Part 2
The roots of modern Western philosophy extend back to ancient Greece, where great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, and their contemporaries, saw our world and the Universe itself in terms of four ancient elements, to which a correspondence with the energy fields symbolized by the four directions existed:
Fire / Water // Air / Earth
East / West // North / South
The energetic truth of the earlier clue concerning four directions should now be clear. These could be assigned to the four points of intersecting horizontal and vertical axes. Aristotle established a philosophic understanding for the fields and elements by assigning in his system four qualities of existence, which served as energetic bridges between the elements when arranged in this manner:
Hot Air Wet
Fire Water
Dry Earth Cold
(Note that FIre and Water have been placed in an East/West order, the reverse of that on a compass. This follows the overall spiritual-left to physical-right evolution of energy found in all word equations in the System of Quadrality.)
More than two millennia later, as the quest for human understanding turned from the alchemical to the mental, scholars began to place greater philosophic emphasis on the nature of these ranges of existence. The noted 20th century psychiatrist Carl Jung spoke of personality as having four philosophic functions:
Intuition / Emotion // Perception / Sensation
And other modern philosophers and teachers have found their own ways to express an understanding of our connection to four fundamental natures of existence. For instance, Toltec master and author Don Miguel Ruiz teaches about The Four Agreements, which in the System of Quadrality correspond to the spiritual alignments of Soul, Heart, Mind and Strength (or physiologically, Body). Arthur Young, an innovative engineer and mathematician, developed The Theory of Process, with its understanding of four levels of process, to unify consciousness, physics and life sciences. His references include some mentioned here.
Other examples throughout history abound. But we only need the first four cited to establish The Four Pathways (8):
Buddha / Jesus // Jung / Aristotle
Buddhism / Christianity // Philosophy / Occult
You might ask, “What do philosophic models and occult traditions have to do with religion? Aren’t Psychology and Alchemy sciences?” Yes! And though it may surprise you, they have plenty to do with religion.
Next: IN SCIENCE, Part 1
(8) Each term in the second row is meant to represent the balancing center for the entire energetic range covered by a particular pathway. Hence, Buddhism covers all the Eastern traditions that preceded and followed it, from Hinduism and Taoism to Pure Land and Zen (a relevant sampling). Christianity covers all Western traditions with some roots in the Hebrew Bible, from Judaism to Islam (including their many offspring). The Philosophy and Occult paths are not so easily categorized, either in terms of their origins or cultural centers.
