What is synchronicity and why does it have such an impact on our lives? Well, whether you believe in it or not, synchronicity is a spiritual phenomena, which is presented by experiencing frequent coincidences, names, phrases, numbers or even seeing the same animal regularly (omens). Coincidence, on the other hand , does definitely exist just like synchronicity, but ther’s a slight difference. Coincidences only happen once and one time only, whereas synchronicity is the same coincidence that keeps getting repeated. Now this is when a simple coincidence that happens to us becomes a sign from the higher realms and the universe. This is when we should take note of it and listen to our intuition, rather than ignoring it. The first person to take notice of synchronicity, was Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung, who was talking to a client about a dream they had about a golden sacrab beetle, and before they knew it, they saw one in the window of Carl’s psychotherapy cabinet which was rather majestic considering that species of beetle wasn’t native to Switzerland.
Most people in everyday society believe that synchronicity is utterly meaningless and should be taken as a pinch of salt. However, this is the attitude that feeds mediocrity and unsatisfaction within our lives. By acting this way, we are subconsciously blocking ourselves from experiencing serendipity, joy and blessings that life brings into our path. Ever since we were children, society and our parents have continuously made us believe that the world is dangerous, scary and full of negativity and tragedy. Society doesn’t want you to have a curious mind because society thinks these people have the power to change world instead of conforming like everyone else. So start embracing your inner child and explore the world like you’ve never stepped on Earth before. You’ll begin to see your life as more blissful, wondrous and free, so adopt this attitude and end the cycle of negativity.
1. You keep noticing or hearing their name in random places
Have you ever experienced this? When you consistently hear or see a particular name everywhere on your travels it means that this person male or female, is soon to enter your life in 3D some time in the near future, who will awaken you spiritually and make drastic changes in your life for the better. It can also have romantic connotations as well, which means that they will be manifested as your ultimate lover that you’ve always dreamed of. This is very common with people who are on the twin flame journey, particularly during the seperation stage. The universe gives you these divine messages because it wants you to know that you are still loved by your beloved twin, even though in reality it doesn’t seem like it at all. It’s like the universe is telling you to never give up hope and listen to your higher self.
2. You see angel numbers and sequences on a regular basis
You see numbers like 1111, 777, 888, 111 and many other sequences on a regular basis whether that is on a clock, number plates or telephone numbers. Sometimes you can wake up at the same time every morning or night as well, which often causes many people to freak out. The synchronicity of 1111 is very common within the spiritual community, as it generally means someone special is coming into your life such as a twin flame. However, it can also mean that you are going through a spiritual awakening as well. I have experienced the 1111 phenomena occasionally, but it is not as common for me. My angel number has been 111 for over a year and it continues to be even now. I have also seen 222 and 333 randomly sometimes. These numbers can also represent as a deceased loved one that is trying to communicate with you. See these numbers as a message from a deceased relative that is telling you to keep following your spiritual path and have faith in it.
3. You think of someone and then out of the blue you accidently bump into them
When this happens most people take this as a pure coincidence or chance. This is right, especially when it only happens once and never to occur again. However, when you consistently think of someone and see them randomly on your travels, take note. Do not get this synchronicity confused with stalking, as this can be mistaken very easily. If you keep bumping into someone serendipitously this means that this particular person will have a powerful impact in your life in someway. They can be people you knew in the past or a random stranger you just met yesterday.
4. Hearing a song on the radio that reminds you of someone or scenario that had a significant impact in your life
Have you ever listened to the radio and then a random song plays with lyrics that coincidentally matches up with how you feel about someone or a scenario? I have experienced this several times in my life. This usually happens between soulmates and twin flames during the separation phase of the divine partnership. It is another form of telepathy or psychic communication soulmates and twin flames can experience when they’re not talking to each other in the physical world. Music is created and lead by the emotions and the spirit, so this is why many twin flames and soulmates have experienced this synchronicity while they’re on their spiritual journey to reunite with each other again.
5. Randomly thinking about someone and they call you or send you a message a split second after
This phenomenon is very common with soulmates, but more so with twin flames. This phenomenon is called telepathy, which means mental communication between two people (whether they are near each other or faraway). Sometimes twin flame or soulmate couples can have telepathic communication – even when they’re on the other side of the world from each other. I have experienced this myself, and I have to confess that I’ve often scratched my head out of pure confusion because the phenomena is just absolutely bizarre. It’s so bizzare that no one would believe you if you told them about it or they would ask for evidence to prove that it exists. Bearing in mind that soulmates and twin flames don’t necessarily have to be a potential romantic partner, but they can also be a relative, your child, sibling, a best friend or parent. However, most of the time twin flames (more so than soulmates) are romantic partnerships.
6. You come across something that fixes a problem that has been worrying you for some time
Have you ever gone into a store or read an article online and then out of the corner of you eye, you suddenly see something that has the answer to a problem that you’ve been desperately wanting to fix? These are epiphanies or miracles from the universe showing you that you can finally break down the blocks that have cause you pain, suffering and anguish. When you see this, the universe is telling you that there is hope and you can escape from what has been holding you back.
7. You meet a stranger that awakens you about a particular aspect in your current life
Throughout our daily lives we meet many people who come in and come out without us consciously thinking about it, but then there’s some people that entered our life in some way that stay in our memory for many days, months, years, decades or even for a lifetime. These people may have been a stranger that helped you or saved your life or that special someone who took your breath away at the first glance of them. These people are usually lightworkers, twin flames, soulmates or your guardian angel that has incarnated on Earth. When you encounter someone like this, you feel an instant connection to them which feels sacred and cosmic. These people are your healers, protectors, divine lovers, soul friends and spirit guides. This why you’ll always remember them for many years.
8. You consistently see meaningful or sacred symbols
These symbols can be anything that has significant meanings and interpretations or have a religious connection to them. Symbols such as the holy trinity or infinity (lemniscate) are perfect examples of this. If you are on the twin flame journey, whether that is meeting your twin for the first time in 3D or you are currently going through separation you may see synchronicity involving the infinity symbol. When this happens the universe is basically telling you that their love for you is eternal and unbreakable and you should never give up hope even when you feel lost, helpless and stuck. On my twin flame journey, I have experienced synchronicity, especially with the infinity symbol so much so that I decided to buy an infinity necklace because it’s meaning meant so much to me.
9. You casually find yourself watching a movie that accurately mirrors the story of your life and what you’re going through (or have gone through)
This is a rarer type of synchronicity, as there are not many movies that have been made, which are nearly accurate to your own life story. If you have experienced this before, consider yourself lucky because it’s very, very rare. I believe that this is the most meaningful and poignant kind of synchronicity that I have listed in this post.
10. Reoccurring prophetic dreams about an event or person that will soon be entering your life
This synchronicity is very common when you begin to start waking up spiritually and develop psychic abilities. When you have very profound dreams that are repeated regularly with the same dream, this is known as clairvoyance or psychic vision. You’ll begin to have these at the very beginning of your spiritual awakening and journey. By having these dreams, you are now becoming self-aware of your divine gifts and talents that you can share with the world, rather than ignoring them and pushing them away.
Every individual rises again in the very form which his Work
(in the alchemical sense) has fixed in the secret (esoteric) depth of
himself.
— SHAIKH AHMAD AHSA’I —
S I N C E P A R A C E L S U S (1493-1541), salt has played a role
in alchemy as the physical “body” which remains after combustion, the
corporeal substance that survives death to reinaugurate new life. It was
both ‘corruption and preservation against corruption’ (Dorn); both the
‘last agent of corruption’ and the ‘first agent in generation’ (Steeb). As such, the alchemical salt functions as the fulcrum of death and
revivification. The idea that the agent, instrument and patient of the
alchemical process are not separate entities but aspects of one reality
prefigures the significance accorded in this study to ‘the Hermetic
problem of salt’. Just as in chemistry a salt may be defined as the
product of an acid and a base, alchemically, salt is the integral
resolution to the primordial polarities embodied in the mineral symbolique of cinnabar (HgS), the salt of
sulphur and mercury. In the alchemy of René Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz
(1887-1961), salt forms the equilibrium between an active function
(sulphur, divinity, peras) and its passive resistance (mercurial substance, prima materia, the apeiron),
aspects which are latently present in the primordial (pre-polarised)
unity, but crystallised into physical existence as “salt”. With
Schwaller’s concept, one is dealing with a juncture of the metaphysical
and proto-physical. As will be seen, however, this also inheres in the
body as a fulcrum point of death and palingenesis.
Leap, Salve, Balsam
‘Salt arises from the purest sources, the sun and the sea’. —Pythagoras
In
order to understand the nature of alchemical salt one must first
understand the nature of common salt. In doing this, however, it is soon
realised that salt is anything but common; like many everyday things,
salt is so familiar that its singular peculiarity is taken for granted.
Visser, in an extraordinary study of the elements of an ordinary meal,
aptly encapsulates the cultural purview of salt in the following words:
Salt
is the only rock directly consumed by man. It corrodes but preserves,
desiccates but is wrested from the water. It has fascinated man for
thousands of years not only as a substance he prized and was willing to
labour to obtain, but also as a generator of poetic and of mythic
meaning. The contradictions it embodies only intensify its power and its
links with experience of the sacred.
