Okay, I saw a post yesterday talking about how "Qanons" believe in the Four Elements, homunculi, flat earth, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Out of the three, yeah, I find "some" merit in the Four Elements system.

But not in the way you might think; not the mainstream way of thinking.

Traditionally, many will see the Four Elements as Fire, Water, Earth, and Air; or some other variation of these.

The Chinese also include metal and wood, but let's just focus on the middle-school philosopher's take of the Four for now.

What is actually being talked about here? Fire, Water, Earth, and Air?

In all honesty, they are a gross misrepresentation of the forces I've spent far too many hours to admit researching by going through old alchemical manuscripts.

They aren't Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Those are just analogous to the themes. They are as accurate to the actual forces in play as this device is when it comes to teaching biology.

We are talking more about the difference between polarities, spectrums, and modalities. Modalities in the form of Spinoza's Modes to be precise.

Let's start with examples.

Between black and white there is gray. This is a polarity spectrum. Either something is more black or more white, sure, but it is gray by default.

Between two points is a midpoint. That is "ideal gray" while the most radical ends are white and black.

Radical is an important word for this discussion, by the way. The midpoint we call gray is therefore a "radical" gray.

So in any polarized system there is a "radical" balancing point -- a "harmony" between two polar "opposites."

Personally, I wouldn't call black and white opposites, because there are two forms of black and two forms of white.

https://learn.leighcotnoir.com/artspeak/elements-color/primary-colors/

We have white pigment, which reflects all wavelengths of light, but we also have white light which is a combination of all wavelengths of light. Both have the end-result as far as your eye is concerned, but different sources. One is a reflection of light while the other originates as light's source. The same is true for black, but instead of reflecting all light as a pigment it instead absorbs all light. In terms of light, alone, however black is simply the absence of light, or the shadow.

So, what's the point in all this?

Well, I'm trying to demonstrate that things aren't just black and white. They are black, black, white and white. There are actually four positions of the question of value.

Therefore, we can form a crossed grid. The grid is named Value, and on it is every variation of black and white. For the sake of demonstration, I will name the two axis Emission versus Absorption. Unlike graphical grids that use axis, however, it is crossed. You'll see what I mean in a bit.

So, you will have a crossed grid, which is more accurately a heat-map, where there are Four Corners of intensity.

You have in each corner:

• Highest Emissive, and Highest Absorbative (Glow-in-the-Dark Paint)
• Lowest Emissive, and Highest Absorbative (Vanta Black)
• Highest Emissive, and Lowest Absorbative (Barium Sulfate)
• Lowest Emissive, and Lowest Absorbative (Mirror)

So, these represent the most extreme cases of the two variables, Emission versus Absorption, or at least the best we've yet to discover.

These would then be the "Four Elements" of the Universal Value

The Four Elements, Four Pillars, Four Winds, the Four Corners of the Globe, as it were...

Think of it like sponges.

A sponge can be in several extreme states in terms of saturation and heat.

What's the difference between wet and dry as far as the sponge is concerned?

You can fill a sponge with water, and the more porous a sponge is the more water it can hold. When it is fully saturated, we say it is soaked. When it is fully unsaturated, we say it is dry.

You can also heat up a sponge by giving it energy. You can have a fully saturated hot sponge and a fully saturated cold sponge, as well as a fully unsaturated hot sponge and a fully unsaturated cold sponge.

This is the True nature of the Four Elements.

Something can be Radically Moist and Radically Temperate.

This is the REAL insight of the Alchemists.

They believe that all concepts on their own, in a vacuum, are no different from one another. The only way differences can be quantified is when you have two interact. The Universe knows them not by their inherent nature, but by the nature of them as they interact with other concepts, in a dance.

If the only color were green, then we'd know no other colors such that only the idea of Black and White would exist. Green would become black and white, and the differences between value and hue would not be perceptible.

So, the only way we can come to "know" something is by its interaction with other things. This is how we know dark matter exists, because despite not being able to use any senses to quantify it, we do recognize its impact on things around it.

It's also like black holes. The only reason we know a black hole is where it is is because of how all the stars, galaxies, and planetoids react to the black holes assumed position in space.

Back to the Four Elements though, and how that relates to Water, Fire, Earth, and Air...

Water is radically wet; the full saturation of an object. Something is said to be wet when it is fully saturated. Something is said to be dry when it is fully unsaturated.

But what is it being saturated with?

