Flornoy's Elements

[Ayumi]

Another consideration to determine a historically relevant way to define the nature of the four elements, and help assist us in matching the most appropriate elemental correspondences to the tarot suits are the elementals.

Paracelsus in his PHILOSOPHIA OCCULTA, associates each of the four elements (earth, fire, air, and water) with a class of mythological creature, called an elemental:

FIRE......= salamanders
AIR.......= Sylphs
WATER...= Undines
EARTH...= Gnomes

To quote Manly Hall's SECRET TEACHING OF ALL THE AGES:

"Literature has also perpetuated the concept of Nature spirits. The mischievous Puck of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream; the elementals of Alexander Pope's Rosicrucian poem, The Rape of the Lock, the mysterious creatures of Lord Lytton's Zanoni; James Barrie's immortal Tinker Bell; and the famous bowlers that Rip Van Winkle encountered in the Catskill Mountains, are well-known characters to students of literature. The folklore and mythology of all peoples abound in legends concerning these mysterious little figures who haunt old castles, guard treasures in the depths of the earth, and build their homes under the spreading protection of toadstools. Fairies are the delight of childhood, and most children give them up with reluctance. Not so very long ago the greatest minds of the world believed in the existence of fairies, and it is still an open question as to whether Plato, Socrates, and Iamblichus were wrong when they avowed their reality."

Gnomes, who dwell in the darkness of caves and the gloom of forests are said to be melancholy, gloomy, despondent and hard working.

Undines are said to be rather emotional beings, friendly to human life and fond of serving mankind.

Salamanders exerted special influence over all beings of fiery or tempestuous temperament.

The Muses of the Greeks are believed to have been Sylphs, for these creatures are said to gather around the mind of the dreamer, the poet, and the artist, and inspire him with their intimate knowledge of the beauties and workings of Nature. Their temperament is mirthful, changeable, and eccentric.

If one assigned, say CUPS for the element of AIR (mirthful, changeable, eccentric), could we not entertain the fanciful idea that the King of Cups was indeed the playful King of the Sylphs, accompanied by his beautiful Queen, his Knight, and his Page? (And do like wise for the other courts.)

Ayumi

 

[Cinammon Sue]

Lots of stuff to learn!

Wow!

Thanks for all the information Ayumi - it's going to take a long time to digest all that!

 

[Ayumi]

V.H. Frater I.C.L. in The Four Elements in the Western Tradition writes:

Liz Greene draws an analogy between Jung's four typological functions of consciousness "thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition" and the four Elements. The opposites in this case are more opposed in nature than in the traditional map, where the linkage between Elements and qualities results oddly in Air corresponding to warm and moist. This fits Air as an extension of breath, though the climate at the time was unlikely to have enjoyed constantly warm, moist Airstream.

The connection of Air with the thinking function further suggests why Air is overvalued in the West. Indeed there is a tendency to connate or confuse pneuma or spirit with intellect in both the Western and Hindu tradition.

This essay is viewable at:

http://www.golden-dawn.org/four_elements.html


Ayumi

 

[Ayumi]

Opsopaus' Elements

Speaking of essays about the elements, John Opsopaus, creator of the Pythagorean Tarot, wrote two excellent essays about the elements:

The Rotation of the Elements and

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/RE.html

The Ancient Greek Esoteric Doctrine of the Elements

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/AGEDE/index.html


Opsopaus' essays are a great place to start an in-depth study of the elements.

His guide book to his Pythagorean Tarot is great too, although I don't care for the art work on the deck so much. The book is a 470 page monster packed full of great insights into not only his deck, but the Tarot in general. Highly recommended.



Ayumi

 

[venicebard]

Three quick comments. First, I shall return to Liz Greene for a read when I have time, but I just wanted to say I hope she correlates them as follows: thinking=air, feeling=water, sensation=earth, and intuition=fire. Now:

Speaking of essays about the elements, John Opsopaus, creator of the Pythagorean Tarot, wrote two excellent essays about the elements:

The Rotation of the Elements and

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/RE.html

The Ancient Greek Esoteric Doctrine of the Elements

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/AGEDE/index.html

Concerning the first, it is my belief the rotation, in esoteric circles, would more likely have been understood as follows. Heat rises, cold settles. Moist is condensation, or what is drawn in towards one, while dry is dissipation, what is scattered out away from one, the former meaning straight back towards us, the latter straight ahead towards other and the (outer) horizon. The Zohar's distribution of elements is fire=north, air=east, water=south, and earth=west. When we realize that up is north (of the equator), on average, for humans, making down south (just as in common jargon), and that out ahead is where the wheel of existence descends, linking it (symbolically) to the west, and back is where it ascends, linking it to the east, it follows that earth is dry and cooling, water cool and moistening, air moist and warming, and fire warm and drying, this being the origin of the cycle. Non-cyclically, of course, they are: fire=brightness-thinness-motion, air=darkness-thinness-motion, water=darkness-thickness-motion, and earth=darkness-thickness-rest.

