| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tanach: Deuteronomy 4: 10 the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me: 'Assemble Me the people, and I will make them hear My words that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.'
Deuteronomy 4: 11 And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.
Deuteronomy 4: 12 And the LORD spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of words, but ye saw no form; only a voice.
Deuteronomy 4: 13 And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even the ten words; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.
Deuteronomy 4: 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it.
Deuteronomy 4: 15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves--for ye saw no manner of form on the day that the LORD spoke unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire--
Deuteronomy 4: 16 lest ye deal corruptly, and make you a graven image, even the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
Deuteronomy 4: 17 the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the heaven,
Deuteronomy 4: 18 the likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
Deuteronomy 4: 19 and lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, thou be drawn away and worship them, and serve th  The Tanach |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: the sun and stars once arose in the west and set in the east, and that the
god reversed their motion, as a witness to the right of Atreus. 'There is
such a story.' And no doubt you have heard of the empire of Cronos, and of
the earthborn men? The origin of these and the like stories is to be found
in the tale which I am about to narrate.
There was a time when God directed the revolutions of the world, but at the
completion of a certain cycle he let go; and the world, by a necessity of
its nature, turned back, and went round the other way. For divine things
alone are unchangeable; but the earth and heavens, although endowed with
many glories, have a body, and are therefore liable to perturbation. In
the case of the world, the perturbation is very slight, and amounts only to
 Statesman |