Some call it the Aether, and I will too for the time being. In Truth, it is the Substance of God -- the Chrism and the Holy Spirit, but let's keep it scientific for nomenclature's sake.

So, all somethings can be fully saturated with Aether or fully unsaturated with Aether. It can also have an energetic Aether or latent Aether (think of this like hot and cold).

• Highest Saturation (wet), and Highest Energy (hot) [Air]
• Lowest Saturation (dry), and Highest Energy (hot) [Fire]
• Highest Saturation (wet), and Lowest Energy (cold) [Water]
• Lowest Saturation (dry), and Lowest Energy (cold) [Earth]

The graph looks like this:

https://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Four_elements_in_Alchemy.jpg

Oh, and also this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Microsoft_logo.svg

Yup, Microsoft's Logo is modeled after the Four Elements.

Air is very wet and very energetic. It is a highly saturated thing so it doesn't burn but the energy is ripping apart its form so violently that it cannot be seen.

Fire is like air but with radical dryness. Full of energy, with no saturation to hold back the violence of its nature.

Water is radically saturated but does not have the energy required to avoid pooling.

Earth is radically dry and radically unenergetic, so it's cold.

This is the origin of the Four Elements. They are short-hand expressions used to understand a much more complex nature of the Universe.

But I am missing one thing. The middle of the graph.

Like I said with black and white, where the midpoint presents a "radical" gray, there is a midpoint of wet and dry as well as hot and cold.

What is it called when something is neither completely dry nor completely wet? Damp or Moist is a good name for it.

What is it called when something is neither completely hot nor completely cold? Room temperature or Temperate is a good name for it.

So what is it called when something is both radically moist and radically temperate?

Is that not the recipe for Life to form?

AHA! There you have it. The True meaning of the Four Elements -- That there is a Fifth Element between them, and that element is the Seed of Life.

When all Elements are evenly balanced, such that one cannot distinguish if it is hot or cold; neither wet nor dry, we as quantifying creatures that we are get confused and must come up with a new term for the radical harmony present before us.

This is what Philosophers termed the Quintessence.

Because it is even in all forms of classification, between all modalities and polarities, it has a perfectly neutral nature in all ways. It is like the center of a circle -- evenly positioned away from all other points.

It is the Center of All things.

To take it further...

Every Modality you can form IS the Quintessence. The midpoint of all values is gray, so radical gray is the color of the Quintessence. Have you ever seen gray light?

Think on it logically. The only way to see gray is to balance absorption with emission. There is no other way. You cannot achieve gray without both a base pigment and a light to shift it, whether using white light on a black surface or dimming the lights set upon a white surface.

Another way to put it is this: All things are Con-Substantial -- made from the Same Substance -- the Aether.

The degree with which it contains the Aether, whether it is fully saturated or fully unsaturated; fully energetic versus fully unenergetic, determines what form it will take.

That is why Alchemists believe in Transmutation.

If you can logically balance any material such that it is neither hard nor soft, heavy nor light, strong nor weak, bright nor dark -- a place between all ability to declare it one way or the other, you will have made a material that can be coaxed into becoming anything you wish.

They gave this material the formal name of Mercury. And yes, it is different than elemental mercury. Elemental mercury is seen as the perfected form of moisture -- the Radical Moisture needed to balance any equation, because it is the fullest expression of Wet without being either too hot or too cold.

Sulfur, then, was the perfect expression of Dry without being too hot or too cold.

Bringing the two together, two elements that are perfectly balanced in temperature yet opposed in moisture, created a mixture that was perfectly balanced in both directions -- perfectly moistened and perfectly temperate.

The ideal conditions not only for material transmutation, but also for Life to originate.

The Way the Truth and the Life.

https://biblehub.com/john/14-6.htm

This is the Truth of Holy Communion.

The Eucharist, the Host of the Last Supper, is the exact process of creating the Philosopher's Stone -- the Incarnation of the Quintessence -- the Perfect Vessel for the Substance of the Universe.

Jesus took his Body (Radically Dry but Temperate) and Blood (Radically Moist but Temperate) and joined them in the Vessel (each of us taking part in Communion) in the very same way the Philosophers would make the Stone.

Indeed, the process for creating the Stone is a full reenactment of Jesus' Life, Death, and Resurrection. This is why only a Creative soul who knows Jesus can obtain the Stone.

Anyway, that's the Truth of the Philosopher's Stone. Ask me anything.