Alchemical elements

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Alchemical elements are components of the universe, expressed in their Aristotelian forms by alchemists as Fire, Earth, Air and Water.^[1] The elements represent physical substances and a larger consideration within philosophical alchemy.

Elements of philosophical alchemy

In philosophical alchemy the four elements become abstractions of their type. The name "elemental" means or implies irreducibility, and this set of Elements are therefore a kind of building block out of which more complex components are formed.

The first clue as to their Philosophical Alchemical use comes from their inclusion in astrological symbology, where there are three of each element in the twelve basic astrological sign. For example, Fire Cardinal, Fire Fixed, and Fire Mutable form the signs Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, with the attributes of a combination of the pair. The second term, called astrological qualities, are likewise repeated across the matrix of four elements. Thus there is a primitive (though not in the derogatory sense) kind of psychology made out of irreducible variables.

The fundamental understanding of philosophical alchemy is that everything must be composed of higher and different kinds of abstractions from building blocks like these. In fact these building blocks in part. This is similar to the general law of discovery called Occham's Razor. The specifics center the Elements as they appear here not with physical material, but with principles that might be centered about Newtonian Physics, with the establishment of "fundaments of nature" that are constants at this level, but variables elsewhere in a very simple "Mathematics of the Creation." Those constants are well known and established: Force and Counter-force, Inertia and Potential. Those are the abstractions of (in order) fire, water, earth, and air. Thus there are logical dynamics of pairs already in these four basic elements.

This logic was established primarily by Pietre Ouspensky, a mathematician and investigator in early part of the 20th century, whose second treatice, A New Model of the Universe, established a logical and mathematical commonality, matrix, or link between similarly esoteric and occultic or supernatural or philosophical | early psychological systems, from the symbology of astrology, that of the Tarot, and the practice of Kabbalah (or Gematria), not to mention magic.

See also

• Classical element
• Five elements (Chinese philosophy)
• Five elements (Japanese philosophy)

References