| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: Resuming his flight he presently came to the gulf of Laou Tong, whose
fair face was freckled with many ships of many nations, and so on to
Korea, which seemed to him a land fully a century behind the times.
Night overtook him while speeding across the Sea of Japan, and having
a great desire to view the Mikado's famous islands, he put the
indicator at zero, and, coming to a full stop, composed himself to
sleep until morning, that he might run no chances of being carried
beyond his knowledge during the night.
You might suppose it no easy task to sleep suspended in mid-air, yet
the magnetic currents controlled by the traveling machine were so
evenly balanced that Rob was fully as comfortable as if reposing upon
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: with the Eucharist when he says, 1 Cor.11,27: Whosoever shall
eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. When,
therefore our priests were admonished concerning this sin,
Private Masses were discontinued among us, as scarcely any
Private Masses were celebrated except for lucre's sake.
Neither were the bishops ignorant of these abuses, and if they
had corrected them in time, there would now be less
dissension. Heretofore, by their own connivance, they suffered
many corruptions to creep into the Church. Now, when it is too
late, they begin to complain of the troubles of the Church,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: inexhaustible joy that derided sorrow? Think of the poor Dark Lady
having to stand up to this unbearable power of extracting a grim fun
from everything. Mr Harris writes as if Shakespear did all the
suffering and the Dark Lady all the cruelty. But why does he not put
himself in the Dark Lady's place for a moment as he has put himself so
successfully in Shakespear's? Imagine her reading the hundred and
thirtieth sonnet!
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wire, black wires grow on her head;
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: protect the already existing child life upon which its very
perpetuation depends, takes upon itself the reckless encouragement of
indiscriminate procreation. The United States Government has recently
inaugurated a policy of restricting immigration from foreign
countries. Until it is able to protect childhood from criminal
exploitation, until it has made possible a reasonable hope of life,
liberty and growth for American children, it should likewise recognize
the wisdom of voluntary restriction in the production of children.
Reports on child labor published by the National Child Labor Committee
only incidentally reveal the correlation of this evil with that of
large families. Yet this is evident throughout. The investigators
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