[Das Lebens-Elixier]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
Even in ancient times it was the wish of many people to escape death and to make themselves immortal. The alchemists of the Middle Ages sought to find a substance by the use of which one could rejuvenate the body, and their ideal was the preparation of an elixir of life to sustain life indefinitely. Even today, more people than one are busy towards inclining to believe with solving this problem.
No one doubts that by observing the rules of hygiene one can live longer than by living unhealthily, but here the prolongation of life consists in omitting what might shorten it; for everyone is given a certain amount of life energy by birth, which he can either waste or with which he can economize. Being excited or numbing with pleasures lead to a depletion of vitality; Peace of mind, self-control, and contentment are the best means of reaching old age. But in order to extend life beyond what is allotted to man, one would have to know the means of constantly drawing new strength from the source of all life.
What is life — Virchow formulated the sentence: “Life is cellular activity.” That says nothing; for the question arises, “What is the cause of this activity?” — the cell were to act on its own authority, it would be God. On the other hand, a higher world view allows us to see that life is a force common to all of nature, whose activity manifests itself wherever the necessary conditions are present, and it would therefore probably be more correct to say that the activity of the cells is a revelation of the life force in nature. A force without substance is unthinkable, and if there is such substance or “essence” it is at least conceivable that it can be concentrated or accumulated.
There is no proof of the impossibility of such a concentration; on the other hand, many facts speak in favor of their possibility. Saint Germain, Cagliostro, and some others claimed to have lived many centuries ago and to be as old as the creation of the world; but I suppose this is to be taken to mean that they remembered their previous forms of existence, and in that sense we are all as old as the world, though we do not know it; for the Spirit of God within us is our true selves. He was there from the beginning and is always the same, even though he changes many times the bodies in which he reveals himself as a person, just as a man takes off an old dress and puts on a new one. This is why Krishna (the God-man) also says to Arjuna (the man) in the Bhagavad Gita: “Never was there a time when I was not.” However, this realization of the eternal self is not for everyone.
Gautama Buddha, one of the few who attained this realization, said: “When I had perfect vision, I remembered my previous forms of existence, like one, two, a thousand lives, then the times during some world formations and transgressions of the world. There I was, I had that name, I belonged to that family, that was my job, I experienced such weal and woe, that was the end of my life. There departed, I came into existence again,” etc.[2]
We are therefore all immortal in spirit and do not need to become immortal, but the point is that we become conscious of it; for an immortality without consciousness has no value. Only when the inner, spiritual life awakens in us can we reach the consciousness of our immortal existence. It would profit us little to think that the Spirit of God is immortal in us, unless we know that Spirit, and are unaware of its possession, or if it flees from us at death. The consciousness of possessing immortality is attained only through union with that which is immortal in us, and the Bible says, “There is none immortal but God.” The right “elixir of life” is thus the knowledge of God, the sole, eternal Self. Attaining this inner, spiritual life is the purpose of human evolution, which may take millions of years and many reincarnations. If we were completely filled, permeated and enlightened by it, there would be no death for us.
But the question is whether there is a means of prolonging the life of the human flesh body indefinitely.
H. P. Blavatsky says: “There have been two occultists in Europe who have known the secret of the elixir of life and have employed it in part; however, its nature has always been known to the highest initiates of the East.” Elsewhere in The Secret Doctrine, the elixir of life is referred to as “air of fire,” “an allotropic form of purified oxygen,” “electricity of life,” and “ozone in a state of alchemist”s activity.” Everything indicates that it is breathable.
Where science lets us down because of its limited ability to perceive, religion helps us further. If we turn to the sacred writings of the various peoples, we find it clearly stated as to what the “elixir of life” is.
In the Bible, e.g., it is written: “In the beginning was the word . . . Everything is created by the same. . . In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”—Furthermore it says: “Heaven was made by the word of the Lord, and all his host by the Spirit of his mouth.” These and similar teachings are true not because they are in the Bible, but because they have been recognized as true by enlightened people. They are scientific facts which no man doubts once he understands them, but it is difficult to understand them so long as they are bound by wrong ideas.
Everything on the outside has its analogy on the inside. We know that all light and life on our planet comes from the sun and works and creates in the earth. When the earth turns away from the sun, winter comes, during which part of nature freezes in ice. Philosophy teaches us that all outward appearances are the visible effects of inward, invisible causes. According to the “Secret Doctrine” the externally visible light is a reflection of a higher spiritual light that is invisible to us. The spiritual sun of our planetary system is hidden behind the visible sun, like behind a veil, just as the soul stands behind the human body and the spirit above it. This spiritual light is the Logos of the Greeks, “Kwan-Shi-Yin” of the Chinese, “Isvara” of the Buddhists, and “the Holy Spirit” of the Christian Gnostics.
