| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: came through the air, being carried by a cyclone. So I believe
the best way to get across the desert will be through the air.
Now, it is quite beyond my powers to make a cyclone; but I've been
thinking the matter over, and I believe I can make a balloon."
"How?" asked Dorothy.
"A balloon," said Oz, "is made of silk, which is coated with
glue to keep the gas in it. I have plenty of silk in the Palace,
so it will be no trouble to make the balloon. But in all this
country there is no gas to fill the balloon with, to make it float."
"If it won't float," remarked Dorothy, "it will be of no use to us."
"True," answered Oz. "But there is another way to make it
The Wizard of Oz |
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 Parmenides by Plato: without thought?' 'I acknowledge the unmeaningness of this,' says
Socrates, 'and would rather have recourse to the explanation that the ideas
are types in nature, and that other things partake of them by becoming like
them.' 'But to become like them is to be comprehended in the same idea;
and the likeness of the idea and the individuals implies another idea of
likeness, and another without end.' 'Quite true.' 'The theory, then, of
participation by likeness has to be given up. You have hardly yet,
Socrates, found out the real difficulty of maintaining abstract ideas.'
'What difficulty?' 'The greatest of all perhaps is this: an opponent will
argue that the ideas are not within the range of human knowledge; and you
cannot disprove the assertion without a long and laborious demonstration,
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