European languages derive their word ‘salt’ from Proto-Indo-European *sāl- (*sēl-) reflected directly in Latin as sal, ‘salt, salt water, brine; intellectual savour, wit’, Greek hals, ‘salt, sea’ (cf. Welsh halen) and in Proto-Germanic as *saltom (Old English sealt, Gothic salt, German Salz). In addition to its mineral referent, sal also gives rise to a number of cognates that help crystallise its further semantic and symbolic nuances. Saltus, saltum, ‘leap’, derives from the verb salio, ‘leap, jump, leap sexually’, whence Saliī,
‘priests of Mars’ from the ‘primitive rites (practically universal) of
dancing or leaping for the encouragement of crops’; saltāre, ‘dance’, salmo, ‘salmon’ (leaping fish), (in)sultāre, (‘insult’, literally ‘leap on, in’; figuratively, ‘taunt, provoke, move to action’), all from Indo-European *sēl-, ‘move forth, start up or out’, whence Greek ἁλλομαι, άλτo, ἁλμα (hallomai, halto, halma), ‘leap’; Sanskrit ucchalati (*ud-sal-),
‘starts up’. Importantly for the alchemical conception, alongside
‘leap’ one finds the meanings at the root of English ‘salve’ (balm,
balsam), derived from Indo-European *sel-p-, *sel-bh-, and giving rise to Cyprian elphos (butter), Gothic salbōn, Old English sealfian; in Latin: salus, ‘soundness, health, safety’; salūbris, ‘wholesome, healthy’; salūtāre, ‘keep safe, wish health, salute’; salvus, ‘safe, sound’; salvēre, ‘be in good health’; salvē, ‘hail!’; cf. also *sēl-eu-; Avestan huarva, ‘whole, uninjured’; Sanskrit sarva-, sarvatāti, ‘soundness’ and Greek ὁλοειται, ὁλος (holoeitai, holos), ‘whole’. These meanings are further connected to solidus, sollus, sōlor, with an ultimate sense of ‘gathering, compacting’, hence ‘solidity’.
In
addition to its salvific, balsamic and holistic aspect, which must be
regarded as the meaning most central to the alchemical perception, the
significance of salt as both ‘leap’ and ‘solidity’ must also be
recognised as integral. In particular, it pertains to Schwaller’s
conception of salt as the fixed imperishable nucleus (solidus)
regarded as the hidden mechanism underpinning the ontological ‘leaps’ or
mutations of visible evolution (contra the Aristotelian dictum, natura non facit saltum,
‘nature does not proceed by a leap’). For Schwaller, the seemingly
disconnected leaps of biological mutation are in fact bound by a hidden
harmony grounded in the saline alchemical nucleus.
Although it is
the intention of this study to explore the deeper meaning of salt in the
work of Schwaller de Lubicz—alchemically configured as the determiner
of an entity’s form—a number of studies have pointed to the crucial role
of salt as a significant shaper of civilisation. Perhaps the
earliest point of departure for this is the fact that salt only rises to
especial prominence with the emergence of an agricultural economy. Salt
intake, initially bound to blood and meat, had to be supplemented.
Comments Darby:
When man first learnt
the use of salt is enshrouded in the mists of the remotest past.
Parallel to the Ancient Greek’s ignorance of the seasoning, the original
Indo-Europeans and the Sanskrit speaking peoples had no word for it.
This apparent lack of salt-craving in early people could have been a
result of their reliance on raw or roasted meat. Later, when with the
invention of boiling the sodium content of meat was reduced, and when
the shift to an agricultural economy introduced vegetables in increasing
amounts, sodium chloride became a basic need to provide an adequate
sodium intake and, more important still, to counterbalance the high
potassium content of plants.
Commodity histories show that
salt was not always the easily available resource it is today; it had to
be striven for; it required effort and ingenuity (perhaps even wit).
It created trade and war; it was used as pay and exploited as a tax.
Nor did salt have the current stigma of being an unhealthy excess (a
problem symptomatic of modern surfeit). Quite to the contrary, salt
was typically a sign of privilege and prestige. ‘Salt like speech is
essentially semiotic’, Adshead remarks; ‘As such it could convey a
variety of meanings, of which the clearest in early times was social
distance: high cooking, low cooking, above and below the salt’. Considerations such as these help contextualise many of the ancient
values surrounding salt, some of which have become proverbial. In the New Testament,
for instance, but also elsewhere, the sharing of salt (often with bread
at a table), represented a deep bond of trust, of communal solidarity,
while the spilling of it was considered a grave faux pas.
Indeed, if salt was as freely available for liberal exploitation as it
is today, such ethical and social implications would scarcely carry any
weight at all.
Most of salt’s social meanings reflect its deepest functional value as a preservative. Just
as salt keeps the integrity of plants and meats intact, so salt was
seen to keep the integrity of a body of people together. As a prestige
substance that could preserve food through the death of winter and bind
people in communal solidarity, salt was highly regarded; during Roman
times, salt even became a form of currency, whence our word ‘salary’
(from Latin salārium, ‘salt money’) after the Roman habit of
paying soldiers in pieces of compressed salt (hence the phrase: ‘to be
worth one’s salt’). Because of its integrating character, salt
bridges opposites. Paradoxically, however, the more one attempts to pin
salt down in a strictly rational manner, the more the contradictions it
embodies abound.
‘There are totally different opinions concerning
salt’, writes Plutarch (c. 46–120 CE), who preserves a number of
contemporary beliefs, including the view that salt possesses not only
preservative qualities, but animating and even generative power:
Some
include salt with the most important spices and healing materials,
calling it the real ‘soul of life’, and it is supposed to possess such
nourishing and enlivening powers that mice if they lick salt at once
become pregnant.
Consider also
whether this other property of salt is not divine too […] As the soul,
our most divine element, preserves life by preventing dissolution of the
body, just so salt, controls and checks the process of decay. This is
why some Stoics say that the sow at birth is dead flesh, but that the
soul is implanted in it later, like salt, to preserve it […] Ships
carrying salt breed an infinite number of rats because, according to
some authorities, the female conceives without coition by licking salt.
The connection of salt to the soul, a balsam to the body,
will be explored in more detail when the alchemical contexts of salinity
are examined. Its fertilising, generative power, on the other hand,
bears obvious comparison to salt’s known capacity to stimulate the
growth of the earth—a leavening function extended to the role of the
Apostles in the Christian Gospels: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth’.
And yet too much salt will make the earth sterile.
In ancient
times, offerings to the gods were made with salt among the Israelites:
‘with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt’, but without salt
among the Greeks: ‘mindful to this day of the earlier customs, they
roast in the flame the entrails in honour of the gods without adding
salt’. The Egyptian priests favoured rock salt in sacrifices as
purer than sea salt; and yet ‘one of the things forbidden to them
is to set salt upon a table’; they ‘abstain completely from salt as
a point of religion, even eating their bread unsalted’. Although
the Egyptians ‘never brought salt to the table’, Pythagoras, who
according to the doxographic traditions studied in the Egyptian temples,
tells us that:
It should be brought to
the table to remind us of what is right; for salt preserves whatever it
finds, and it arises from the purest sources, the sun and the sea.
The understanding of salt as a product of sun and sea, i.e. of fire and water, ouranos and oceanos,
touches on its broader esoteric and cosmological implications, not all
of which were peculiar to Pythagoras. These aspects become central
in alchemy, where, as will be seen, salt acts as the earthly ligature
between fire (sun) and water (sea), the arcane substance whose patent
ambiguities stem from its role as embodiment and juncture of opposites:
purity and impurity, eros and enmity, wetness and desiccation, fertility
and sterility, love and strife. One thing that the present discussion
of the mythological and historical aspects of salt hopes to emphasise is
that none of these ideas are really born of speculation or abstraction;
rather, they are all intimately linked to the basic phenomenology of
the substance itself.
Above all, salt is ambiguous. While some of
these ambiguities may be attributed to the unevenness of the sources,
and while some points of contradiction may be cleared up upon closer
examination (the negative Egyptian views on salt, for instance, mainly
seem to apply to times of ritual fasting), this does not eclipse the
overarching sense that salt, by its very nature, defies strict
definition.
From
numerous ancient sources describing the nature of salt, one arrives at
the view that salt’s piquant effect was seen to extend beyond the
sensation on the tongue. Salt stimulated not only the appetite but
desire in general. And because desire polarises the religious
impulse more than anything else—a path of liberation to some, a
hindrance to others—it is understandable why the Egyptians, according to
Plutarch, ‘make it a point of religion to abstain completely from
salt’. Equally, one can understand how salt, as an aphrodisiac, was
connected specifically to the cult of Aphrodite, the goddess of desire par excellence. As Plutarch notes, the stimulating nature of eroticism evoked by the feminine is expressed using the very language of salt:
For
this reason perhaps, feminine beauty is called ‘salty’ and ‘piquant’
when it is not passive, nor unyielding, but has charm and
provocativeness. I imagine that the poets called Aphrodite ‘born of
brine’ […] by way of alluding to the generative property of salt.
Plutarch
is referring to a tradition preserved by Hesiod, which will be looked
at presently, but before the origin of the ‘brine-born’ goddess is
examined, it is worth noting that our own language still preserves this
deep association between salt and provocative beauty. Latin sal
lies, phonetically and semantically, at the root of words such as salsa
and sauce (both meaning ‘salted’), whence the deep connection between
sexuality and food implicit in the habit of referring to provocative
objects of desire as ‘saucy’ or ‘sassy’ (both derivations of sal). And so the most stimulating flavours—the saltiest, those that make us salivate—are the ones most readily appropriated to express our desire.
