| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: in a stream of cryptic lore which, somehow, coming to my notice
during the amnesic period, had evoked vivid images in my subconscious
mind.
But how could I explain the exact and minute fashion in
which each line and spiral of these strange designs tallied with
what I had dreamed for more than a score of years? What obscure,
forgotten iconography could have reproduced each subtle shading
and nuance which so persistently, exactly, and unvaryingly besieged
my sleeping vision night after night?
For this was no chance
or remote resemblance. Definitely and absolutely, the millennially
Shadow out of Time |
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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: matter fills all space, or at least all space to which gravitation
extends; for gravitation is a property of matter dependent on a
certain force, and it is this force which constitutes the matter.
In that view matter is not merely mutually penetrable;[1] but each
atom extends, so to say, throughout the whole of the solar system,
yet always retaining its own centre of force.'
It is the operation of a mind filled with thoughts of this profound,
strange, and subtle character that we have to take into account in
dealing with Faraday's later researches. A similar cast of thought
pervades a letter addressed by Faraday to Mr. Richard Phillips,
and published in the 'Philosophical Magazine' for May, 1846. It is
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