| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god,
found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island,
bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm water
and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up
abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin
male children; and dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions, he
gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the
surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king
over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many
men, and a large territory. And he named them all; the eldest, who was the
first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean
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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: And the magicians were cast down in adoration; said they, 'We
believe in the Lord of Aaron and of Moses!'
Said he, 'Do ye believe in Him before I give you leave? Verily, he
is your master who taught you magic! Therefore will I surely cut off
your hands and feet on alternate sides, and I will surely crucify
you on the trunks of palm trees; and ye shall surely know which of
us is keenest at torment and more lasting.'
Said they, 'We will never prefer thee to what has come to us of
manifest signs, and to Him who originated us. Decide then what thou
canst decide; thou canst only decide in the life of this world!
Verily, we believe in our Lord, that He may pardon us our sins, and
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: expressive of the inward: in which form reveals. Of such modes of
existence there are not a few: youth and the arts preoccupied with
youth may serve as a model for us at one moment: at another we may
like to think that, in its subtlety and sensitiveness of
impression, its suggestion of a spirit dwelling in external things
and making its raiment of earth and air, of mist and city alike,
and in its morbid sympathy of its moods, and tones, and colours,
modern landscape art is realising for us pictorially what was
realised in such plastic perfection by the Greeks. Music, in which
all subject is absorbed in expression and cannot be separated from
it, is a complex example, and a flower or a child a simple example,
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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 Parmenides by Plato: it becomes one it ceases to be many, and when many, it ceases to be one?
Certainly.
And as it becomes one and many, must it not inevitably experience
separation and aggregation?
Inevitably.
And whenever it becomes like and unlike it must be assimilated and
dissimilated?
Yes.
And when it becomes greater or less or equal it must grow or diminish or be
equalized?
True.
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