The ancient etymology of Aphrodite as ‘brine-born’ (from aphros, ‘sea-spume’) is deeply mired not only in desire but also enmity, the twin impulses that Empedocles would call ‘Love and Strife’ (Philotēs kai Neikos). Aphrodite, one learns, is born from the primordial patricide (and perhaps a crime of passion). Hesiod’s Theogony
tells us how the goddess Gaia (Earth), the unwilling recipient of the
lusts of Ouranos (Heaven), incites the children born of this union
against their hated father. Not without Oedipal implications, Cronus
rises surreptitiously against his progenitor and, with a sickle of
jagged flint, severs his father’s genitals:
And
so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the
land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long
time: and a white foam (aphros) spread around them from the
immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden. […] Her gods and men call
Aphrodite, and the foam-born goddess […] because she grew amid the
foam.
As will be seen, these two primordial impulses prove
pivotal to the alchemical function of salt that is met in Schwaller—the
determiner of all affinities and aversions. And if Aphrodite is
connected to salt’s desire-provoking aspect, it will come as no surprise
to find that her ultimate counterpart was associated with just the
opposite: war and strife. As is well known, Aphrodite is paired with
Ares among the Greeks (as Venus is to Mars among the Romans), but the
origins of her cult are intimately bound to Ancient Near Eastern
origins; [33] moreover, in her Phoenician incarnation
(Astarte), she embodies not only eros and sexuality, but war and strife.
Presumably because of these traits, the Egyptian texts of the early
Eighteenth Dynasty saw fit to partner her with their own untamed
transgressor god, Seth-Typhon—a divinity who, like Aphrodite, was
associated specifically with sea-salt and sea-spume (aphros).
Typhon’s Spume
Tomb of Typhon, Tarquinia, first century BCE.
‘Sea’,
writes Heraclitus, ‘is the most pure and the most polluted water; for
fishes it is drinkable and salutary, but for men it is undrinkable and
deleterious’. For the Egyptians, anything connected with the sea
was, in general, evaluated negatively. Sea-salt in particular was
regarded as impure, the ‘spume’ or ‘foam’ of Typhon (ἀφρος τυφωνις, aphros typhōnis). Plutarch explains this by the fact that the Nile’s pure waters run
down from their source and empty into the unpalatable, salty
Mediterranean. This natural phenomenon takes on cosmological
ramifications: because of the southern origin of the life-giving Nilotic
waters, south became the direction associated with the generative
source of all existence; north on the other hand—culminating in the Nile
delta where the river is swallowed by the sea—was regarded as the realm
in which the pure, living waters were annihilated by the impure, salty
waters. Comments Plutarch:
For this
reason the priests keep themselves aloof from the sea, and call salt the
‘spume of Typhon’, and one of the things forbidden to them is to set
salt upon a table; also they do not speak to pilots; because these men
make use of the sea, and gain their livelihood from the sea […] This is
the reason why they eschew fish.
While sea salt was avoided,
salt in rock form was considered quite pure: Egyptian priests were known
to access mines of rock salt from the desert Oasis of Siwa. Arrian, the third century BCE historian, remarks:
There
are natural salts in this district, to be obtained by digging; some of
these salts are taken by the priests of Amon going to Egypt. For
whenever they are going towards Egypt, they pack salt into baskets woven
of palm leaves and take them as a present to the king or someone else.
Both Egyptians and others who are particular about religious observance,
use this salt in their sacrifices as being purer than the sea-salts.
Thus, like the arid red desert and the fertile Nilotic soil,
the briny sea was contrasted with the fresh waters of the Nile to oppose
the foreign with the familiar, the impure with the pure, and,
ultimately, the Sethian with the Osirian. So too, sea salt and rock
salt.
The deeper implications of the Typhonian nature of seawater emerge in the Greek Magical Papyri
where the Egyptian deity Seth-Typhon is found taking on many of the
epithets typically accorded by the Greeks to Poseidon: ‘mover of the
seas great depths’; ‘boiler of waves’; ‘shaker of rocks’; ‘wall
trembler’, etc.—all intimating the vast, destructive powers deriving
from the ocean’s primal depths. This numinous power must be understood
as the potency underpinning the materia magica prescribed in
the invocations to Seth-Typhon, where, among other things, one finds the
presence of seashells or seawater in Typhonian rituals. One does
not have to look far before one realises that magic employing shells
from the salt-sea forms part of a wider genre within the magical
papyri—spells that have the explicit aim of effecting intense sexual
attraction. The role of Typhon in such spells is clear: he is invoked to
effect an affinity so strong that the person upon whom this agonistic
and erotic magic is used will suffer psychophysical punishments (e.g.
insomnia: ‘give her the punishments’; ‘bitter and pressing necessity’,
etc.) until their desire for the magician is physically consummated.
Interestingly, the premiere substance sympathetic to
Seth-Typhon was iron: the metal most drastically corrupted by salt.
Moreover, iron and salt-water are the primary constituents of human
blood, a microcosmic recapitulation of the primordial salt ocean
(mythologically conceived: the cosmogonic waters; evolutionarily
conceived: the marine origin of species). Blood is the symbol par excellence
for intense passion, and its two poles are love and war, a fact which
precisely explains Seth-Typhon’s overwhelming functions in the magical
papyri: eros and enmity. Again, it is no surprise that intense sexual
attraction (desire, affinity, union) and intense hatred (repulsion,
aversion, separation) evoke Empedocles’ principles of ‘Love and
Strife’—the very functions governing the unification and separation of
the four elements. Moreover, the connection of Seth with redness, blood,
eros, war and the like equates with everything that the Indian sages
placed under the rubric of rajas, the excited passions, which,
as has been seen, are distinctly associated with the stimulating power
of salt. Be that as it may, the same divine energeia fed
and informed the functions of the Greek and Roman war gods, Ares and
Mars, both of whom take the association with iron in the scale of
planetary metals, as did Seth-Typhon among the Egyptians.
Seth is not only connected to salt, but to the power of the bull’s thigh,
the instrument by which the gods are ritually killed and revivified.
Here the connection of Seth to the power of the thigh suggests the
pivotal role played by this god in the quintessentially alchemical
process of death and rebirth, of slaying and nourishment. This theme
will be reiterated more than once in the course of this study, and it
should be pointed out that any deliberations on this myth are intended
as so many historical and phenomenological “circumambulations” around
the deep resonances generated by de Lubicz’s emphasis on the role of the
fixed femoral salt in palingenesis.
A child of metallurgy and the
traditional crafts, alchemy cannot be easily separated from the concrete
aspect of existence any more than it can be separated from the
transcendent. Indeed, both become interfusible, interdependent and
interchangeable. If alchemy appears elusive, it is precisely because it
cuts across categories ordinarily seen as mutually exclusive. For this
reason, alchemy may be better approached not so much as a fixed domain
of activity, but as a nondualprocess. Indeed, its sphere of operation is better comprehended as existing betweendomains, or better yet, as the medium in
which more ‘fixed’ domains proceed. Like the fusible nature of metals,
this medium may be regarded as the ‘substance’ from which fixed forms
‘solidify’, and into which they ‘dissolve’. As such, it is the conditio sine qua non for
transmutation and dissolution, for converting one form into another,
and for dissolving and abrogating the familiar boundaries or borders
between apparently fixed states.
One
explicit example of this is the fact that the key object of the western
alchemical quest itself—the philosopher’s stone or ‘universal medicine’
(the perfecting agent par excellence)— is also, literally, a universal poison. In the Greek alchemical manuscripts, the expression is given as katholikon pharmakon. The word katholikonmeans ‘universal, whole’, while pharmakon,
a very ambiguous word, means not only ‘medicine’, but also ‘poison’,
and ‘magical philtre’. According to the mercurial Jacques Derrida (who
perhaps understood ambivalence better than anyone):
this
‘medicine’, this philter, which acts as both remedy and poison, already
introduces itself into the body of the discourse with all its
ambivalence. This charm, this spellbinding virtue, this power of
fascination, can be—alternately or simultaneously—beneficent or
maleficent’.
‘If the pharmakon is
ambivalent’ continues Derrida, ‘it is because it constitutes the medium
in which opposites are opposed, the movement and the play that links
them among themselves, reverses them or makes one side cross over into
the other (soul/body, good/evil, inside/outside, memory/forgetfulness,
speech/writing, etc.)’ Thus, in conjunction with its ability for transformation, the (universal) pharmakon is also a medium for cosmic enantiodromia.
This
capacity for fluid interweaving between different states of existence
is perhaps most eloquently expressed within alchemical tradition proper
by the seventeenth century Sufi, Muhzin Fayz Kāshānī, who described a
process in which ‘spirits are corporealised and bodies spiritualised’, a
process that, according to Henry Corbin, takes place in an
ontologically real, yet liminal, zone—the mundus imaginalis—which Corbin defined precisely as a juncture between the eternal and the transient, the intelligible and the sensible: the intermonde or intermediary realm par excellence. Importantly,
Corbin’s phraseology is not only drawn from Persian and Arabic mystical
texts (which deeply tinctured the alchemy of the time), it is also
consonant with other, earlier Islamicate alchemical sources, such as
the Kitab Sirr al-Asrar(Latin: Secretum Secretorum), whose Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald
Tablet) famously states: ‘that which is above is like that which is
below, and that which is below is like that which is above, to perform
the miracles of the one thing’. This formula, which is further ascribed to [pseudo] Apollonius of Tyana’s Book of the Secret of Creation, orBook of Causes (Kitāb Sirr al-ḫalīqa, or Kitāb al-῾ilal), bears a still deeper identity to the hieratic art as practiced by the Neoplatonic theurgists. According to Proclus,
the
theurguists established their sacred knowledge after observing that all
things were in all things from the sympathy that exists between all
phenomena and between them and their invisible causes, and being amazed
by that they saw the lowest things in the highest and the highest in the
lowest.
