| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: The other blacks had by this time regained their feet, and now they
crowded around their chief and set him upright again.
Rob continued to float in the air, just above their heads, and now
abandoned all thoughts of escaping by means of his wrecked traveling
machine. But he resolved to regain a foothold upon the earth and take
his chances of escape by running rather than flying. So he turned the
indicator to the word "down," and very slowly it obeyed, allowing him,
to his great relief, to sink gently to the ground.
6. The Buccaneers
Once more the blacks formed a circle around our adventurer, who coolly
drew his tube and said to the chief:
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: Plato also speaks of an 'annus magnus' or cyclical year, in which periods
wonderful for their complexity are found to coincide in a perfect number,
i.e. a number which equals the sum of its factors, as 6 = 1 + 2 + 3. This,
although not literally contradictory, is in spirit irreconcileable with the
perfect revolution of twenty-four hours. The same remark may be applied to
the complexity of the appearances and occultations of the stars, which, if
the outer heaven is supposed to be moving around the centre once in twenty-
four hours, must be confined to the effects produced by the seven planets.
Plato seems to confuse the actual observation of the heavens with his
desire to find in them mathematical perfection. The same spirit is carried
yet further by him in the passage already quoted from the Laws, in which he
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