Flornoy's Elements

Air and Intellect

I too have wondered where the idea of Air as a symbol of intellect and rationality originates. It doesn't seem that either Aristotle or Plato had that image of Air. Is it something that comes from Alchemy? Or the 19th century occultists? Surely it goes back further than Jung! Or are we really that myopic?

Perhaps it is an idea, like the idea that in hunter gather cultures the women always stayed home (although there is absolutely no archaeological evidence to support that idea - as was explained to me by my University tutor Prof. Lin Foxhall), that was invented in modern times because it "sounds correct" based on modern day social frameworks.

Not to go on a feminist rant but, just to give an example of how ideas can become accepted without any real truth or evidence whatsoever.

C.S.

Modern Hubris

Hi Cinammon Sue!

I know what you're saying. In my studies of traditional astrology you run across that sort of thing a lot. The whole idea of the Sun sign in ones birth chart determining ANYTHING without consideration of which house the Sun is in or the Suns aspects to the other planets would be laughable to astrologers from the classical era up to the 17th century when traditional astrology (and alchemy) lost its credence to the hot new trendy rage of secular mechanical materialism via Bacon, Descartes and Newton.

Traditional Astrologer John Frawley, in his HORARY TEXTBOOK (p.40) states:

"The signs of the zodiac are treated quite differently in traditional and modern astrology. Now is the time to reach into your head, locate all you have learned about the signs from the moderns and set that aside.

The signs describe the planets that are in them. In our astrological sentences, the planets are the nouns, the signs are the adjectives and the aspects are the verbs. The sign does not DO anything: it has no power to act."

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), most of the mangling of astrology can be traced to Alan Leo, who, at the end of the 19th century, revived Western astrology by "refitting" it within the terms of Theosophy. Then came the Jungians... Then the "newspaper horoscope" generation.

Anyway, I would also love to know what the source is for AIR as a symbol of intellect. I've read a little on Alchemy and but haven't seen it mentioned.

Anybody have any ideas?



Ayumi

Source: Frawley, John. THE HORARY TEXTBOOK. London: Apprentice Books, 2005.

Although when I read modern decks where the idea of air as intellect has been embedded in the image, I associate air with intellect, I must agree it doesn't seem to have a very old history, or even to make sense.

The ancients used to see FIRE as the element of the mind - the fire of the mind, the fire of ideas, of debate, of intellectual discovery. When reading with the TdM I associate Swords with fire, and with the mind, in that way.

through a glass, darkly

coredil said:

A cup allows air to be filled.

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I once wondered... if perhaps, Michelangelo painted
his masterpiece in the air and then some committee
decided to build a chapel around it... afterwards.

Ayumi said:

Jean-Claude Flornoy...
Swords, for...the Emperor...
FIRE..........SWORDS

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First, I want to thank jmd for steadfastly alluding to this
view-interpretation of Swords as "Fire" at various times,
and Ayumi for beginning this wide ranging investigation...

Last night I took the view of being literal concerning the
elements (whatsoever they may actually represent) and
the suit symbols (again, as variables as to meaning) and
asked myself which element most fits with which symbol?

Swords and Fire scored a near perfect relationship.
I imagined myself walking through the countryside,
seeing water and trees, upon the green meadows,
and it was fire that came to mind as most unusual.

Fire has been "adopted" by humans as a necessary
part of their environment, but to come upon a fire,
to encounter one in nature is a very unusual event.
So too I thought with the Sword, as a chosen item.

Then it was on to Cups, and Water wins here so easily as
the association, that only Coins and Wands remained, and
easy as may be, I could see Wands and Earth~ with trees
and bushes so abundantly growing from the natural fields.

That left Air for Coins, and it seemed, on my walk I would
have had to buy my Sword, and pay for my Cups, and the
fields would all be owned by someone or other...so that it
was only the coins in my pocket and the airy wind blowing
that I could actually call mine, and then insubstantially so.

*

Before beginning my imaginary walk, I made a list
of all the possible (24) combinations available.

I realize my previous remarks were probably not on-topic (since historicity, not appropriateness, is I gather what is being primarily debated), but let me comment on two things.

jmd said:

Even more so than "l'argent liquide" ('liquid money', or, even more literally, 'liquid silver', with the further connections this brings to thought), there is the even more contracted sense that having "du liquide" (having liquid) means 'having cash'.

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Sure, and liquidity in English: good point. It would seem to indicate that water's suit (Cups) stands for that element of society (in cities, such as Marseille) immediately above earth's manual laborers producing most goods, namely the merchants who impart value to said goods by distributing and selling them. This reinforces what I have long taken to be a link betwixt Batons and clergy in the threefold Dumezil division of Indo-European society and myth into sacerdotal, warrior, and 'chthonic' -- the last of which can be divided into two levels (trade and manual labor, if I recall correctly). The competing theory, of course, has Cups as clergy, and coins as merchants.

Ayumi said:

. . . or by extention, the blood of Christ. Blood is of course being the Sanguine bodily fluid, the transporter of air.

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This but reminds us that each element pervades those it precedes (in nature's order, fire-air-water-earth).

The blood of Christ and the chalice bring us back to Mr. Flornoy's idea of the cups representing the Pope, and he being the model for those who teach and cure: priests and healers.

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I would think the staff is more symbolic of papal power than cup, and I see him as symbol of blessing (his hand being raised in blessing), since XIIII Temperance symbolizes learning (tempering, guiding).

The sacerdotal power of the pontiff may be represented by the Staff, but his power remains that within the Church, itself at times symbolised by its duty to the Cup of the Covenant (representing the New Testament, and in contradistinction to the Mosaïc Tablets).

Otherwise, it remains power, but power of what?

enjoyably pleased

venicebard said:

I also (as stated elsewhere) find Swords' identification with fire to be spurious, since Batons are the only burnable suit symbol and thus are the fire, Swords merely being forged in the fire thus created.

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Just wanted to say "Hi!" and "Thanks!" with a note
that Bâtons are also the only symbol that can FLOAT.

What that may mean, I don't know...a complement?

jmd said:

The sacerdotal power of the pontiff may be represented by the Staff, but his power remains that within the Church, itself at times symbolised by its duty to the Cup of the Covenant (representing the New Testament, and in contradistinction to the Mosaïc Tablets).

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Interesting. Perhaps this symbolism is related somehow to the Grail?

Fulgour said:

Just wanted to say "Hi!" and "Thanks!" with a note
that Bâtons are also the only symbol that can FLOAT.

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I beg to differ: Cups do as well, but only oriented a certain way (it's a form thing). Overturned, they drift to the bottom to join the rest of the metalic junk-heap, leaving wood at the top (fire's place), where it might even be picked up by canooers, dried out, and burned, heaven forbid. Good thrust, though! (Was my parry adequate?)

Roots

If Fire were to burn all the Wands
then the Earth would wash away.