In
the alchemical purview, the ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ aspects of existence
are ultimately reciprocal and interdependent expressions of a deeper,
more inclusive reality. Thus, to separate alchemy into a purely material
and a purely spiritual aspect in a mutually exclusive fashion, without
recognising their fundamental complementarity, is to miss the greater
flux between the volatile and the fixed with which alchemy is almost
invariably concerned. As a hieratic art, the alchemical vision of
reality encompasses all levels of existence within the holarchical monad, and as such engages the
world—including the world of duality, which is subsumed in the greater
whole—as a nondual reality: a simultaneously abstract and concrete
integrum.
In speaking of
alchemy as a nondual process it is important to understand just what is
meant when the term ‘nondual’ is used. The word itself is a formal
translation of the Sanskrit word advaita (a- + dvaita, ‘not dual’), and
is used to indicate an epistemology in which both ‘seer’ and ‘seen’ are
experienced not as separate entities but as a unity, a single act of
being in which both the subject and object of experience become agent
and patient of one divine act. While nondualism forms the basis of three
of the broadest currents in eastern metaphysics (Buddhism, Taoism and
Vedānta), it is also expressed explicitly or implicitly in the western
philosophical canon by figures such as Plotinus, Eckhart, Böhme, Blake,
Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche, Bergson, Whitehead and Bohm, to
name but a few. Despite this, the idea of nondualism has not been
readily understood or accepted in the west, and this is because western
constructions of reality, especially after Decartes and Kant, are based
precisely upon a strict affirmation of mind-matter or subject-object
dualism. At the root of the matter lie two fundamentally different ways
of experiencing the world. One is the ‘everyday’ experience available to
everyone; the other proceeds from a metaphysical experience
theoretically available to, but not necessarily attained by, everyone.
Although dualism and nondualism describe two different experiences of
the world, it is not simply a recapitulation of the materialist-idealist
divide (which is simply another dualism). As David Loy remarks:
none
of these three [Buddhism, Taoism, Vedānta] denies the dualistic
‘relative’ world that we are familiar with and presuppose as ‘common
sense’: the world as a collection of discrete objects, interacting
causally in space and time. Their claim is rather than there is another,
nondual way of experiencing the world, and that this other mode of
experience is actually more veridical and superior to the dualistic mode
we usually take for granted. The difference between such nondualistic
approaches and the contemporary Western one (which, given its global
influence, can hardly be labelled Western any more) is that the latter
has constructed its metaphysics on the basis of dualistic experience
only, whereas the former acknowledges the deep significance of nondual
experience by constructing its metaphysical categories according to what
it reveals.
What
is proposed, therefore, is to begin to understand certain forms of
alchemy as an expression of a nondual experience of (and engagement
with) the world, not only with regard to the dualities of spirit and
matter, but also their corollaries: subjective experience and objective
experiment. As Prussian poet and Kulturphilosoph Jean Gebser
observes with regard to the structures of consciousness that underpin
entire modalities of civilisation, nondualistic or aperspectival
epistemologies do not exclude but integrate more perspectivally-bound epistemologies within a diaphanous whole. [ What
this means is that apparent dualities are not ultimate; rather, they
are relative expressions of a deeper reality that is ultimately free
from the limitations of dualism and opposition. It means that one can
see all things in the ‘ultimate’ reality, and reciprocally, the
‘ultimate’ reality in all things. It is to see, with Blake, ‘a World in a
Grain of Sand’ and ‘Eternity in an hour’. According
to this view, one eventually fails to distinguish between the ultimate
and the relative in a rigidly dualistic way, abandoning the attribution
of any inherent ontological primacy to one or the other. Because there
is no longer any essential contradiction or opposition
perceived to exist between them, so-called ‘material’ and ‘spiritual’
realities become co-present, interdependent expressions of a deeper,
‘existentiating’ field of being. What
is more, according to the ancient epistemology ‘like knows like’, the
nondual, aperspectival or integral nature of reality, in both its
relative and ultimate expressions, can only be known by the nondual,
aperspectival or integralconsciousness. It is in this sense that alchemy, in its more profound sense, necessitates a metaphysics of perception.
Quite apart from common table salt, or any other purely chemical salt
for that matter, the medieval alchemists refer to the ‘Salt of the
Philosophers’ or ‘Salt of the Sages’ (Sal Sapientie). One thing
that distinguishes what is often designated as “our Salt”—i.e.
“philosophical salt”—from common chemical salts is the fact that it is
seen to possess the ability to preserve not plants but metals. Basil Valentine, in Key IV of his Zwölf Schlüssel, states:
Just
as salt is the great preserver of all things and protects them from
putrefaction, so too is the salt of our magistry a protector of metals
from annihilation and corruption. However, if their balsam—their
embodied saline spirit (eingeleibter Salz-Geist)—were to die,
withering away from nature like a body which perishes and is no longer
fruitful, then the spirit of metals will depart, leaving through natural
death an empty, dead husk from which no life can ever rise again.
Once
again, through its dual nature—preserving and corrupting—a fundamental
ambivalence adheres to the reality embodied in salt. And yet, the key to
salt resides in its ultimately integrating function. It is the clavis which
binds and unbinds, preserves and corrupts. It itself does not undergo
the process which it enacts, embodies or disembodies. Importantly,
however, as one learns from Schwaller, salt acts as the permanent
mineral “memory” of this eternal process of generation and corruption.
Perhaps
the most interesting and influential synthesis of esoteric theological
and cosmological ideas on salt are those that crystallise in the
tradition of Jacob Boehme, where salt emerges as a spiritual-material
integrum central to a trinitarian theosophia. Here one learns that earthly or material salt recapitulates a heavenly potency called by Boehme salliter; this heavenly salt is an explosive force of light and fire likened to gunpowder (sal-nitre,
cf. Paracelsus’ ‘terrestrial lightning’). For Boehme, this
heavenly and earthly salt are indicated by the two “halves” of the
conventional salt symbol, which resemble two hemispheres, one turned
upon the other (one “giving” and the other “receiving”). These theories
reach a magnificent depth of expression in Georg von Welling’s Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum et Theosophicum
(1721). Welling (1655–1727), an alchemist for whom the books of
theology and nature were thoroughly complementary, worked as a director
of mining in the town of Baden-Durlach (a position that allowed him to
explore his extensive knowledge and passion for both the practicalities
and the mysteries of geology). His monumental Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum explores
how the rich relationship of salt as fire/air/sulphur on one hand, and
water/earth/mercury on the other, is played out in all its intricacies
to convey the mysterious dynamic of the fire-water juncture embodied in
heavenly and earthly salt (Welling uses the Hebrew term for heaven, schemajim, literally,
‘fire-water’ alongside the superimposed alchemical triangles of fire
and water to form the Star of David). In his initial chapters, Welling
describes the common symbol of salt as a ‘cubical’ figure and thus the
figure of an ‘earthly body’; ‘its form is diaphanous or transparent,
like glass’; it is ‘malleable and fluid and all bodies penetrate it with
ease’. ‘Its taste is sour or acidic and a little astringent’; it is of a
‘desiccating nature and character’; moreover, it is ‘cooling’ and yet
‘in its interior there is a natural or genuine fire’.
As
Magee has demonstrated, hermetic influences in general, and Paracelsian
and Boehmian ideas in particular, fed into and informed the work of G.
W. F. Hegel. ‘According to an ancient and general opinion’, writes
Hegel, ‘each body consists of four elements. In more recent times,
Paracelsus has regarded them as being composed of mercury or fluidity,
sulphur or oil, and salt, which Jacob Böhme called the great triad’. To
this, Hegel adds: ‘It should not be overlooked […] that in their essence
they contain and express the determinations of the Concept’. According
to Magee, this admission is highly significant, for Hegel is saying that
‘if the alchemical language of Paracelsus, Böhme, and others is
considered in a nonliteral way, its inner content is, in essence,
identical to his system’ (i.e. the ‘determinations of the Concept’).
Interestingly, despite Boehme’s known influence on mainstream
academic philosophers such as Schelling and Hegel, it is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra that
emerges from the modern German academic tradition with the most abiding
insights into the phenomenon of salt. Curiously, although it possesses
no apparent connections to esoteric or alchemical discourse, Zarathustra as
a whole is nevertheless pervaded with a pronounced Hermetic ambiance;
somehow, Nietzsche’s remarks on salt penetrate right to the heart of its
mysterium. At the end of book three, Zarathustra not only speaks of
salt as binding opposites, but also connects this to a desire for
eternity which cannot be satisfied through simple procreation:
If ever I drunk a full draught from that vessel of foaming spice, in which all things are well-blent: If ever my hand fused the nearest to the farthest, fire to spirit, desire to suffering and the worst to the best: If I myself were a grain of that redeeming salt that makes all things in the vessel well-blent:— —for there is a salt that binds good with evil; for even the most evil is worthy to be a spice for the final over-foaming— O how should I not be rutting after eternity and after the conjugal ring of rings—the ring of recurrence! Never have I found the woman by whom I wanted children, for it would be this woman that I love: for I love you, O Eternity! For I love you, O eternity!
Salt
as the redeeming juncture of opposites is framed by Nietzsche in terms
that evoke the themes of autonomous morality expressed in his Jenseits von Gut und Bösen.
