Jeffrey,
Very helpful - thanks.
I have a version of Book One of Agrippa's sitting here beside me, but
it's not Tyson's edition - though I think I can get Tyson's from a
friend. I will most certainly check that out. Also, I will review the
hexagram ritual. I'm not sure where to look regarding the attributes
given to the lower sefirot, but I have Regardie's Complete GD System
here, so I'll give that huge volume a browse ;-)
Now, you mention the one according to the for winds... Is there a place
in any GD literature where it explicitly says that this is how they've
arranged the elements?
Thanks!
Cheers,
matt
On 26-Jun-06, at 4:46 PM, Jeffrey S. Kupperman wrote:
> 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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