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Ekendriya
An elemental is a mythic supernatural being that is described in occult and alchemical works from around the time of the European Renaissance, and particularly elaborated in the 16th century works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsus and his subsequent followers, there are four categories of elementals, which are gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders. These correspond to the four Empedoclean elements of antiquity: earth, water, air, and fire, respectively. Terms employed for beings associated with alchemical elements vary by source and gloss. History The Paracelsian concept of elementals draws from several much older traditions in mythology and religion. Common threads can be found in folklore, animism, and anthropomorphism. Examples of creatures such as the Pygmy were taken from Greek mythology. The elements of earth, water, air, and fire, were classed as the fundamental building blocks of nature. This system prevailed in the Classical world and was highly influen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undine Rising From The Waters, Front
Undines (; also ondines) are a category of elemental beings associated with water, stemming from the alchemical writings of Paracelsus. Later writers developed the undine into a water nymph in its own right, and it continues to live in modern literature and art through such adaptations as Danish Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 "The Little Mermaid" and the 1811 novella '' Undine'' by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Etymology The term ''Undine'' first appears in the alchemical writings of Paracelsus, a Renaissance alchemist and physician. It derives from the Latin word ''unda'', meaning "wave", and first appears in Paracelsus' ''A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits'', published posthumously in 1566. ''Ondine'' is an alternative spelling, and has become a female given name. Elementals Paracelsus believed that each of the four classical elementsearth, water, air and fireis inhabited by different categories of elemental spirits, liminal cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire (classical Element)
Fire is one of the four classical elements along with earth, water and air in ancient Greek philosophy and science. Fire is considered to be both hot and dry and, according to Plato, is associated with the tetrahedron. Greek and Roman tradition Fire is one of the four classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy and science. It was commonly associated with the qualities of energy, assertiveness, and passion. In one Greek myth, Prometheus stole ''fire'' from the gods to protect the otherwise helpless humans, but was punished for this charity. Fire was one of many '' archai'' proposed by the pre-Socratics, most of whom sought to reduce the cosmos, or its creation, to a single substance. Heraclitus considered ''fire'' to be the most fundamental of all elements. He believed fire gave rise to the other three elements: "All things are an interchange for fire, and fire for all things, just like goods for gold and gold for goods." Diels-Kranz B90 (Freeman 9481970p. 45. He had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air (classical Element)
Air or Wind is one of the four classical elements along with water, earth and fire in ancient Greek philosophy and in Western alchemy. Greek and Roman tradition According to Plato, it is associated with the octahedron; air is considered to be both hot and wet. The ancient Greeks used two words for air: ''aer'' meant the dim lower atmosphere, and '' aether'' meant the bright upper atmosphere above the clouds. Plato, for instance writes that "So it is with air: there is the brightest variety which we call ''aether'', the muddiest which we call mist and darkness, and other kinds for which we have no name...." Among the early Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers, Anaximenes (mid-6th century BCE) named air as the '' arche''. A similar belief was attributed by some ancient sources to Diogenes Apolloniates (late 5th century BCE), who also linked air with intelligence and soul (''psyche''), but other sources claim that his ''arche'' was a substance between air and fire. Aristophanes parod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water (classical Element)
Water is one of the classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy along with air, earth and fire, in the Asian Indian system '' Panchamahabhuta'', and in the Chinese cosmological and physiological system '' Wu Xing''. In contemporary esoteric traditions, it is commonly associated with the qualities of emotion and intuition. Greek and Roman tradition Water was one of many ''archai'' proposed by the Pre-socratics, most of whom tried to reduce all things to a single substance. However, Empedocles of Acragas (c. 495 – c. 435 BC) selected four archai for his four roots: air, fire, water and earth. Empedocles roots became the four classical elements of Greek philosophy. Plato (427–347 BC) took over the four elements of Empedocles. In the Timaeus, his major cosmological dialogue, the Platonic solid associated with water is the icosahedron which is formed from twenty equilateral triangles. This makes water the element with the greatest number of sides, which Plato regarded as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylph
