This book is a collection of topics which Raphael has presented in the form of short articles over a number of years. Although the topics vary, they are all concerned with the subject of traditional Knowledge, and they have been brought together with the aim of being useful to all of those who take a practical interest in the Way of Realisation. In the course of the book there are repetitions, but since we are dealing with writings which stimulate self-comprehension, the repetitions, seen from a traditional perspective, have their place.
The three sections of the book - Fire of the Philosophers, Fire of Ascent, Fire of Awakening - refer to 'Fire', and since Raphael often speaks of the 'Way of Fire' in his writings, it is good to emphasise that we are not dealing with a new teaching or with something personal or individual, or with a syncretistic teaching, but with the 'universal Way' to realise our own Essence, because, fundamentally, every traditional Branch reveals itself as a 'pathway of fire'. Let us quote some words of Raphael: 'He who is writing, having received the Asparsa and Advaita Vedanta teaching, at a certain point during his sadhana was told to light the Fire, to burn himself with the Fire and to resolve himself into Fire.' We also find a reference to this Fire in the Käha Upani¿ad (I, I, 13-14): 'O Yama, thou who knowest the Fire which leadeth to Heaven, do thou reveal it unto me, who am full of faith.' 'I shall teach thee that Fire, O Nachiketas, which will exalt thee to Heaven.'
In the kali yuga, it seems that Raphael wishes to present us, especially in the West, with the traditional Teaching from a purely metaphysical point of view.
In a world where the various traditional or initiatory Branches clash with each other through blind incomprehension, Raphael indicates how to transcend all types of 'dogmatic sectarianism' by helping us to recognise that the different Branches are nothing but formal expressions of a single Reality which underlies every genuinely traditional Teaching. The outward diversity of the Teaching can be resolved only through a metaphysical Vision, a vision which synthesises the apparent facets which operate exclusively at the level of the sensible world.
This vision, especially in the West, is deficient for a number of reasons which it would take too long to explain. We would simply say that the West in general is more empirical, pragmatic, dogmatic, and so more individualistic, paying little attention to the Sacred and extensively developing the discursive or dianoetic mind. This extreme individualism can be noted in various fields such as those of politics, literature, and religion. In the West - with some exceptions - it is a very difficult undertaking to get three people to agree with each other; and if one were to succeed, it would immediately give rise to 'currents' or factions, alternatives with so much 'innocence'.
It is only through a metaphysical conception in which all possible points of view are synthesised that the West would be able to rediscover agreement, tolerance, and the possibility of effecting the influence of the Greater Mysteries, or paravidya, the lack of which has caused the 'fall' into the cul-de-sac of materialism.
Thus, by placing himself in the metaphysical Vision, Raphael is able to verify that Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, Gaüapada, and others have expounded the same nucleus of principles of the single Teaching, the same goal which the individual must attain.
