| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: Physiology. We truly remark that there is an infinite complexity of the
body corresponding to the infinite subtlety of the mind; we are conscious
that they are very nearly connected. But in endeavouring to trace the
nature of the connexion we are baffled and disappointed. In our knowledge
of them the gulf remains the same: no microscope has ever seen into
thought; no reflection on ourselves has supplied the missing link between
mind and matter...These are the conditions of this very inexact science,
and we shall only know less of it by pretending to know more, or by
assigning to it a form or style to which it has not yet attained and is not
really entitled.
Experience shows that any system, however baseless and ineffectual, in our
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran: They believe in Gibt and Taghut, and they say of those who misbelieve,
'These are better guided in the way than those who believe.' These are
those whom God has cursed, and whom God has cursed no helper shall
he find.
Shall they have a portion of the kingdom? Why even then they would
not give to men a jot.
Do they envy man for what God has given of His grace? We have
given to Abraham's people the Book and wisdom, and we have given
them a mighty kingdom. And of them are some who believe therein, and
of them are some who turn from it, but Hell is flaming enough for
them.
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Neoplatonists' metaphysic, the end of all their search after the One,
the Indivisible, the Absolute, this cry to all manner of innumerable
phantoms, ghosts of ideas, ghosts of traditions, neither things nor
persons, but thoughts, to give the philosopher each something or other,
according to the nature of each. Not that he very clearly defines what
each is to give him; but still he feels himself in want of all manner of
things, and it is as well to have as many friends at court as possible--
Noetic Gods, Noeric Gods, rulers, angels, daemons, heroes--to enable him
to do what? To understand Plato's most mystical and far-seeing
speculations. The Eternal Nous, the Intellectual Teacher has vanished
further and further off; further off still some dim vision of a supreme
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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 A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: Enormous avalanches fall against it every spring,
sometimes covering everything to the depth of thirty
or forty feet; and, in spite of walls four feet thick,
and furnished with outside shutters, the two men who stay here
when the VOYAGEURS are snugly quartered in their distant homes
can tell you that the snow sometimes shakes the house to its
foundations.
Next morning the HOGGLEBUMGULLUP still continued bad,
but we made up our minds to go on, and make the best of it.
Half an hour after we started, the REGEN thickened unpleasantly,
and we attempted to get shelter under a projecting rock,
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