 31-33
By Geoffrey Hodson
Fire is one of the garments of God, Who, to the spirits of fire, appears clothed in flame. They regard Him as the central fiery heart of all manifested life and the solar system as an expression of Him as fire.
In order to understand fire as an element, the mind must be disassociated from the idea of physical flame. As to man on earth the sun appears expressed throughout the whole system in terms of power, light, heat, and vitality, so to the salamander the sun is manifested on all planes as fire.
The fire angels see the universe as a vast roaring sea of flame—a furnace in which all things burn. Every object on every plane is seen in terms of fire, as if it were aflame. Men, angels, trees, landscapes, and globes are all centers of fire, permeated and surrounded by fiery energy. Salamanders are the embodiments of that all-pervasive element; in it they live and work as the servants of the Logos, Who, to them, is the central flame.
The septenary division of the universe, as of the cosmos, finds a reflection in the realms of fire: fire exists in seven states, and there are seven degrees of salamanders or fire angels, each more glorious and more fiery than his brother of lower degree. Earthly fire is of the lowest degree, as are the astral salamanders of whom it is an expression. All fire, on every plane, is summed up in one great archangel, who is the God of fire in our solar system and under whom, in their graded orders, the salamanders work.
The purpose of the universal fire is to regenerate and to transform; to ensure continuity of growth by means of change, and to ensure that no part or parts of the universe should become static, resistant, and inert. The element of fire is an expression of the divine Will, which exerts a ceaseless forward pressure upon all life and manifests in all form as an inward urge towards a more perfect expression of the ensouling life. Fire has the special function of maintaining universal movement, and its denizens possess that fiery quality which transforms and regenerates and, when necessary, destroys. On earth the salamander and his element of fire are most familiar in their aspect as “destroyers”—yet you employ them not only to consume, but also as producers of light, heat, and power.
Between the earthly fire and the heart of the Logos, which is eternally aflame, there is an unbroken chain of fire by means of which He manifests the fire aspect of His nature throughout His system; that manifestation produces a form which somewhat resembles the familiar single sunflower which blooms in earthly gardens. The heart of the blossom is the sun, and each petal is a mighty tongue of flame, playing from the sun out to the farthest confines of the system. From whatever direction this fire flower is seen, the same aspect of widely opened petals appears, for the solar sunflower extends into every dimension of the system and therefore presents a full face from every point of view. Yet not the gentle beauty of an earthly flower but a roaring sea of fire is presented to the gaze of him who is able to see the fire aspect of the Logos. Each petal of the fiery flower is a living tongue of flame through which, with a mighty roar, power is rushing in a steady and continuous stream.
Amidst this colossal display the fire angels dwell, wielding its resistless energy and directing the play of the fiery solar forces according to the will of that supreme Fire which is their source of life. They are the lords of fire, the archangels of flame, the spiritual regenerators of the system; living embodiments of fire power, they are inspired by the fiery Will of the atmic Logos, Who is the one Supreme Ruler, of Whom this mighty solar fire-flower and the great lords of fire are a direct expression.
In color golden yellow and flamelike, they resemble gigantic men built of flame; in the hand of each is a spear and on the head a golden crown of living fire. Flames shoot forth from them on every side; every change of consciousness sends forth a tongue of flame; every gesture flings a flood of fire. They form an august body of solar fire-angels who, each at his station where the petal-shaped tongues of flame rush forth, encircle the sun. Through them passes power, to be transformed in passing, lest its naked energy should destroy the system which, by their mediation, it regenerates and transforms. They shield the solar system lest the fiery power should blind the eyes of those to whom it is a source of light, burn those to whom it is a source of heat, and shatter those to whom it is a source of power.
Such are the mighty Ones Who stand before the fiery throne of the fiery Father of angels and of men. Below them, rank on rank, grade on grade, is ranged the mighty order of the spirits of the fire. On every plane of Nature they serve their Fire King and own allegiance to their fire lords. Their fiery nature gives them an appearance of uncontrolled ferocity, of fiery and destructive power. In each of them, at every level, a measure of the fiery logoic power is stored. Their growth is marked by an increase in that power, an added stature and a more perfect expression of the fire of the logoic Will.
The greatest earthly fire is but a dim and faint reflection of the true fire of the sun; the brightest earthly blaze seems but a shadow beside its radiant light. The fire aspect of the system, as of the universe, resembles lightning formed into a sunflower, whose every petal is a permanent lightning flash and whose heart is the womb in which lightning is born. All manifested life, on every plane, is surrounded and permeated by fire; there is no interplanetary space; the separation of the globes is but illusion; the sun is not the isolated center of a ring of planets; there is but one homogeneous whole, fire-filled.
Every atom in the system and all the space between the atoms is filled with fire, and all is aflame with fiery power. Center and circumference are one. Though mighty solar flowers, whose petals touch the orbits of the furthest globes, present themselves full-faced from every point of view, there is but one flower and one fire, as there is but one solar Logos. The solar flower is His body, the planets are His organs, the sun His fiery heart. The solar fire-angels are His limbs, and His mighty head and feet form the organs of One mightier than He, the universal Lord of universal Fire.
In olden days the solar Lords of fire sent a messenger to the earth to found the religion of fire and deliver the message of fire to men. His name was Zarathustra; he was one of the flowers of earth’s humanity, one of its first fruits, who, having won his way into the realm of fire and learnt to dwell therein, had gained the knowledge and the power to stand unharmed before the solar Lords, to learn from them the message he should bring and to receive the gift of mastery of fire. He appeared amongst his people amid tongues of flame and surrounded by the spirits of fire. He told of fire the regenerator and transformer and taught his people to transform their lives by the fire of their own will united with the divine Will. He taught that every evil in their lives and in their land must be consumed by fire, that thus they might prepare a temple for the regenerating power of the spiritual sun. Knowing the word of power, he called down fire from on high; from that fire the temple lamps and fires on the hearth were lit throughout the land.
