| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: unseen and was just closing the main door behind him, when he met
the janitress.
"Were you looking for anybody in the house?" said the woman,
glancing sharply at the stranger, who answered in a slightly veiled
voice: "No, I made a mistake in the number. The place I am looking
for is two houses further down."
He walked down the street and the woman looked after him until she
saw him turn into the doorway of the second house. Then she went
into her own rooms. The house Muller entered happened to be a
corner house with an entrance on the other street, through which
the detective passed and went on his way. He was quite satisfied
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: of the season, on the Earth and with such practical things
as the growth of vegetation and food, and leading to or
mingled with a vague belief in earth-spirits and magical
methods of influencing such spirits; and the third connecting
religion with man's own body and the tremendous force
of sex residing in it--emblem of undying life and all
fertility and power. It is clear also--and all investigation
confirms it--that the second-mentioned phase of religion
arose on the whole BEFORE the first-mentioned--that is,
that men naturally thought about the very practical questions
of food and vegetation, and the magical or other
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: honourable, but only with opinion about them, and that from opinion comes
persuasion, and not from the truth.
SOCRATES: The words of the wise are not to be set aside; for there is
probably something in them; and therefore the meaning of this saying is not
hastily to be dismissed.
PHAEDRUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: Let us put the matter thus:--Suppose that I persuaded you to buy
a horse and go to the wars. Neither of us knew what a horse was like, but
I knew that you believed a horse to be of tame animals the one which has
the longest ears.
PHAEDRUS: That would be ridiculous.
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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 The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: of it to see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath
bun, and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-
day in Macintoshes and Cording's boots, spearing eels and
sneezing); that, therefore, I say, there being no atmosphere, there
can be no evaporation; and therefore the dew-point can never fall
below 71.5 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit: and, therefore, it
cannot be cold enough there about four o'clock in the morning to
condense the babies' mesenteric apophthegms into their left
ventricles; and, therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough;
and if they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at
all; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon. - Q.E.D.
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