Читать книгу Sun Sign, Moon Sign: Discover the personality secrets of the 144 sun-moon combinations - Charles Harvey - Страница 38

The four element types are of special interest to astrologers and psychologists. Ever since the Greek philosopher Empedocles offered his thoughts on the subject in the 5th century BC, there has been the idea that all things in the Universe are composed of a mixture of these four elements: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. An ancient Eastern myth describes the Great Mother Kali as apportioning the elements to create life, with water giving blood, earth forming the physical body, air providing breath, and fire producing vital heat.

The elements can be seen to represent four different types of energy, four distinct states of consciousness or approaches to the world. They have their counterpart in the four states of matter identified by modern physics: plasma (Fire), solids (Earth), gas (Air) and liquid (Water). Equally, the elements can be seen to correlate with the Great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung’s four main psychological types: Intuition (Fire), Sensation (Earth), Thinking (Air) and Feeling (Water). These correspond to the medieval personality classifications of choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic. Early on, the Greeks allocated these elements in an orderly sequence around the zodiac, starting with Fire for Aries and repeating the sequence Fire, Earth, Air, Water, three times, as shown overleaf.

As you can see, three signs are allocated to each of the elements. The fire signs are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius; to Earth belong Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn; Air governs Gemini, Libra and Aquarius; and the Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. You can begin to understand the dominant characteristics of each element type by thinking of the imagery each element evokes.

The signs of the zodiac and their elements.