A sylph (also called sylphid) is an air spirit stemming from the 16th-century works of Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as (invisible) beings of the air, his elementals of air. A significant number of subsequent literary and occult works have been inspired by Paracelsus's concept: Robert Alfred Vaughan noted that "the wild but poetical fantasies" of Paracelsus had probably exercised a larger influence over his age and the subsequent one than is generally supposed, particularly on the Rosicrucians, but that through the 18th century they had become reduced to "machinery for the playwright" and "opera figurantes with wings of gauze and spangles". Etymology "Sylph" is possibly a blend of from Latin '' sylvestris'' and '' nympha'', ''sylvestris'' being a common synonym for sylph in Paracelsus. Anthon and Trollope note a similar usage in the ''Aeneid'', where ''silvestris'' is taken as an elliptical form of ''nympha silvestris'' ("forest nymph"). Jacob Grimm uses this phrase as a glos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undine (alchemy)
Undines (; also ondines) are a category of elemental beings associated with water, stemming from the alchemical writings of Paracelsus. Later writers developed the undine into a water nymph in its own right, and it continues to live in modern literature and art through such adaptations as Danish Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 "The Little Mermaid" and the 1811 novella '' Undine'' by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Etymology The term ''Undine'' first appears in the alchemical writings of Paracelsus, a Renaissance alchemist and physician. It derives from the Latin word ''unda'', meaning "wave", and first appears in Paracelsus' ''A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits'', published posthumously in 1566. ''Ondine'' is an alternative spelling, and has become a female given name. Elementals Paracelsus believed that each of the four classical elementsearth, water, air and fireis inhabited by different categories of elemental spirits, liminal cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Book On Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, And Salamanders, And On The Other Spirits
''A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits'' () is a treatise by the Swiss lay theologian and philosopher Paracelsus, published posthumously in 1566. It is about elemental beings and their place in a Christian cosmology. Background ''A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits'' was written by Paracelsus (1493/1494 – 1541) late in his life, but it is not known what exact year it is from. The descriptions of elemental beings are based on various ancient and traditional sources, which the author adapted and reinterpreted. Summary Paracelsus argues from his reading of the Biblical creation narrative that man needs to use philosophy to gain knowledge about the natural world, or he will not be able to understand Christ and appreciate the Bible. The natural world contains many strange things, including elemental beings corresponding to the four classical elements: undines (water), sylphs ( air), gnomes (ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homunculus
A homunculus ( , , ; "little person", : homunculi , , ) is a small human being. Popularized in 16th-century alchemy and 19th-century fiction, it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human. The concept has roots in preformationism as well as earlier folklore and alchemic traditions. The term lends its name to the cortical homunculus, an image of a person with the size of the body parts distorted to represent how much area of the cerebral cortex of the brain is devoted to it. History Alchemy file:Paracelsus219.jpg, upParacelsus is credited with the first mention of the homunculus in ''De homunculis'' (c. 1529–1532), and ''De natura rerum'' (1537). During medieval and early modern times, it was thought that homunculus, an artificial humanlike being, could be created through alchemy. The homunculus first appears by name in alchemical writings attributed to Paracelsus (1493–1541). ''De natura rerum'' (1537) outlines his method for c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnome
A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depicted as small humanoids who live underground. Gnome characteristics are reinterpreted to suit various storytellers and artists. Paracelsus's gnome is recognized to have derived from the German miners' legend about or , the "metallurgical or mineralogical demon", according to Georg Agricola (1530), also called (literal Latinization of ''Bergmännlein'', "mountain manikin") by Agriocola in a later work (1549), and described by other names such as (sing. ; Latinization of German ). Agricola recorded that, according to the legends of that profession, these mining spirits acted as miming and laughing pranksters who sometimes threw pebbles at miners, but could also reward them by depositing a rich vein of silver ore. Paracelsus also called ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pygmy (Greek Mythology)
The Pygmies ( ''Pygmaioi'', from the adjective πυγμαῖος, from the noun πυγμή ''pygmē'' "fist, boxing, distance from elbow to knuckles," from the adverb πύξ ''pyx'' "with the fist") were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. Attestations According to the ''Iliad'', they were involved in a constant war with the Crane (bird), cranes, which migrated in winter to their homeland on the southern shores of the earth-encircling river Oceanus: According to Aristotle in ''History of Animals'', the story is true: Hesiod wrote that Epaphus, son of Zeus, through his daughters was the ancestor of the "dark Libyans, and high-souled Aethiopians, and the Underground-folk and feeble Pygmies". According to Stephanus of Byzantium, the tribe of Pygmies was descended from Pygmaeus, Pygmaios, son of Dorus (mythology), Doros, son of Epaphus. One story in Ovid describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
