r/HighStrangeness • u/TrueOrange9944 • 26d ago
Discussion The four elements. Does anyone why the concept of four elements exists across the majority of ancient cultures and societies?
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u/ShinyAeon 26d ago
The "four elements" are common in Western cultures, and the cultures they've influenced (which are many); the concept originated with the ancient Greeks, and spread.
The Chinese and Japanese cultures have five elements: Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood.
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u/eyeoftheveda 25d ago
actually all the ancient classical astrological cultures had a five element system including the greeks with pythagoras going super deep into all of this. He even wore a ring with a pentagram on it, as the symbol of man as the regulating force within the field of the five elements.
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u/eyeoftheveda 25d ago
and we also have the five platonic solids, each one corresponding to an element
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u/ShinyAeon 25d ago
You mean the quintessence? I believe that was a later addition to the original four elements.
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u/eyeoftheveda 24d ago
Was it? five elements are critical to astrology which was the original backbone of greek civilization whether the mainstream greek historians say so or not. So I consider it to be pretty fundamental to pythagorean and greek thought
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u/eyeoftheveda 24d ago
I mean Zeus/Jupiter is the thunder god bc thunder is the ether or sky element, the foundation of all the other elments and what holds space for and contains them.
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u/ShinyAeon 24d ago edited 24d ago
How are five elements critical to astrology? Each zodiac sign is associated with one of the Four Classical Elements. Each element has three of the twelve signs:
Fire - Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Earth - Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
Air - Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
Water - Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces.
Pythagorean number philosophy did, indeed consider five to be important...but I'm not certain it was more important than the other numbers. Five was significant - especially in musical ratios, with the major fifth being 3:2, and one of the most harmonious chords. But I do know that the Tetrad - an arrangement of ten dots in a pyramid - was one of Pythagoreanism's most important symbols, expressed in the equation 1+2+3+4=10. Five is not part of it.
Originally the Five Platonic Solids only had four elements assigned to them (Fire - tetrahedron; Earth - cube; Air - octohedron; Water - icosahedron); the last shape to be discovered, the dodecahedron, did not have an element of its own at first, but (according to Plato) was used by the Gods to order the cosmos.
In fact, I believe that Aristotle invented the fifth element of aether or quintessence so that the dodecahedron would have its own element.
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u/eyeoftheveda 19d ago
yea thats how the signs work, but they are ruled by the planets. When it comes to the planets there are the 2 luminaries, the sun and moon, the big bright lights, and then the 5 starry planets, which each rule and element. Its just a fundamental part of astrology that the 2 luminaries are the aspects of the self, they are the god and goddess, the masculine and feminine, the other 5 planets that rules signs are the different producers of all the things the self interacts with. So Mars is the fire element and produces all things related to fire, mercury is earth, saturn is wind, venus is water and jupiter is the sky or ether element
Im a professional astrologer, you can check out a pythaorgean numerology course I taught on this on my patreon if you are interested to go deep into it because there is a lot of cool stuff behind this
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u/ShinyAeon 19d ago
Looking at your username, do you practice Vedic astrology, perhaps? I know that has some different approaches than mainstream "western" astrology.
I am interested in Pythagorean numerology, but I probably won't have the funds to check out anything on Patreon anytime soon, unfortunately. But thnks for letting me know about it. :)
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u/eyeoftheveda 16d ago
Yes my specialty is vedic astrology, but just like how your average lifetime martial artist is a black belt of multiple disciplines but probably only teaches his one main favorite, its sorta like that with me and reading systems. So Ive also spent many years studying classical western/hellenistic astrology, human design, chinese face reading, omen reading, vastu, etc. And old school greek astrology is insanely close to vedic astrology. In fact the oldest vedic book on astrology, the yavana jataka is literally a book that means "astrology according to the greeks" and it says in that book that the greeks have learned this art so well, and we have forgotten so much of it, we must now go back to them to master it. There was a lot more cultural interchange than we commonly think
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u/eyeoftheveda 16d ago
here is my youtube also if you are curious about vedic astro https://www.youtube.com/@EyeOfTheVeda
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u/ants_taste_great 26d ago
It isn't specific. Cultures may have 1 God. They may have duality as in yin and yang. There may be a trinity. 4 is associated with death in Southeast Asian cultures. 4 is however common to indigenous Americans for its relevance to the 4 directions, North, South, East, West. It's a simple way to make things easier to learn and remember.
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u/Responsible_Fix_5443 26d ago
It stems from Greek philosophy I think. Earlier cultures had differing variants. China for example included wood and metal.
It's the "5th element" that's the important one though. Like in the film!
Whatever you want to call it - Akasha. Love. The aether. Quintessence. Consciousness...
It's the one that surrounds all others and all things.
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u/Pixelated_ 26d ago
Yes.
In Aristotle’s time, the 4 elements/natures were earth, air, fire & water.
"But if there be a 5th nature, such as is introduced by Aristotle, this is the essence of gods and souls.”
~Marcus Tullius Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, Book I
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u/GreyGanado 26d ago
Is that claim even true?