In every human being there is, as it were, a drop of this elixir of life; in everyone this divine-spiritual light struggles for existence and revelation, in everyone the imperishable seeks to unfold in the perishable. We breathe in and out earthly air and thereby keep our visible body alive, but the soul breathes spiritual air; she breathes in the spirit as knowledge and exhales it as love. This spirit is the nourishment of the soul; through him the living Son of God is born within us. That is why the Bible rightly says: “Whoever has the Son of God has life; if you don’t have it, you don’t have life.” Without the mind our life is an illusion, a mindless dream. Mind is Consciousness, Consciousness is Life, Life is Light; As the soul breathes the Spirit of God, the light of knowledge of its divine, immortal nature awakens in it.
Emerson says: “In our core and behind our personal selves, there, shines a light which, as it penetrates us, illuminates everything and reveals that we are nothing and that light is everything. Man is like the outside of a temple in which is contained all knowledge and goodness. What is usually called the human being, namely the individual who is, drinks and calculates, does not express the true human being, it is only his shadow, so to speak. This shadow is not what we worship in man, but only the organ of the soul. If man allowed this light to be revealed in his works, he would be worshiped. If the soul penetrates his mind, it is “genius”; if it shines through his will, then it is “virtue”; when it glows through his affection, it is called “love.” Spiritual blindness begins where the individual wants something out of himself. That’s where the weakness of the will begins. All moral renewal is designed to open the way for the great soul through our ownness, in other words, to lead us to obedience.
Like joins like. The body needs material sustenance, the mind is formed by the influence of ideas, the spirit demands spirit. The soul bound by egoism can no more breathe the “holy spirit” than a man shut up in a dull dungeon can breathe the free air of heaven. The more man clings to his self-delusion, the more he is bound to it; the more he denies himself and works for the whole, the more free he is. The discerning, unselfish love of the big picture is the alchemist’s alkahest, the universal solvent that penetrates and dissolves everything hard, just as darkness disappears in the light of the sun. The more often the spirit rises on the wings of the soul to that spiritual height where all petty and limited things disappear, until finally it takes up its permanent dwelling there, the more it becomes purified, and it leaves everything impure in the lower regions as “Caput mortuum.” [worthless remains] The knowledge of this law and its analogy in the material world was probably the reason why the alchemists of the Middle Ages tried to spiritualize material substances and set them in higher vibrations through repeated distillations.
The true alchemists knew that the suitable “retort” for the development of magically effective, spiritual powers is man himself; That is why Theophrastus Paracelsus also says in his “Coelum Philosophorum”: “What should one say about recipes and about various vessels, ovens, glasses, shards, water, oils, salts, sulphurs, and the like, about such things and pieces many books have been filled in alchemy, and what should be done with herbs, roots, seeds, worms, snail shells, and the like; but such things are great, wasted effort and work, and one has to let everything go. . . . The (immortal) body is the spirit of heaven, from which the planets become bodily again. Take this new body from life and from the earth and keep it.”
The right way to represent the elixir of life is therefore spiritual rebirth, whereby the imperishable body of thought is formed in man. The Bible also teaches this when it says that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again through fire and water. The “water” is thought, the “fire” is love. When all base and impure thoughts are blotted out by the power of God’s love and the soul rises to the highest, then death is overcome and the transfigured body of immortality rises above the perishable body.
It is not yet known to everyone today that thoughts are real things. Even if they are invisible to us because they belong to a higher plane of existence, they are nevertheless substantial in their way. The “stuff” of which thoughts are formed is finer than our visible matter; it consists of higher vibrations, and if we could slow down these vibrations so that they would become perceptible to our physical senses, we would have a “thought materialization” as it actually comes about in the well-known so-called “spirit materializations.” Since this thought-stuff is so much finer than coarse matter, the power of our will is sufficient to change our thought-forms, while external aids are necessary for their influence on outer matter.
Since the outward life is in a sense only a dream life and a reflection of the true inward spiritual life, which most people do not know, it will be less a matter of finding a remedy for those who seek the elixir of life to prolong this external life, rather than to arrive at the inward, true life from which the external springs.[3]
Notes:
[1] The Elixir of Life [Das Lebens-Elixier. Dr. Franz Hartmann. Theosophischer Wegweiser 5, no. 2 (August 1903)] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] K. E. Neumann, “Die Reden Gautama Buddhas.”
[3] {R.H.—Through extensive reading, one will find the selfish pursuit of the extension of the physical life to be a direction not worth pursuing, such as developing the siddhis, instead of them being incidental through the leading of an unselfish life. Although through the theosophical literature one may find evidence of humans who have lived in the same body for many hundreds of years, the motive for doing so was always found to be for the service of the planet’s well-being. The Master Jupiter is known to live in the same physical body for hundreds of years. The same for most of the “theosophical” Masters of Wisdom. All for the purpose of serving the kingdoms of nature towards bringing about the Plan of the Logos and the Kingdom of Shambhala. This is “God’s Plan” which requires interpretation esoterically, not theistically.}