Hi Matt,
There is a fairly good overview of this sort of elemental theory in
Tyson's edition of the Three Books of Occult Philosophy (appendix III).
In this he goes over both Aristotle's and Ocellus' quite similar
thoughts on the matter. Its relatively in depth for an appendix and you
might want to give it a look over.
It might also be useful to point out that the GD, when conjoined with
the RR et AC, used at least three different elemental systems, one
according to the four winds, on according to the attributes given to the
lower sefirot and an astrological one using the cardinal signs, which is
found in the hexagram rituals.
peace
-jeffrey
Matt Habermehl wrote:
> Thanks Jeremy,
>
> I've heard this idea before too, and I wonder about it. Most
> specifically, I wonder about relating the qualities of hot, cold,
> moist and dry to fire, earth, water and air respectively.
> I'm about to plunge into more research to confirm this, but I believe
> that - at least in Aristotle - the dominant qualities of the elements
> were as follows:
> Earth - Dry
> Water - Cool
> Air - Moist
> Fire - Warm
>
> I realize that this is a counter-intuitive arrangement, but it works
> excellently in the elemental square of opposition.
> Water is cool and moist
> Earth is dry and cool
> Fire is warm and dry
> Air is moist and warm
>
> If the primary qualities of the elements were as Ptolemy's winds:
> Earth - Cool
> Water - Moist
> Air - Dry (?)
> Fire - Warm
>
> Then no matter what the secondary quality was for each element, Air
> would still need to be a dry element.
> This, unfortunately, conflicts with the GD's first knowledge lecture,
> which lists the elements with their standard qualities, and Air as
> "Heat and Moisture". Now, you did point out that Air was a special
> case, so there may be a complication here that I'm not aware of...
>
> But if the Aristotelian primary qualities are assigned to Ptolemy's
> winds, we would have:
> Water = North
> Air = West
> Fire = South
> Earth = East
>
> Anyways, this is the mystery I'm looking to solve by finding out the
> origins of the GD system. Thanks for your input!!!
>
> All the best,
> Matt
>
>
>
> On 26-Jun-06, at 2:03 PM, Jeremy Glick wrote:
>>
>> On Jun 26, 2006, at 7:56 AM, Matt Habermehl wrote:
>>> Does anyone know of any sources that discuss the rationale or the
>>> history of the adoption of the Golden Dawn's directional elemental
>>> attributions (Earth = N, Air = E, Fire = S, Water = W)
>>
>> Matt,
>>
>> The rationale I remember hearing is that it corresponds to the
>> classical four winds, and this seems to fit. Ptolemy, for example,
>> writes in Tetrabiblos (the classic text on astrology) about the four
>> winds, called Apeliotes (east), Notus (south), Zephyrus (west), and
>> Boreas (north): see
>> http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Ptolemy/Tetrabiblos/1B*.html#10.
>>
>>
>> Now, these don't correspond exactly to the elemental attributions,
>> since Ptolemy doesn't use the four elements model, but rather the
>> four properties of hot, dry, cold, and moist. Still, he states that
>> Notus is "hot and rarifying", Zephyrus is "fresh and moist", and
>> Boreas is "cold and condensing". The only major point of divergence
>> is that he refers to Apeliotes as "without moisture and drying in
>> effect", when Air is typically thought of as being hot and moist.
>>
>> Still, the correspondence is pretty close, and I'd imagine that this
>> is the source of the attributions, though I don't have any direct
>> evidence to support that. So I guess this isn't much help in
>> figuring out the history of the Golden Dawn's use. For what it's
>> worth, the Wikipedia article on the four cardinal winds
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anemoi) doesn't mention any classical
>> connection to the elements, though that doesn't mean too much by
>> itself. Anybody know for certain?
>>
>>
>> I also thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce myself, since I
>> haven't posted to the list before. My name's Jeremy Glick, and I'm a
>> soon-to-be grad student in psychology, focusing on neural network
>> models of mind. The study of magic is a side pursuit of mine, one
>> which I greatly enjoy, but it's not where most of my academic
>> credentials lie. I hope to learn a great deal from the conversations
>> on this mailing list; I've enjoyed what I've read so far. Thanks.
>>
>> Yours,
>> Jeremy
>
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