Concerning the other site, water is the 3rd element, and three points determine the simplest form. But fire is 1st, air 2nd, and earth 4th, in nature. And identification of Helios, the sun, with fire is exoteric, as a true initiate into Hermetic science would surely realize that the sun is air: it is air's receptivity to fire, just as gold is matter's receptivity to current. The moon is water's receptivity to fire, just as silver is matter's second-best receptivity to current, second-best because water is distracted by also being receptive to air and to itself. The actual breakdown of planetary cycles is as follows:

Fire:
1-stars (eternity, conserved total energy), which act on air, water, and earth (through Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, respectively?)

Air:
2-precession (forward revolution of stellar heavens about seasonal zodiac), meaning the sun (relation between ecliptic/year and equator/day), our 'receiver' of current from the stars (our model is plasma cosmology, not the still-clinging-to-life-though-infantile gravitational model based on Einsteinian general theory).
3-Saturn, air's ability to act on water (3rd element).
4-Jupiter, air's ability to act on earth (4th element).

Water:
5-Mars, water's ability to act on earth (4th element, 5 being numerological minus-4).
6-year, water's ability to act on water (3rd element, 6 being numerological minus-3).
7-Venus, water's ability to be acted on by water (3rd element, 7 being minus-3 in valence [as nitrogen]).
8-Mercury, water's ability to be acted on by air (2nd element, 8 being minus-2 in valence [as oxygen]).
9-month, water's ability to be acted on by fire (1st element, 9 being minus-1 in valence [as fluorine]).

Earth:
10-day, earth's ability to be acted on by the other three elements, which may also be envisioned as an extension of the 10th sphere or Sefirah into 10-11-12, its ability to be acted on by fire-air-water respectively, based on being the numerological repetition of 1-2-3.

Hope you find some of this useful.

 

[Ayumi]

Hey Venicebard

Interesting stuff.

Venicebard wrote:
First, I shall return to Liz Greene for a read when I have time, but I just wanted to say I hope she correlates them as follows: thinking=air, feeling=water, sensation=earth, and intuition=fire.

I'm assuming so. V.H. Frater I.C.L. seems to questioning the Greene's correlation between AIR=Thinking when he writes,

Indeed there is a tendency to connate or confuse pneuma or spirit with intellect in both the Western and Hindu tradition.

Dennis William Hauck in Sorcerer's Stone: A Beginner's Guide to Alchemy makes these correlations:

Feeling = Fire, choleric
Intuition = Air, sanguine
Thinking = Water, phlegmatic
Sensation = Earth, melancholic

I think Hauck's interpretation is closer to the idea of the Humors/Temperaments, but again it is all open to subjective interpretation.

Personally, although no Jungian and probably misinterpreting Jung's intentions, I would correlate as follows:

1. SENSATION (fire) is the initial stimulus (the feeling of tiny feet crawling on my leg). 2. INTUITION (air) is my instinctive reaction (I brush off my leg). 3. I next THINK (water) (was that a fly?). 4. I then have a FEELING (earth), an emotional reaction (Flies are horrible, the children of Satan!).

This follows the natural order of rotation FIRE>>AIR>>WATER>>EARTH.

The Jungian types could apply to one's personality based on which of the experiences a person identified with the most.

Venicebard wrote:
Heat rises, cold settles. Moist is condensation, or what is drawn in towards one, while dry is dissipation, what is scattered out away from one, the former meaning straight back towards us, the latter straight ahead towards other and the (outer) horizon.

I find this idea intriguing as HEAT is generally thought of as expanding, COLD as contracting, and DRYNESS as descending.


Ayumi

 

[Ayumi]

Mercury as Water

A quick back-step to Mr. Flornoy's WATER=COINS idea.

In Book I, Chapter XIII of Christian Astrology, William Lilly (affectionately known as Willy Lilly around these parts ) writes of the planet Mercury:

We may not call him either Masculine or Feminine, for he is either the one or other as joined to any Planet; for if in conjunction with a Masculine Planet, he becomes Masculine; if with a Feminine, then Feminine, but of his own nature he is cold and dry, and therefore Melancholy; with the good he is good, with the evil Planets ill; In the Elements the Water; amongst the humours, the mixed, he rules the animal spirit: he is author of subtlety, tricks, devices, perjury,&c.

The interesting point here is that despite being of "mixed humour" Lilly firmly assigns Mercury to the element of Water. Further on Lilly writes on the quality of men and professions ruled by Mercury:

He generally signifies all literary men, Philosophers, Mathematicians, Astrologers, Merchants, Secretaries, Scriveners, Diviners, Sculptors, Poets, Orators, Advocates, Schoolmasters, Stationers, Printers, Exchangers of Money, Attorneys, Emperor's Ambassadors, Commissioners, Clerks, Artificers, generally Accountants, Solicitors, sometimes Thieves, prattling muddy Ministers, busy Sectaries, and they unlearned: Grammarians, Tailors, Carriers, Messengers, Footmen, Usurers. (Highlights are mine.)

Lilly associates several money related professions to Watery Mercury, and under no other planet does he list a single money related profession.

