The Elements

The elements are the essential ingredients to real Alchemy (not to be confused with chemistry, which is a small form of Alchemy). Alchemy is transmutation.

The nature of the elements are as follows:

Fire is active - action
Water is passive - emotion
Air is active - intellect
Earth is passive - stability

These elements react with one another, as you are aware in a literal sense. But take the esoteric meaning of Fire (impulse) and the esoteric meaning of Earth (stability) and combine them. Thus you have an active element acting on a passive element...causing the Earth to move, yet retaining a balance. This is Alchemy.

If you further take this illustration and combine two Earth elements and Water, you have a big muddy puddle so to speak. You need Fire to move and Air to know what to do.

All elements should be balanced. This is helpful if you come across, lets say, Water, Earth and Air. Fire is missing, so what we have is inactivity due to too much lingering on one subject...possibly depression.

Taken into this context, we can now apply this knowledge to manuscripts such as the Bible for example, and all ancient esoteric texts. The planets, the constellations, the Egyptian gods, the deities of Mt. Olympus, each Tarot card, the Enochian Angels...they are all connected with an element. This is how the wise men of old understood the universe and how they wrote the stories: By putting everything into context with the 4 elements and their Alchemical properties.

The INRI formula is an "elemental" formula.
http://hermetic.com/browe-archive/tablesof.htm


For example:
4 living creatures = the four elements.
Man = water
Lion = fire
Bull = earth
Eagle = air


The parables are in place to control the masses and to mislead intellectuals (who mock the parables). All the while, the message is loud and clear to those who reside in the capstone.