Running deeper, however, is the surprising link that Nietzsche makes
between salt and a desire for eternity that cannot be met through
procreation; here one recognises not only the Indo-European ‘path of the
fathers’ versus the ‘path of the gods’, but also the two paths in
alchemy known as la voie humide and la voie sèche—the wet and the dry ways. Nietzsche taps directly into the crux of the human œuvre.
Genetic continuity, i.e. continuity of and through the species, does
not satisfy the soul’s desire for eternity; only the desire that is
fixed in the salt, deep in the bones, has the capacity to survive
biological generation and corruption. Nietzsche’s love for eternity
expresses the same reality that Schwaller articulated in terms of the
saline nucleus in the femur: the path of eternity, palingenesis and resurrection, hinges not on the chromosomes but upon a fixed mineral salt.
Unity manifests itself as Trinity. It is the
“creatrix” of form, but still not form itself; form emerges through
movement, that is, Time and Space. —Schwaller de Lubicz
Schwaller’s understanding of the tria prima
as the creatrix of form is essentially consonant with the trinitarian
conceptions of Egyptian (and later Pythagorean) cosmogonic theology.
Here, the creator’s divine hypostases—Hu, Sia and Heka—manifest as the
extra- or hyper-cosmic forces that exist before creation; they are the forces necessary to the establishment of creation rather than creation per se.
This may be compared to the identical conception that emerges in
Iamblichean theurgy, which distinguishes between hypercosmic and
encosmic divinities, or the same essential principles as carried through
into the trinitarian theology of Eastern Orthodoxy, which distinguishes
between uncreated and created energies. Beyond these general point of
orientation, Schwaller’s hermetic metaphysics accorded the tria prima some very specific characteristics:
The
Trinity, that is to say the Three Principles, is the basis of all
reasoning, and this is why in the whole “series of genesis” it is
necessary to have all [three] to establish the foundational Triad that
will be[come] the particular Triad. It includes first of all an abstract
or nourishing datum, secondly a datum of measure, rhythmisation and
fixation, and finally, a datum which is concrete or fixed like seed.
This is what the hermetic philosophers have transcribed, concretely and
symbolically, by Mercury, Sulphur and Salt, playing on the metallic
appearance in which metallic Mercury plays the role of nutritive
substance, Sulphur the coagulant of this Mercury, and Salt the fixed
product of this function. In general, everything in nature, being a
formed Species, will be Salt. Everything that coagulates a nourishing
substance will be Sulphur or of the nature of Sulphur, from the
chromosome to the curdling of milk. Everything that is coagulable will
be Mercury, whatever its form.
The image of coagulation—with
Sulphur as the coagulating agent, Mercury as the coagulated substance,
and Salt as the resulting form—is used repeatedly by Schwaller. The
formal articulation of this idea, as published in his mature œuvre, connects the motif to the embryological process:
In
biology, the great mystery is the existence, in all living beings, of
albumin or albuminoid (proteinaceous) matter. One of the albuminoid
substances is coagulable by heat (the white of the egg is of this type),
another is not. The albuminoid substance carrying the spermatozoa is of
this latter type. The albuminoid sperm cannot be coagulated because it
carries the spermatozoa that coagulate the albuminoid substance of the
female ovum. As soon as one spermatozoon has penetrated the ovum, this
ovum coagulates on its surface, thus preventing any further penetration:
fertilisation has occurred. (In reality, this impenetrability is not
caused by a material obstacle, the solid shell, but by the fact that the
two equal energetic polarities repel one another). The spermatozoon
therefore plays the role of a “vital coagulating fire” just as common
fire coagulates the feminine albumin. This is the action of a
masculine fire in a cold, passive, feminine environment. Here also,
there are always material carriers for these energies, but they manifest
the existence of an energy with an active male aspect and a passive
female aspect that undergoes or submits to it. Ordinary fire brutally
coagulates the white of an egg, but the spermatozoon coagulates it
gently by specifying it into the embryo of its species. This image shows
that the potentiality of the seed passes to a defined effect through
the coagulation of a passive substance, similar to the action of an acid
liquid in an alkaline liquid, which forms a specified salt. Now the
sperm is no more acid than the male albumin, but it plays in the animal
kingdom [animalement] the same role as acid; ordinary fire is
neither male nor acid and yet it has a type of male and acid action.
This and other considerations incline the philosopher to speak of an
Activity that is positive, acid and coagulating, without material
carrier, and of a Passivity, a substance that is negative, alkaline, and
coagulable, also without material carrier. From their interaction
results the initial, not-yet-specified coagulation, the threefold Unity, which is also called the “Creative Logos” (Word, Verbe) because the Logos, as speech, only signifies the name, that is, the definition of the “specificity” of things.
To
salt as the mean term between the agent and patient of coagulation, he
occasionally adds other revealing expressions, such as the following:
In geometry, in a triangle, the given line is Mercury, the Angles are Sulphur, and the resultant triangle is Salt.
Whereas here, Schwaller identifies Salt with a ‘datum’ or ‘given’ which is ‘fixed like seed’ (une donnée concrète ou fixée comme semence), elsewhere he identifies the active, sulphuric function with that of the seed (semence).
What this means is that the neutral saline product, once formed, then
acts in the sulphuric capacity of a seed and ferment, but also
foundation:
It can only be a matter of an
active Fire, that is, of a seminal “intensity”, like the “fire” of
pepper, for example, or better: the “fire” of either an organic or a
catalysing ferment. The character of all the ferments, i.e. the seeds,
is to determine into Time and Space a form of nourishment—in principle
without form; clearly, therefore, it plays a coagulating role. The
coagulation of all “bloods” is precisely their fixation into the form of
the species of the coagulating seed, the coagulation being, as in other
cases, a transformation of an aquatic element into a terrestrial or
solid element, without desiccation and without addition or diminution of
the component parts.
In the identification of both sulphur and salt as semence,
one discerns a specific coherence of opposites that, in elemental
terms, is described by the expression ‘Fire of the Earth’. The salt is
described in the passage quoted above as a seed (semence). This seed “becomes” seed again through the process of tree and fruit (growth, ferment, coagulation). It is at once a beginning and a finality (prima and ultima materia).
The reality described is non-dual. Beginning and end partake of
something that is not describable by an exclusively linear causality;
and yet it is seen to “grow” or “develop” along a definite “line” or
“path” of cause and effect; at the same time it partakes of a cyclic or
self-returning character; and yet, for Schwaller, it is not the circle
but the spherical spiral that provides the true image of its
reality: a vision which encompasses a punctillar centre, a process of
cyclic departure and return from this centre (oscillation), as well as
linear “development”, all of which are merely partial descriptors of a
more encompassing, and yet more mysterious, reality-process. The
fundamental coherence of this vision to the Bewußtwerdungsphänomenologie of
Jean Gebser (1905–1973) consolidates the significance of Schwaller’s
perception for the ontology of the primordial unity which is at once
duality and trinity. For Gebser, consciousness manifests through
point-like (vital-magical), polar-cyclic (mythic-psychological) and
rectilinear (mental-rational) ontologies, each being a visible
crystallisation of the ever-present, invisible and originary ontology
which unfolds itself not according to exclusively unitary, cyclic or
linear modalities of time and space, but according to its own innate
integrum.
Thus there is no contradiction in finding the presence
of fiery sulphur in the desiccating dryness of the salt, for it is
precisely in the one substance that the sulphuric seed (active function)
and saline seed (fixed kernel) cohere. The fixed, concrete seed-form
(itself a coagulation of mercury by sulphur) contains the active
sulphuric functions (the coagulating rhythms) which it will impose upon
the nutritive mercurial substance (unformed matter). ‘One nature’, as a
Graeco-Egyptian alchemical formula puts it, ‘acts upon itself’.
Images are from the Tarot deck designed by de Lubicz himself.
Among
the various perspectives that have been surveyed on the nature and the
principles inherent to salt, it is perhaps the Pythagorean
statement—‘salt is born from the purest sources, the sun and the
sea’—that pertains most directly to the deeper meaning of Schwaller’s
hermetic phenomenology. Salt for Schwaller was placed in a septennial
relationship comprising the tria prima and the four elements.
Elementally, salt was situated by Schwaller at the end of a progression
beginning with fire and air and ending in water and earth. Fire and air
form a triad with sulphur; air and water form a triad with mercury;
water and earth form a triad with salt. But salt was also understood to
join the end of this progression to a new beginning, to a new
fire/sulphur, exactly as the octave recapitulates the primordial tonos in
musical harmony. For Schwaller, it was precisely this ‘juncture of
abstract and concrete’ (fire and earth) that was identified with the
formation of the philosopher’s stone (or at least the key to the formation of the philosopher’s stone):
Relationship between Tria Prima
and Tetrastoicheia. Trinity (Sulphur-Mercury-Salt) begets quaternary
(Fire-Air-Water-Earth). The juncture of Fire and Earth (abstract and
concrete) is the means by which the end of the series is linked to its
beginning. Diagram after Schwaller and VandenBroeck.
In
this configuration (which prefigures the discussion of de Lubicz’s
colour theory undertaken elsewhere), one begin to see the hermetic
“problem” of salt, i.e. its mysterium. Salt partakes of something that
stands between water and fire (Pythagoras’ ‘purest sources’) in a way
that is intimately related to earth, to which it imparts its dryness.