Being in agreement with perhaps the single most important work on Astrology ever written, Flornoy's view of money relating to WATER is certainly well supported.


Ayumi

Source:
Lilly, William. Christian Astrology. 1647. Bel Air, MD: Astrology Classics, 2004. pp. 77-78.

 

[venicebard]

I find this idea intriguing as HEAT is generally thought of as expanding, COLD as contracting, and DRYNESS as descending.

Interesting thought. But air when it expands, of course, goes up, wind being but a secondary aspect of its displacement methinks.

When you say DRYNESS descends, you have it backwards: water (and Torah) are associated with the triangle in the Seal of Solomon that points down because water descends (as rain, or in flowing from higher to lower ground), whilst dryness is an evaporation upwards or out. This is apparently merely a corollary of the low point of the cycle being where it is moistening, but I'll have to think about it, as this does raise some question.

Lilly associates several money related professions to Watery Mercury, and under no other planet does he list a single money related profession.

Being in agreement with perhaps the single most important work on Astrology ever written, Flornoy's view of money relating to WATER is certainly well supported.

I think here you touch on one of the greater mysteries of tarot (and the science it embodies): the various merchant-type and craftsman-type professions related to Mercury stand at the level next above coins, in that it is the agreement made 'over drinks' -- or in the case of crafts, the form embodied, form being water's deeper meaning (since air, which precedes it, lacks form) -- that is key. Money in and of itself, on the other hand, would represent the hired laborer, that which money itself controls, as opposed to that which, being on the next level up, controls money. I know I could express this better were I not rushed, but think about it anyway.

Incidentally, Mercury is not Hermaphrodite: this term refers to the mixture Hermes-Aphrodite. Indeed Mercury is the male potency sought by the lustful female, while Venus is the female pulchritude sought by the lustful male. (I can demonstrate this if you wish, but it will have to wait till Monday.)

 

[Ayumi]

Hi Venicebard,

Actually, the reference I was referring to says EARTH is descending, not DRYNESS. My mistake.

From John Opsopaus' The Ancient Greek Esoteric Doctrine of the Elements:

The upper Elements (Air, Fire) are active, light and ascending, the lower (Water, Earth) are passive, heavy and descending. The Elements on the right are pure, extreme and absolutely light (Fire) or heavy (Earth); those on the left are mixed, intermediate and relatively light (Air) or heavy (Water). The absolute Elements exhibit unidirectional motion (ascending Fire, descending Earth), whereas the relative Elements (Air, Water) can also expand horizontally.

Venicebard wrote:
Incidentally, Mercury is not Hermaphrodite: this term refers to the mixture Hermes-Aphrodite. Indeed Mercury is the male potency sought by the lustful female, while Venus is the female pulchritude sought by the lustful male. (I can demonstrate this if you wish, but it will have to wait till Monday.)

Please do.
Mercury is a complex fellow. Myth, star, alchemical substance... His contradictory reputation in Astrology is derived from how erratic Mercury appears to behave from our view from planet Earth.


Ayumi

 

[venicebard]

Hi Venicebard,

Actually, the reference I was referring to says EARTH is descending, not DRYNESS. My mistake.

Quite so: earth is descending and water is at the low point (earth having to wait till it's broken-off, so to speak).

Please do.
Mercury is a complex fellow. Myth, star, alchemical substance... His contradictory reputation in Astrology is derived from how erratic Mercury appears to behave from our view from planet Earth.

Okay, fasten yer seatbelt.

The pattern in Coins is 1 the Prime Mover (so to speak, meaning the energy conserved by the Whole and stored in the stars), then nine cycles ending up in today: the great year, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the year, Venus, Mercury, the month, and the day. Projecting this against its backdrop, the pattern in Cups -- which is the conventional Tree of Sefirot (1, 2-3, 4-5, 6, 7-8, 9, 10) -- we see that the Prime Mover corresponds to the eternal undivided Adam Qadmon (source of Tree), great year and Saturn to the first or non-mating male and female types (2 and 3), Jupiter and Mars to the second or mating-for-procreation male and female types (4 and 5), the year to their agreed-upon offspring (6, the solar hero), Venus and Mercury to the third or mating-for-lust male and female types (7 and 8), and month and day to their not-agreed-upon offspring (9 and 10).

It can be seen that the archetype of Mars -- the prime poetic example of the martial spirit -- is a mother defending her offspring. It also shows that Venus is the spirit hearkened to by the lustful male, Mercury that hearkened to by the lustful female. This can be explained as follows. The doer aspect of self (what acts in the present instant, as opposed to thinks about finitely durated things or knows about eternal things) consists of feeling -- input, a taking-in of where the present instant comes from -- and desire -- output, determining where it shall go. When desire predominates, the body is male, when feeling predominates, the body is female. Desire, fully expressed, is Power. Feeling, fully expressed, is Beauty. In Hermetic science, mercury or Hermes is of course the Power of Transformation, while Venus or copper is maleable and must be stiffened with tin (Jupiter) to make bronze.