| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: his own case, yet from all the marks by which we recognize such
phenomena in our fellow-creatures, whether brute or human, we are
taught that when certain material processes have been gradually
or suddenly brought to an end, psychical phenomena are no longer
manifested. From first to last, therefore, our appeal to
experience gets but one response. We have not the faintest shadow
of evidence wherewith to make it seem probable that Mind can
exist except in connection with a material body. Viewed from this
standpoint of terrestrial experience, there is no more reason for
supposing that consciousness survives the dissolution of the
brain than for supposing that the pungent flavour of table-salt
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: go to sleep; I will work for you.' And in the morning he awoke and the
hill was gone; so he went merrily to the king, and told him that now
that it was removed he must give him the princess.
Then the king was obliged to keep his word, and away went the young
man and the princess; and the fox came and said to him, 'We will have
all three, the princess, the horse, and the bird.' 'Ah!' said the
young man, 'that would be a great thing, but how can you contrive it?'
'If you will only listen,' said the fox, 'it can be done. When you
come to the king, and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must
say, "Here she is!" Then he will be very joyful; and you will mount
the golden horse that they are to give you, and put out your hand to
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: course of this vain search there cropped up in my memory a
singular case of a buried and resuscitated fakir, which I had
been often told by an uncle of mine, then lately dead,
Inspector-General John Balfour.
On such a fine frosty night, with no wind and the thermometer
below zero, the brain works with much vivacity; and the next
moment I had seen the circumstance transplanted from India
and the tropics to the Adirondack wilderness and the
stringent cold of the Canadian border. Here then, almost
before I had begun my story, I had two countries, two of the
ends of the earth involved: and thus though the notion of
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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 The Mayflower Compact: ***
#STARTMARK#
The Mayflower Compact
November 11, 1620 [This was November 21, old style calendar]
In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten,
the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereigne Lord, King James,
by the Grace of God, of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland,
King, Defender of the Faith, &c.
Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of
the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country,
a Voyage to plant the first colony in the Northerne Parts
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