Here one finds an imbroglio that suggests at once an element and a
principle. Its connection to fire is felt in the hermetic associations
of the elements (the sulphuric triad, fire and air, is characterised by
heat; the mercurial triad, air and water, is characterised by humidity
or wetness, while the saline triad, water and earth, is characterised by
coldness; however, it salt’s dryness—its desiccating quality—can only come from fire. Visser’s remarks, once again, prove cogent and penetrating:
Salt,
once isolated, is white and glittering. It is the opposite of wet. You
win it by freeing it from water with the help of fire and the sun, and
it dries out flesh. Eating salt causes thirst. Dryness, in the
pre-Socratic cosmic system which still informs our imagery, is always
connected with fire, heat, and light.
Thus, inherent to salt
is an equal participation in fire, sulphur and heat (+) and water,
mercury, and wetness (–), such that it may be analogised with a chemical
neutralisation reaction in which the positive and negative values
become electrically equalised. This neutral condition is for Schwaller
the very ground of being in which we are existentially and
phenomenologically situated (‘everything in nature, being a formed
Species, will be Salt’). Thus, to see existence—reality as we know it—as
a neutralisation reaction between an active sulphuric function (divinity, logos, eidos) and passive mercurial substance (prima materia),
to perceive the coagulating sulphur and the nourishing mercury through
the “cinnabar” of all things, this is to “find” the philosopher’s stone.
It is fundamentally, for Schwaller, a metaphysics of perception.
Philosophical
Astrology consists of the links between philosophy and astrology, from
the mysticism of ancient religions and cultures based in part on
astrology to the mathematics common to both astrology, numerology and
Sacred Geometry, and to the curious aspects of astrological Symbolism which have profound philosophical implications.
The Ha QabalaandTree of Life,
for example, are fundamental to Jewish, Christian, and a host of other
ancient, medieval, and modern mystical traditions and/or mystery
schools. Together with Numerology and the Tarot, Astrology describes and identifies the characteristics of the many pathways between the Sephiroth in the Tree of Life. Everything
from the “dark night of the soul” (usually referred to as the 32nd
path) to all the varied manifestations of processes contained within the
Tree come within the purview of the so-called occult arts. Astrology provides one tool for identifying the meaning of the multiple transformations and transitions of life, all a part of The Fool’s Journey – the latter one of the better examples of a philosophy of living.
Astrology’s connection to the Tree of Lifecan also be seen in such things as the Tree’s column of severity, which is represented by the astrological planets: Uranus, Saturn and Mars. Uranus is revolutionary and sudden change, Saturn, limitation and boundaries, and Mars, aggressiveness and war). Meanwhile the Tree’s column of mercy is composed of Neptune, Jupiter and Venus (illusion and fantasy, benevolence and generosity, love and romance). In
essence, the attributes of the Sephiroth reflect what we know of the
astrology of the applicable planet being assigned to the Tree of Life. Saturn,
for example, is about government, citizen responsibilities, societal
rules, boundaries and limits; while the Sephiroth corresponding to
Saturn – Geburah – is about severity and strength, justice, strife,
loss in pleasure, and earthly trouble. Clearly a good definition of earthly trouble can be found in such government troubles as the IRS, FBI, CIA, DOD, ETC! Other
examples include the Sephiroth, Yesod (foundation), which is amply
personified by Mercury (communications, analysis, thinking, and so
forth).
Astrology shows up elsewhere in the cultural and philosophical traditions of everything from
ancient Egypt – where an astrology very similar to modern day
astrology is carved into the Temple of Denderra – to ancient Babylonia
– where Berossus predicted and wielded an astrology sufficient to grab
anyone’s attention. Astrology was
also a primary tool of Nostradamus (1503-1566 A.D.), who used astrology
as the basis for the timing of his many prophecies (many of which
profoundly affected royalty and influential leaders and whose validity
could thus be determined).
On a yet more fundamental level, astrology is based upon Sacred Geometry, which is in turn based on the Golden Mean (represented by the Greek letter, phi). Philosophy
can be written: phi-lo-sophia – wherein sophia (sophy) is “the study,
wisdom, or knowledge”, lo, “the amazing sight” (as in “lo and behold”),
and phi… just phi. Thus philosophy is “the study, wisdom, or knowledge” of “the amazing sight” of… phi! Sacred Geometry may then be said to connect astrology and philosophy. The latter can be said to be wholly within the purview of Sacred Mathematics, i.e. the universe is based on numbers. This
is not a definition of philosophy that many philosophers would accept,
but this is probably due only to their lack of mathematical acuity.
A philosophy of astrology, per se, is less obvious, but can be described by alluding to what are known as “Sabian Symbols.” These
symbols, according to Dane Rudhyar, “take events from the realm of
the fortuitous, the unprecedented, the unique and the incomprehensible
to the realm of ‘universals’.” “Expressed through symbols, life becomes condensed into a relatively few interrelated units of experience. Each unit is a concentrate of the experiences of millions of people.” Symbols
use “an imagery that is close to the foundations of the natural life –
and these foundations are still very real and active in the immense
majority of human beings.” The
Tree of Life, for example, is replete with symbols, and it is those
symbols which constitute its meaning – even when discussion and mere
words prove to be wholly inadequate.
The history of astrology’s Sabian Symbols is critical to their understanding. It
began in 1925, when Marc Edmund Jones (an astrologer) approached Elsie
Wheeler (a clairvoyant medium, who happened to be crippled by
arthritis). Jones had a novel idea. He
provided a deck of 360 cards, each card representing one degree of the
Zodiacal circle (and identified, for example, as one degree Aries, ten
degrees Scorpio, and so forth). In
Miss Wheeler’s presence, Jones shuffled the deck (and reshuffled many
times during the process), and then began pulling one card at random –
without his or her seeing what the card was. Miss Wheeler responded by describing what she saw. Apparently,
a scene flashed in her inner vision, which she quickly described, and
which Jones made a brief pen notation on the card of what she said. Not
only was the procedure entirely aleatory as far as the normal
consciousness of the two participants was concerned, but the amazing
thing was that the 360 symbols were obtained during a few hours in the
morning, and later in a few hours during the afternoon – at a rate of
roughly one symbol every ninety seconds.
What made the resulting Sabian Symbols
so incredible is that while the two individuals had proceeded at
fantastic speed and had operated purely at random, the result was a
series which, when carefully studied, yielded a definite and complex
internal structure. The entire 360 cards matched with one another in geometrical pattern. Dane
Rudhyar, for example, found that the symbols formed, among other
possibilities, a pentagonal five-step process – much in accord with
Sacred Geometry. Apparently, there was some kind of Consciousness at work. For
the symbols were not only operating at both an existential and
archetypal-structural level, but they could be considered as “phases of a cyclic process rather than as isolated images
– that is, when the possible interpretations are considered in the
light of preceding and following phrases in a characteristic five-fold
sequence, and in terms of wider relationships – any ambiguity usually
disappears.”
Possibly
of all the Sabian Symbols, which might garner your attention, is the
symbol for the North Node (aka the “Dragon’s Head”, and which represents
destiny), taken from the chart of 2012 A. D. (i.e. the end of the Mayan Calendar, and potentially the “end of Time as we know it.”) The symbol for this most incredible of all dates is “An X-Ray Photograph.” Rudhyar interpreted this to mean, “The capacity to acquire a knowledge of the structural factors in all existence.” He goes on to say, “The true philosopher is able to grasp and significantly evaluate what underlies all manifestations of life. His
mind’s eye penetrates through the superficialities of existence and
perceives the framework that gives an at least relatively permanent
‘form’ to all organized systems. Thus
if the structure is weak, deformed by persistent strain, or unbalanced,
the basic causes of outer disturbances and dis-ease can be discovered. This
symbol… provides the conscience of the individual who refuses to obey
his society with a depth-understanding of what is wrong in the
situation he faces. Beyond the
powerful feeling quality of ‘peak experiences’, the mind can understand
the great Principles of which they were the manifestations. This is STRUCTURAL KNOWLEDGE in contrast to existential knowledge.”
Interpreted as the end of time as we know it, implies that there may be much to learn in the ultimate “peak experience” of 2012 A.D., a time when Novelty and the TimeWave go to infinity, and the greatest changes of all human experience abruptly manifest! Similarly,
another date – based on the TimeWave theory – is November 11, 2011
(just over 384 days prior to the perceived ending date of roughly
12-21-2012). The Sabian Symbols (and a brief interpretation from Rudhyar) for this critical “beginning of the end” are:
Sun – “A Woman Draws Away Two Dark Curtains Closing the Entrance to a Sacred Pathway – The revelation to the human consciousness of what lies beyond dualistic knowledge. Plunge ahead into the Unknown”
Moon – “A Peacock Parading on a Terrace of an Old Castle – The personal display of inherited gifts. Consumation.”
Mercury & Venus “A Flag turns into an Eagle; the Eagle into a Chanticleer Saluting the Dawn – The spiritualization and promotion of great symbols of a New Age by minds sensitive to its precursory manifestations. (An Eagle is the first living creature to perceive the rising sun.) Annunciation”
Mars – “In a Portrait, the Significant Features of a Man’s Head Are Artistically Emphasized – The capacity to picture to oneself clearly the salient features and the overall meaning of any life situation.
Jupiter – “The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow – Riches that come from linking the celestial and the earthly nature. Communion” [Jupiter always was the Santa Claus of the Zodiac!]
