| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: living at the very seat of the Great War knew nothing of it,
though but two centuries had passed since, to our knowledge,
it had been running in the height of its titanic
frightfulness all about them, and to us upon the far side of
the Atlantic still was a subject of keen interest.
Here was a lifelong inhabitant of the Isle of Wight who
never had heard of either Germany or England! I turned to
him quite suddenly with a new question.
"What people live upon the mainland?" I asked, and pointed
in the direction of the Hants coast.
"No one lives there," he replied.
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: that sent us, stumbling and blinded, into a choking retreat.
There was naught to do other than seek a new avenue of
escape. The fire and smoke were to be feared a thousand
times over the water, and so I seized upon the first gallery
which led out of and up from the suffocating smoke that
was engulfing us.
Again I stood to one side while the soldiers hastened through
on the new way. Some two thousand must have passed at a rapid run,
when the stream ceased, but I was not sure that all had been rescued
who had not passed the point of origin of the flames, and so to assure
myself that no poor devil was left behind to die a horrible death,
The Gods of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: into your head that it would be a good thing to kill Pericles, your kinsman
and guardian, and were to seize a sword and, going to the doors of his
house, were to enquire if he were at home, meaning to slay only him and no
one else:--the servants reply, 'Yes': (Mind, I do not mean that you would
really do such a thing; but there is nothing, you think, to prevent a man
who is ignorant of the best, having occasionally the whim that what is
worst is best?
ALCIBIADES: No.)
SOCRATES:--If, then, you went indoors, and seeing him, did not know him,
but thought that he was some one else, would you venture to slay him?
ALCIBIADES: Most decidedly not (it seems to me). (These words are omitted
|
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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: other attains to Him and trembles. The union effected between the
Spirit of Love and the Spirit of Wisdom carries the human being into a
Divine state during which time his soul is WOMAN and his body MAN, the
last human manifestation in which the Spirit conquers Form, or Form
still struggles against the Spirit,--for Form, that is, the flesh, is
ignorant, rebels, and desires to continue gross. This supreme trial
creates untold sufferings seen by Heaven alone,--the agony of Christ
in the Garden of Olives.
"After death the first heaven opens to this dual and purified human
nature. Therefore it is that man dies in despair while the Spirit dies
in ecstasy. Thus, the NATURAL, the state of beings not yet
Seraphita |
