June 25, 2008
-
Philosophers' Stone:
"The Renaissance
thinkers liked to
organize the four elements using
a
chain of analogies running
from light to heavy:
fire : air :: air : water :: water : earth
They also organized them
in a diamond, like
this:"
This figure of Baez
is related to a saying
attributed to Heraclitus:
For related thoughts by Jung,
see Aion, which contains the
following diagram:
"The formula reproduces exactly the essential features of the symbolic
process of transformation. It shows the rotation of the mandala, the
antithetical play of complementary (or compensatory) processes, then the
apocatastasis, i.e., the restoration of an original state of wholeness, which
the alchemists expressed through the symbol of the uroboros, and finally the
formula repeats the ancient alchemical tetrameria, which is implicit in the
fourfold structure of unity."-- Carl Gustav Jung
That the words Maximus of Tyre (second century A.D.) attributed to Heraclitus imply a cycle of the elements (analogous to the rotation in Jung's diagram) is not a new concept. For further details, see "The Rotation of the Elements," a 1995 webpage by one "John Opsopaus."
Related material:
Log24 entries of June 9, 2008, and
"Quintessence: A Glass Bead Game,"
by Charles Cameron.