Saturn – “A Butterfly with a Third Wing on its Left Side – The ability to develop, for inner strengthening, new modes of response to basic life situations. Original Mutation”
Chiron – “In a Crowded Marketplace, Farmers and Middlemen Display a Great Variety of Products – The process of commingling and interchange which at all levels demonstrates the health of a community. (…what is stressed is the coming together, in a final experience of community, of all factors previously experienced.) Commerce”
Uranus – “A Woman Just Risen from the Sea. A Seal Is Embracing Her – Emergence of new forms and of the potentiality of consciousness. Impulse to Be”
Neptune – “A Butterfly Emerging from a Chrysalis – The capacity to utterly transform the character of one’s consciousness by radically altering the structural patterns of everyday living and the types of relationships one enters upon. Metamorphosis”
Pluto – “Ten Logs Lie Under an Archway Leading to Darker Woods – The need to complete any undertaking before seeking entrance to whatever is to be found beyond. Threshold”
The more complete interpretation for Pluto is perhaps worth noting. “Number 10 is a symbol of completion; it symbolizes even more the revelation of a new series of activities just ahead. [i.e. Death and Rebirth] Yet
unless the concluded series is brought to some degree of fulfillment,
nothing truly significant is likely to be accomplished by a restless
reaching out toward the as-yet-unknown. Number 10 is a symbol of germination, but the seed (Number 9) must have matured well. No natural process can be accelerated safely beyond certain limits. It establishes a foundation for what will follow.”
It
rather as if we’ll each have about three weeks (November 11, 2011 to
December 3, 2011) to complete all our stuff, toss off all our baggage,
and prime ourselves for the last 384 days of the TimeWave. Or we can begin to do all that shedding, right about now!
The Sabian Symbols are just one aspect of the philosophy of astrology. Determinism and Free Will also play a major role, as does the basics of how anyone interprets the symbolism of astrology. Pictures
– and astrological charts – convey a thousand words, and perhaps more
than most things, demonstrate the limits of language (or rather, why,
perhaps, language is considered a curse during the time of the Kali Yuga). Symbolism, in fact, conjures understandings and emotions far beyond a written sequence of words.
According to Dane Rudhyar, an astrological “birth chart is a person-centered symbol. That is to say, it carries a ‘message’ – the symbolic formulation of the individual’s dharma [destiny]. It suggests how [the individual] can best actualize the innate potentialities of his or her particular and unique selfhood. It is a symbol, a mandala, or logos, a word of power. Astrology, seen from this point of view, is a language of symbols. It implies a process of unfoldment of an idea of feeling-response.” “…a process of unfoldment, as Carl Jung might have said, of ‘individuation’.”
A person’s experiences “basically repeat themselves [Cycles!], even though [the individual] might respond to them differently at each new encounter.” “There are only a certain number of basic meanings
to be gathered by a human being in his or her lifetime, and that these
meanings can be seen in terms of structural and cyclic sequence.” “An
individual, however, acting as an individual and having succeeded in becoming free from collective patterns,
may break through the circle of limitations and tap into a deeper
source of life and consciousness; this indeed is what true occultism is
about.”
Rudhyar goes on to say, “Man should not seek tensely and self-protectively to avoid or control events. Events do not happen to an individual person; he or she happens to them. An individual meets them, and imparts to them his or her own meaning.” “All truly constructive, creative, or redeeming acts are performed through the individual person by a focalization of the whole universe. This is the ‘transpersonal way’ of which I have spoken for many years.” Astrology is thus, in many ways, transpersonal. It is part of the Creating Reality and Intermingled Realities, in which we all have a part.
Astrology can also be used for the most mundane and trivial purposes. But then again, so can all really useful tools in the hands of men and women with limited intentions.
The 4 temperaments are 4 distinct natures of behavior. These temperaments are found in the understandings of humorism, and are one of the oldest personality type systems. It was used in ancient greek medicine, and was first described by Hippocrates a greek physician who is known to be the father of western medicine. These temperaments are a way of looking at the behaviors that different people had based off the amount of these different humors they had in their body. The four humors were blood(Air), yellow bile(Fire), black bile(Earth), and phlegm(Water), these four humors were seen to be 4 physical substances that were present in the body, and were greatly associated with the four elements.
The four temperaments are known as sanguine(Air), choleric(Fire), melancholic(Earth), and phlegmatic(Water), which one you are is determined by which humor you have the most of in your body. Usually people will have a mixture of these temperaments with two of them being the most prevalent, though one of them will be predominant, and the other will be secondary. Most people are going to have mix temperaments, but you are also able to have a pure temperament. A pure temperament is when you have a high extraordinary amount of a single temperament, so much so that you are that temperament word for word. Everybody has different levels of these humor’s in their body, which allows everyone to have a different form of behavior, and nature.
I do not believe in the 4 humor substances as physical forms except for some of their scientific counterparts, but I see them more as philosophical, and spiritual understandings of elemental balances as related to the body. I see the 4 humors as elemental balances of nature that are present on a spiritual, mental, and physical level with the 4 temperaments being manifestations of the humors on the mental level. I see this system as a more esoteric, and occult way of looking at the behavior, and nature of an entity from an elemental perspective.
Sanguine:
The temperament of sanguine is connected to the humor of blood. It is connected to the element of air, and has the 2 qualities of hot, and wet. It is a masculine temperament, and tends to be extroverted.
Sanguines are very sociable, and optimistic. They primarily enjoy having fun, and not taking life too seriously. Sanguines tend to not be able to get along with the people who are not open to there entertaining. They are prone to overindulgence, and pleasure-seeking, and because of this they do engage in thrill-seeking, and more risky behaviors. Sanguines are incredibly charismatic, and are able to form relationships very easily because of this. They seek variety, and entertainment to relieve boredom, and to make their experience interesting. They can be quite competitive with others, and actively enjoy winning. Sanguines are very open with their emotions, even though they can have difficulty with too many thoughts, and feelings coming up at once. They are very conscious about what other people think of them, and like to make good impressions, and to not be thought of as unsuccessful.
Positive traits: Lively, carefree, outgoing, charismatic, entertaining, composed, flexible, adaptable, enthusiastic, active, fun-loving, playful, activity-prone, persuasive, communicative, and social
Negative traits: Lack of deep understanding, nonserious, distractible, disorganized, and naive
Choleric:
The temperament of choleric is connected to the humor of yellow bile. It is connected to the element of fire, and has the 2 qualities of hot and dry. It is a masculine temperament, and tends to be extroverted.
People who are choleric like to be with people who are supportive, and cooperative, and because of the state dislike laziness, and disloyalty. They have many leadership qualities and enjoy leading a group and taking charge. They are extremely practical, and straightforward. They are very social, and seek to contribute to the community. They are very good at forward movement, and can easily and insightfully overcome obstacles in order to accomplish their goals. People that are choleric are good and making decisions for themselves and others. They are also visionaries who have many different dreams, goals, and ideas in which they would like to reach.
The temperament of melancholic is connected to the humor of black bile. It is connected to the element of earth, and has the 2 qualities of cold, and dry. It is a feminine temperament, and tends to be introverted.
People that are melancholic is analytical, detail oriented, and are deep thinkers and feelers. They pay attention to every detail and think over everything. They have compassion for those in need, and have high standards, and ideals. They dislike forgetfulness, tardiness, superficiality and unpredictability. They take life too seriously, and try to plan out every little thing, and enjoy trying to achieve their own subjective perfection. They dislike small talk, and enjoy deep, and meaningful conversations. They are quality oriented. They enjoy their privacy, and use their privacy as a place to think, and to plan out what they are going to do before they do it. They can have anxiety and guilt for the present and future for things that they have done, and are going to do. They spend a lot of time making decisions, and gathering a lot of information to decide what are right courses of action for them to take. They may easily get lost in thought, because of all the information that they are analyzing. They also may ask the same thing multiple times to make sure that they are correct, and what they know. They want reassurance, and feedback a lot of the times to help them make decisions more easily, and to feel justified in what they have done, or not done. They fear being seen as incompetent, and will try to avoid being seen as such.
Negative traits: Pessimistic, perfectionist, conscientious, picky, moody, and sensitive.
Phlegmatic:
The temperament of phlegmatic is connected to the humor of phlegm. It is connected to the element of water, and has the 2 qualities of cold, and wet. It is a feminine temperament, and tends to be introverted.
Phlegmatic people are good at generalizing ideas or problems to the world. They seek interpersonal harmony, and close relationships. They do not like people who are too pushy, and they also avoid conflict in all aspects of their life. They are sympathetic and care about others, yet try to hide their emotions. They are great at making compromises, and are quite logical, and intuitive. They are not very ambitious though they may have things they strive for, and because of this they may lack a sense of urgency. pragmatics are some of the easiest people to get along with, because of their very calm, relaxed, and not imposing nature, unless you ask them to change. They tend to reach for a more calm, and sustainable lifestyle of routine, and people they are close to. They enjoy going with the flow, and allow life to carry them where it needs to. They are possessive of their friendships, and material things. They usually have a couple of close friends, and are very loyal to those close friends. They also tend to be the person who never will break a friendship. They avoid conflict and resist change. Phlegmatics are also great thinkers, and are very practical, and logical.
Positive traits: Meticulous, composed, collected, calm, good team player, practical, logical, easygoing, patient, agreeable, relaxed and peaceful
Negative traits: Lack of enthusiasm, unemotional, indecisiveness, lack of energy, and procrastination
Peter Kingsley has presented convincing evidence that it is better to view
him as an ancient Greek “Divine Man” (Theios
Anêr), that is, a Iatromantis (healer-seer,
“shaman”) and Magos (priest-magician). In his own
time he was viewed as a prophet, healer, magician and savior.
