The (Classical) Elements

[Ritual_Kiss]

There is much on the classical elements on Wiki and other places around the web. I think I take for granted how much they play into my own spiritual practice. So much so, that I get a nudge every once in a while from them in the form of random coincidences, visions with elemental symbols, and what feels like a change in the air's density. (This has been happening to me recently.)

There is much talk about them all over the place, with their symbols and correspondences, but not enough talk about what they are. Bardon goes into it a little deeper. We know that Air doesn't actually mean Air, but the air we breath is symbolic for a type of energy with qualities that can be best described that way. I find it best to understand the elements by acting in the way that corresponds to them. Air through writing, for example.

I interpret them as having sentience, while depending on us as humans while we also depend on them. In other words, the elements are no more Holy than we are, but the union between them is. They are what they are, and we are what we are, but the union is something special. This is my interpretation, and I find it to be a very balancing one, at that! When I think this way, I feel more in tune.

Thoughts? What is your relationship with these classical elements?

[dev]

Well since you posted this in the alchemical section of these forums I guess I will have to write from this perspective. It is a good topic no doubt.


Its father is the Sun and its mother the Moon.
The Earth carried it in her belly, and the Wind nourished it in her belly... - source (http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/emerald.htm)

Sun = Fire
Moon = Water

I have always seen Fire and Water as the male and female, the conscious and the unconscious. For me these two elements are more important to me than the other two (earth and air), but of course none can be ignored...

I have, though, mainly been fascinated with the fifth element (not the film) more than any other: The Aether (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element))!

If there indeed is a Theory of Everything I am certain the elements are part of that theory... in their simplicity lies a whole world of complex issues!


We know that Air doesn't actually mean Air, but the air we breath is symbolic for a type of energy with qualities that can be best described that way.Indeed, but sometimes it does just mean Air...

:cool:

[Ritual_Kiss]

lol. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?
I remembered the first time I read the Emerald Tablet. I'm convinced that it is indeed a theory of everything, and is the most accurate, IMO.

The fifth element is mentioned in Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics. He talks about the Aether (Akasha) being the first and most high for which all the other elements come itno being. I think the emerald Tablet speaks about it when talking about the "one thing."

[Anibis]

Well, to some extent all occult symbols represent a distilation of emotional properties humans ascribe to them. This isn't merely psychological. It's energetic: as the emotions focus on the individual symbol, they concentrate into it, and transform into something else. They become an energy or, power of that mage. Add to this the fact that as symbols they have been charged again and again by mystics and mages throughout the ages, then, if we accept that human consciousness is somewhat of a general field in which all persons participate, then you will see how they have become 'objective' and intelligent forces. The 'aura' of our culture (which produced these particular 4 glyph/elements) provides us with these energies that we can tap into easily, as our constitutions are 'wired' for it. We as 'microcosms' can then become minature replications of this larger presence. All this is complicated by the clash/merging of cultures, and so forming a soul isn't what it used to be... still, when we 'vibe' with the elements, our own being takes on their potency, and add to it... by equilibrating the 4 with the 5th, we become little self-stabilizing systems of our own. Little stars... This is how I look at it, anyhow...
-A-

[Ritual_Kiss]

Lovely! Yes, the 4 elements don't represent a single energy, but a cluster of different things. Still, it becomes easy to categorize in the basic structures of nature. (though they aren't basic at all) it helps to simplify.

[m1thr0s]

This is such a huge topic it is difficult to know where to begin. Rather than try to cover that ground entirely I want to just pull out one bit that I return to fairly often and that is that the 4-Elemental Universe is a reality projection rooted in the way we physically perceive nature itself. At the most fundamental level we begin with a vertical and horizontal axis, where the vertical gives us the perception of SPACE and spatial relationships, typically represented in the poles Above and Below. The horizontal axis gives us the perception of Time, represented in the poles Before and After. These two axis make up everything we are able to define about our environment and thus serve as a kind of failsafe reality coordinates at the most basic possible level.

Naturally we can build on this and the poles can assume other values, HOT and COLD, SWEET and BITTER, and so on ad infinitum, but it all begins (and ultimately returns) to this most central axial pairing...which I take to be a direct emanation of perception itself...how it works and how it organizes everything we are able to consciously record...even things we are not able to consciously register for that matter. It just so happens to divide up everything into 4 equal parts, with the possible 5th part being the axial construct itself...or...another way of looking at it...the undivided whole.

So the 4-Elemental Universe is really rooted in the way our bodies and minds naturally function and most naturally integrate with their surrounding environments. One proof of this is that there probably isn't a culture that we know of that doesn't express this principle in some way.

So I just want to start from that because there is so much going on with this topic it would require an encyclopedia to capture the tenth part of it really...I find this reflection useful as a reminder that the 4-Elemental Universe is US. If you were to remove US from the equation somehow, its meaning to the rest of nature would be virtually non-existent. It would still be there as a principle, governing all forms of life as we know it, but would have nowhere near the cognitive value for the rest of life as it does for humankind. It bears a special correlation to consciousness itself...and amounts to one of the core foundation tools we rely upon to make sense of virtually anything and everything.

m1

[Ritual_Kiss]

That's interesting, M1thr0s. I had never considered Time specifically as linear, or represented as such. I know quite a few people do, however when I explain that I see time as more of a "layer" or a fabric for lack of a better description, I get a few raised eyebrows. Looking at time as a line, I imagine, is incredibly useful in many cases and I don't think we can live our lives without using some common symbolism we can all understand. Past-Present-Future. In fact, it's probably easier to depict the dynamic quality of time through a line (point A to point B.) For me, it's always been a bit of a mystery.

[m1thr0s]

sure, time is a huge mystery but then even space is becoming more mysterious as we learn more about it...wormholes etc...the whole notion of space folding back on itself and so on...the 4-elemental paradigm is not so complex as this and more appertains to space and time as we normally experience it in this world. That doesn't mean it doesn't also spread into higher dimensionality because it does, but it is rooted in the simple, not the complex.

m1

[visceral/spagyrica]

lol. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?

I'm so happy you asked such a rhetorical question.

Speaking of elements as they pertain to the alchemical realm, there's this great saying by Paracelsus: "Mercury is that which smokes and rises, sulphur is that which burns, and salt is that which turns to ash and dust."

Great little analogy, especially if we're gonna talk cigars or, for me, cigarettes:

mercury is the smoke that you breathe and exhale, sulphur is in the cherry that glows as it burns, and salt is the dust that collects in your ashtray. And unlit tobacco is the golden conjunction of the three!

Elements in my life? On a regular basis? Easily 30 times a day (cigarettes, not cigars, hehe).

-Logos