Zarathustra’s mission marked an epoch in the evolutionary life of the planet, for he brought the element of fire into closer contact with the element of earth. Until chemists have discovered the significance of fire as an element and have learnt to trace it in the atom and through all the kingdoms of Nature, the meaning of this statement cannot be fully grasped.
After Zarathustra’s time, a change took place in all the earthly elements, for he brought an added measure of the solar fire into the heart of that physical atom from which all the chemical elements are formed. He established the kingdom of fire upon earth, and since his day, all matter has become more malleable and more responsive to thought and will.
Whenever fire burns upon your hearth, it forms a vehicle for the solar fire; therefore should fire be everywhere regarded as sacred. The lighting of a fire invokes a salamander; the fire of the hearth has its appropriate nature spirit, the forest fires have theirs; a great conflagration attracts them in large numbers, and they come to revel and rejoice in the manifestation of their element on earth. As they are but the embodiments of the solar fire, they may be regarded as ensouling physical fire, to which they bear a relation similar to that borne by the fire aspect of the solar Logos to themselves.
Volcanoes are centers in which the solar fire is concentrated and where salamanders gather in their various degrees; for wherever their element is active, there the fire spirits are present. Far below the surface of the earth there burns an unquenchable fire, a veritable portion of the solar fire by which it is still fed, and with which it is in unbroken and direct connection. There dwell mighty members of the salamanders’ race; there labor many orders of nature spirits and angels, for the interior source of life and power to the planet exists at the center of the earth. There its vital energies are renewed, jaded matter is recharged, and interstellar atoms are impressed with the special vibratory rate of the planet in order that they may pass into the circulating stream of the planet’s atomic life.
The fiery life force of the Logos arises at the center of the earth. No earthly channels are required for its passage; it arrives direct through the operation of the higher dimensional mechanism by which the system is ordered. Here are stored and renewed the magnetic energies of the planet, each under the charge of its appropriate nature spirit and angel. Each type of force is a physical reflection of an aspect of the central divine energy and is intimately associated with the region of solar fire.
The fiery sun—not its physical veil—is the powerhouse from which the life-giving energies of the Logos are projected throughout the system. The fire angels are the agents of that power, the engineers in charge of the mechanism by which it regenerates and transforms all life within its sphere of influence. The most prominent characteristic of the power of fire is change; thus physical fire consumes by the law of its being, which is to produce a change of form, that new orders of power may be released.
This invisible element of fire is at work behind the whole system, as are its agents. In every rock, in every stone, jewel, plant, animal, and man, it ceaselessly exerts an influence in the direction of change; because of its presence, nothing in Nature can ever stand still; it ensures the growth of the system. Its power is wielded, not only by the nature-spirits who labor instinctively in the cause of change, but by the great fire angels who consciously produce all changes throughout the system, so that the new birth which results may grow ever nearer and nearer to the likeness of its archetype in the mind of God. Thus fire is “the power that maketh all things new” and change is the universal watchword, the fundamental law throughout the whole realm of fire, the word by which its energies are freed and its denizens evoked.
When the spark leaps from the flint, divinity is revealed; when the fire is lighted on the hearth, the sacred Presence is invoked; where that divinity is revealed and that Presence is invoked, man and angel should both pay homage to that to which they owe their life. The days of fire worship must return; within men’s hearts and minds the sacred fire of the divine life must burn more brightly as each man knows himself to be the earthly counterpart of the central fiery Man who reigns omnipotent, whose throne is set both in his heart and in the fiery heart of the universe.
Fire is the parent of spring, the promise of renewal in all worlds; fire dwells in the heart of man, fire warms his blood; in his invisible self he is a man of fire.
Hymn to Fire
Hail, fire! Hail, fiery solar Lords!
Hail, Spirits of the Fire!
In all your countless numbers,
In all your manifold degrees,
We greet you, Brethren of the Fire!
O holy Fire! O wondrous Flame!
Transformer of the universe, regenerator of all worlds,
Life-giver to all form.
The glory of Thy fiery power fills heaven and earth,
And all the wide dominions that lie between the stars.
Thou art the spark within the stone, the life within the tree,
Thou art the fire on the hearth, the splendor of the sun.
Thine is the hand which paints the roseate morn,
Thine the fiery beauty of the sunset sky;
Thine the warm breath of flower-scented summer breeze,
Thine the power that maketh all things new.
Fire to Fire, we offer our souls to Thee,
Draw us closer to Thy fiery heart,
That we may lose ourselves in Thee.
O Fire Divine! Burn fiercely in our lives,
That darkness, lust, and hate may be dispelled
And human souls shine forth in purity,
With all the dazzling glory of the sun.
Cleanse us, O lordly Fire; rejuvenate our hearts and minds;
Burn up the dross, recharge the will,
And send us forth to labor in Thy name,
Thy chosen men of Fire.
Amen.
Geoffrey Hodson (1886‒1983) was a Theosophist, occultist, and philosopher. He was the author of over fifty books on Theosophy, spiritualism, psychic and spiritual development, mysticism, fairies, angels, meditation, health, and disease. He also wrote over 200 articles and held radio talks. This article is reprinted with the kind permission of the Theosophical Society in England and Wales.