His beliefs and practices were built on ancient mystery
traditions, including the Orphic mysteries, the Pythagorean
philosophy, and the underworld mysteries of Hecate, Demeter,
Persephone and Dionysos. These were influenced by
near-Eastern traditions such as Zoroastrianism and Chaldean
theurgy. Empedocles, in his turn, was a source for the major
streams of Western mysticism and magic, including alchemy,
Graeco-Egyptian magic (such as found in the Greek magical
papyri),
Neo-Platonism, Hermeticism and Gnosticism. The
Tetrasomia, or Doctrine of the Four Elements,
provides a basic framework underlying these and other
spiritual traditions. (See Kingsley’s Ancient Philosophy,
Mystery and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition cited at the end of this article,
for more on the Empedoclean tradition; a review is also available.)
Empedocles used a variety of words for each of the Roots,
and from their range of meanings we can get some idea of his
conception of the Elments. (I capitalize words such as “Earth”
and “Element” to distinguish the magical or spiritual concepts
from the mundane ones.) For Earth he also used words meaning
land, soil and ground. For Water he also used words meaning
rain, sweat, moisture, sea water and open sea. For Air he also
used clear sky, heaven, firmament, brilliance, ray, beam, glance,
eye, splendor, mist and cloud. (This inconsistency between
bright clear sky – aithêr – and misty clouds –
aêr – will be explained when we discuss Air.)
For Fire he also used flame, blaze, lightning, sun, sunlight,
beaming and East.
(See Wright, p. 23, for a table of the Greek
terms.)
Now hear the fourfold Roots of everything:
Enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus,
And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears.
As was common practice with Divine Men, Empedocles gave
his students knowledge in riddles to help develop their abilities,
and this seems to be one of those riddles (ainigmata).
Even in ancient times
there was debate and differing theories about the
correspondence between the Gods and Elements, but Kingsley (Part I) seems to have solved
the riddle, as will be explained later . To avoid undue suspense I will reveal the solution here:
Zeus is Air, Hera is Earth, Hades is Fire and Nestis (Persephone)
is Water.
Empedocles’ equation of the Roots with deities show that he
conceived of the Elements as more than material substances (or
states of matter). It is better to think of them as spiritual
essences (modes of spiritual being), which can manifest
themselves in many ways in the material and spiritual worlds
(they are form rather than content, structure rather than
image). Some of these manifestations will be explored when we
consider the individual Elements; here I will mention a few to
indicate the possibilities.
Most obviously there are the macrocosmic manifestations of
the Elements, for example, the land, the sea, the sky and the
sun. They are also connected with the sublunary spheres:
Heaven, Earth, Abyss (the subterranean water) and Tartaros
(the subterranean fire). There are also microcosmic
manifestations, for example, as components of the human
psyche (mental, astral, etheric and physical bodies), which will
be discussed later.
The Elements also represent the stages in various processes
of growth and transformation (embodied, for example, in the
alchemical Rotation of the Elements), such as the stages in the
Ascent of the Soul in Chaldean Theurgy (Divine Invocation), also discussed later.
Finally, from the standpoint of Jung’s psychology, the Elements (like the Gods) are archetypes; because they are
structures in the collective unconscious, they are universal
(present in all people). As archetypes, they are beyond
complete analysis; they can be “circumscribed but not
described”; ultimately they must be experienced to be
understood. Nevertheless Empedocles and his successors
(especially Aristotle) did much to illuminate the nature of the
Elements and their interrelationships (and I will be leaning on
their discoveries). Since much of the meaning of the Elements
inheres in their interrelationships, I’ll begin with the Elements
in general before turning to Earth specifically.
Aristotle in the century following Empedocles, who based his analysis
on the four Powers (Dunameis) or Qualities, which
were probably first enumerated by Empedocles. This double
pair of opponent Powers, Warm versus Cool and Dry versus
Moist, are the key to a deeper understanding of the Elements.
Like the Elements, they must be understood as spiritual forces
rather than material qualities (warm, cold, dry, moist).
The Powers manifest in as many ways as the Elements. The
Pythagoreans identified one of the most important of these, a
natural progression that can be called the Organic Cycle. The
first phase of growth is Moist: spring rains, pliant green shoots,
rapid growth. The second phase is Warm: summer sun,
flourishing individuality, mature vigor. The third is Dry:
autumn leaves, inflexible stems, stiffening joints. The fourth is
Cool: winter chills, loss of identity, death. This cycle is also the
basis for one form of the alchemical “rotation of the elements,”
from Earth to Water to Air to Fire and back to Earth. Although
the Organic Cycle can be found throughout nature, Aristotle
discovered the deeper essence of the Qualities, which reveals
their spiritual nature, as we’ll explore in detail when we
consider the individual Elements.
see figure).
(It is most common to place the Elements at the corners and
the Powers between them, but it is better to place the Powers at
the corners, since they are absolute, and the Elements between
them, since they are mixtures of the Powers.) The Square
shows that Earth is Dry and Cool, Water is Cool and Moist, Air is
Moist and Warm, Fire is Warm and Dry.
Aristotle further explains that in each Element one Power is
dominant. Therefore Earth is predominantly Dry, Water
predominantly Cool, Air predominantly Moist, and Fire
predominantly Warm. The dominant Power is the one in a
counterclockwise direction from the Element in the Square of
Opposition; thus the arrow by each Element points to its
dominant Power. The vertical axis represents the active
Qualities (Warm, Cool), the horizontal represents the passive
(Moist, Dry). 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. The Organic Cycle (the
cycle of the seasons) goes sunwise around the square.
Unlike the chemical elements, the spiritual Elements can be
transformed into each other, but only in accord with laws
discovered by Aristotle
(see Gill).
Understanding these laws is a prerequisite to transforming
and combining them in their various manifestations. In brief,
one Element can be transformed directly into another only if
they share a common Quality (and are thus adjacent, not
opposed on the Elemental Square). For example, Water is
transformed into Air when the Water is acted on by a larger
quantitiy of Air, since the Water’s Coolness is “overpowered” by
the Air’s Warmth; the common Moist quality is retained through
the transformation. This process is reversible, since Air can be
transformed back into Water by acting upon it with sufficient
Water.
Direct transformation between opposed Elements is
impossible. Thus Water cannot be transformed directly into
Fire, since they have no common Quality to give continuity to
the process, but the Water can be transformed indirectly by
changing it first into Air or Earth. This occurs when the Water
is acted upon by a larger quantity of Fire. We can move around
the Square, but not across it.
Raymon Llull
(c.1229-1315), known as “Doctor Illuminatus,” extended the
Aristotelian analysis by explaining how two Elements can act
upon each other. Whenever we have similar quantities of two
Elements with a common Quality, the Element in which it’s not
dominant is “overcome” or “conquered” by the one in which it is.
For example, when Water combines with Earth, the Earth is
overcome, because they are both Cool, but Coolness dominates
in Water. Therefore, the result will be predominantly Cool, with
an additional Quality of Moistness, which makes it Watery.
Llull’s analysis leads to a Cycle of Triumphs, which is shown by
the arrows on the Elemental Square. Thus Fire overcomes Air,
Air overcomes Water, Water overcomes Earth, and Earth
overcomes Fire. Notice that in each triumph (except the last),
the more subtle Element overcomes the grosser Element.
Aristotle
(see Gill)
also explained a process by which two opposed Elements can
be irreversibly transformed into a third. For example, if Fire
acts on a mixture of Earth and Air, these two opposed Elements
will be transformed into Fire, which takes its Dryness from the
Earth and its Warmth from the Air. The transformation is
irreversible, although some of the Fire could be transformed
back into Earth and, separately, some of the Fire back into Air.
This process cannot be used to transform two adjacent Elements
into a third, for example Fire and Air into Water or Earth. If we
kept the Fire’s Dryness and the Air’s Wetness, we would have
contradictory Qualities; if we kept the Fire’s Warmth and the
Air’s Warmth, the result would be neither Wet nor Dry. In both
cases the result is impossible (either by the law of
noncontradiction or by the law of the excluded middle). (The
other two possible combinations of Qualities yield Air and Fire,
in which case there is no transformation.)
Finally, whenever we have two opposed Elements acting
upon each other, they tend to neutralize, leading to a result that
is weakly one or the other. However, the essence of the
alchemical Great Work is a proper unification of opposed
Elements (especially Fire and Water), a Coniunctio
Oppositorum (Conjunction of Opposites) in which they
form a higher unity, rather than annihilating each other; this
will be discussed when we come to Water and Fire.
Before proceeding to a detailed consideration of the
individual Elements, it will be worthwhile to consider some of
the meaning embodied in the familiar Elemental Signs (as
shown in the figure of the Elemental Square). The triangles
represent the active Power (Warm or Cool) in each Element.
The elemental signs of Earth and Water have in common the
pubic triangle, because these Elements are traditionally
feminine and more passive, since they have in common the
contracting, uniting Cool Power
(see below on Coolness); the
downward triangle also shows these elements are descending
(Water and Earth fall). Conversely Air and Fire have the phallic
triangle, because they are traditionally male and more active,
since they have in common the expanding, separating Warm
Power (discussed with Air); the upward triangle shows these
elements are ascending (Air and Fire rise). Thus the Stoics
associated the analytic, masculine Elements with Word
(Logos) and the synthetic, feminine Elements with
Matter (Hulê). Finally, in the elemental signs
for Air and Earth, the crossbar represents a denser or grosser
(less subtle) form of the Element, as Earth is of Water, and Air
of Fire.
Occult Aspects 