| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: shield to sickle, and from sickle to shield.
But while Christ did not say to men, 'Live for others,' he pointed
out that there was no difference at all between the lives of others
and one's own life. By this means he gave to man an extended, a
Titan personality. Since his coming the history of each separate
individual is, or can be made, the history of the world. Of
course, culture has intensified the personality of man. Art has
made us myriad-minded. Those who have the artistic temperament go
into exile with Dante and learn how salt is the bread of others,
and how steep their stairs; they catch for a moment the serenity
and calm of Goethe, and yet know but too well that Baudelaire cried
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: more intoxicating than sweet wine; already in imagination he fingered
the coin. The less the claim to the money, the more eager he grew to
pouch it. Not seldom his anxieties sent him hurrying from Marsac to
Angouleme; he would climb up the rocky staircases into the old city
and walk into his son's workshop to see how business went. There stood
the presses in their places; the one apprentice, in a paper cap, was
cleaning the ink-balls; there was a creaking of a press over the
printing of some trade circular, the old type was still unchanged, and
in the dens at the end of the room he saw his son and the foreman
reading books, which the "bear" took for proof-sheets. Then he would
join David at dinner and go back to Marsac, chewing the cud of uneasy
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: Heathens, whereas their true glory laid in being as much UNLIKE them
as possible. BUT THE THING DISPLEASED SAMUEL WHEN THEY SAID, GIVE US
A KING TO JUDGE US; AND SAMUEL PRAYED UNTO THE LORD, AND THE LORD
SAID UNTO SAMUEL, HEARKEN UNTO THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IN ALL THAT
THEY SAY UNTO THEE, FOR THEY HAVE NOT REJECTED THEE, BUT THEY HAVE
REJECTED ME, _THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM._ ACCORDING TO
ALL THE WORKS WHICH THEY HAVE SINCE THE DAY THAT I BROUGHT THEM
UP OUT OF EGYPT, EVEN UNTO THIS DAY; WHEREWITH THEY HAVE FORSAKEN ME
AND SERVED OTHER GODS; SO DO THEY ALSO UNTO THEE. NOW THEREFORE HEARKEN
UNTO THEIR VOICE, HOWBEIT, PROTEST SOLEMNLY UNTO THEM AND SHEW THEM
THE MANNER OF THE KING THAT SHALL REIGN OVER THEM, I.E. not of any
Common Sense |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Trimourti. The Trimourti is our Trinity. From this dogma Magianism
arose in Persia; in Egypt, the African beliefs and the Mosaic law;
the worship of the Cabiri, and the polytheism of Greece and Rome.
While by this ramification of the Trimourti the Asiatic myths
became adapted to the imaginations of various races in the lands
they reached by the agency of certain sages whom men elevated to
be demi-gods--Mithra, Bacchus, Hermes, Hercules, and the rest--
Buddha, the great reformer of the three primeval religions, lived
in India, and founded his Church there, a sect which still numbers
two hundred millions more believers than Christianity can show,
while it certainly influenced the powerful Will both of Jesus and
Louis Lambert |
