Lord of the Elements

Lord of the Elements: Interweaving Christianity and Nature

The four classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire are present in the biblical book of Genesis and continue to be significant throughout Christianity. Various streams of thought, such as the School of Chartres, and Celtic Christianity, have emphasized the elements in different ways.

In this unique book, Bastiaan Baan, an experienced spiritual thinker, brings these elements together with ideas from Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy. He considers, in particular, how elemental beings—nature spirits—relate to the four elements, and explores the role of elemental beings in our world.

This is a fascinating and original work on the connections between Christianity and the natural world.

Table of Contents

What is matter
The path through the elements in the mystery centers
Lord of the elements
Elemental beings
Genesis and the four elements
The elements in the New Testament
John the alchemist
The elements and the sacraments
The School of Chartres and the goddess Natura
Elemental beings in nature
Natural disasters
Seeing with other eyes
Elemental beings in art and science
The role of the angelic hierarchies and the adversary powers
New developments and experiences
Elemental beings in future

About the Author

Bastiaan Baan was born in 1949 in The Netherlands. After finishing Waldorf school, he studied to become a class teacher. He worked and studied for a year in Los Angeles, worked with teachers in Gandhi Schools in India, and then became a class teacher in a Waldorf school in The Netherlands. After seven years of teaching, he studied at the seminary of The Christian Community in Stuttgart. After his ordination as a priest in 1981, he worked in several congregations in The Netherlands until 2013, when he became the director of the priest training of The Christian Community in Spring Valley, New York. In 2019, he returned to The Netherlands, where he lives with his wife, four sons, and ten grandchildren. Several of his books on spirituality and religion have been published in English.