Body type: explanation
Whereas alone one can only acquire the understanding of one’s own type, in a school—if it is a real and harmonious one—one can share in the understanding, experience, and duty of many different types.
Rodney Collin
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Body Type
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Body type in The Fourth Way refers to the seven major categories of man which correspond to the interior planets of the solar system, including the sun and the moon.
The seven body types are: lunar, venusian, mercurial, martial, jovial, saturnine, and solar. These divisions are not related to astrology, which includes influences from the galaxies, and which is not part of The Fourth Way.
The principle of body type is that planetary influences are continuously being circulated throughout the solar system, much in the way that blood circulates from the heart and throughout the entire body, without which life cannot be sustained—in the body or in the solar system.
Each body type is said to transmit the influences of either a planet, the sun, or the moon, with this transmission occuring via the system of endocrine glands. For example, the lunar type, governed by the pancreas, enables certain influences to pass between earth and moon; whereas the saturnine type, governed by the anterior pituitary gland, is a transmitter for influences passing between earth and saturn.
Each body type, although governed by a principal gland, contains all the glands and therefore shares in, and is subject to, the transmission of all influences in the solar system. At the same time, each body type is predisposed to a particular kind of influence that the other types are less sensitive to.
The exact influences of the solar system which body types transmit is not known. What is important is how they determine differences of appearance, psychology, and behavior in people—each of whom is predominantly one type. For instance, lunar types are typically frail and pale, and characterized by their tendency to be stubborn, secretive, and solitary. Saturnine types, on the other hand, tend to be tall and known for being paternal, authoritative, and self-assured.
Body types also display physical similarities with the planets which govern them. Mercurials, for example, are small and quick like their parent planet which is the smallest in the solar system and which has the fastest orbital speed around the sun. Jovials, governed by Jupiter, are usually large, round, colorful characters and, like the planet itself with its many moons, are known to enjoy a large network of friends and family.
Each body type has mechanical strengths and weaknesses, both of which the individual regards as identity, but neither of which has anything to do with consciousness. Mistaking the physical and psychological traits of body type for consciousness is one of the pitfalls in awakening. Consequently, part of the work in a The Fourth Way school is to expose what is mechanical in body type so as to distinguish it from the real thing—consciousness.
Body type refers to the human machine. Consciousness refers to a state of awareness independent of the machine. One has to be taught how to transcend the former with the latter, which is the purpose of a school and of being in a school.
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