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Chapter 4. Long-Range, Transcontinental Manifestations of a Transformation Cycle of Elements

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Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy / Revue Africaine de Philosophie , vols 23-24 (2009-2010), nos 1-2D 1-398 Chapter 8. -ong1range, transcontinental manifestations of a transformation cycle of elements 4.1. Element cosmological systems wo ldwide It is a widespread idea that the entire universe is composed of a handful of essences, which are combined and dissociated so as to produce the myriad concrete manifestations of reality. ,s we shall discuss in greater detail below, four elements 65 were identified by the Presocratic Gree2 philosopher / shaman 0mpedocles of ,cragas / ,grigentum in Graecia 6agna / Southern Italy (fifth c. BC0). In the 1estern tradition 0mpedo- cles has been regarded as the inventor worldwide of an element-based cosmological scheme. The model was subse4uently reformulated and divulged by Plato and especially ,ristotle, and became the very corner- stone of 1estern natural science, astrology, medicine, psychology, liter- ary and artistic symbolism and iconography 66 including colour sym- bolism, 67 until well into 0arly 3odern times. 68 It entered deeply into the 65 This concept has gained a new lease on life in the wor2s of Deleu:e and Guattari (19728 Guattari 1989)8 cf. 3acauley 19988 van Binsbergen 2008. 66 In 1estern alchemical writings the four elements tend to be represented by conven- tional symbols, e.g. triangles standing on their base or top, intersected or not by a hori:ontal line. Chevalier & Gheerbrant (1994, s.v. Eélément=) claim that there are basic line patterns to represent each of the four elements, e.g. wave, :ig:ag, log band 9 which is interesting because these very patterns dominate the iconography of the Southern ,frican divination tablets used in four-tablet divination 9 a divinatory practice which forms one of the principal empirical referents in this boo2. 67 Cf. .yle 2006, listing the four colours blac2, red, white and yellow as a basic Indo- 0uropean scheme, without however ma2ing the obvious connection with the four elements. Note the pro(ection onto geography, where seas of all these four colours have been distinguished (albeit not unambiguously) since ,ncient times. ,lso note 109 1im van Binsbergen, Before the Presocratics esoteric traditions of mystery cults (0itrem 1926-1927), Cermeticism, 69 the ,ncient Sabaeans of Yemen, the marmatians (3assignon 1974), alchemy, Islamic occult sciences ( cf. Nasr 19648 5llman 19728 6a d 1966), even surfacing in Post-3odern, globally distributed digital media and games such as Avatar , etc. Cowever, this present argument will explore the 1or2ing Cypothesis that, in his 1estern (South Italian) periphery of a Gree2 world that had always been highly indebted to ad(acent 1est ,sia (regardless of possible connections further afield, in ,sia and ,frica), 0mpedocles may have merely codified, and corrupted, a thought system which, in various local variants, had been circulating throughout 0urasia a do:en millennia since the 5pper Palaeolithic8 or, according our ,lternative 1or2ing Cypothesis, for a much shorter period but still since the Bron:e ,ge (5-3 2a BP). ,s the authorities on the Sabaeans indicate, 70 among this ethnic group the planets were 2nown as E6athers=, the elements as E3others= 9 an interest- ing bac2ground to Islamic geomancy, where the initial set of four bro2en or unbro2en lines, on which the entire divinatory procedure is based ( cf. the six lines, one above the other, out of which each of the 64 hexagrams of 01 J2ng consistsD , etc.), is also called E3oth- ers=. The same situation obtained in the most li2ely original milieu of Islamic geomancy, that of the IuTn al- afT of Ira4 c. 1000 C0 (de Boer 1921D 90). These scholarly contexts were all highly indebted to Plato=s Timaeus , in which the symbolism of the mother as primal matter plays an important role ( Timaeus 52b8 cf . Aohnson 19738 Plato 1975a). In 1estern astrology, the reference to Emothers= goes bac2 at least to 7ettius 7alens. 71 The latter distinguishes some twelve ’• topi , artificial astro- practically the same colours in 6ig. 4.3 (also front cover) from Southern ,frica. 68 ,s late as the middle of the 19 th c. C0, the .ondon professor of chemistry Thomas Griffiths (1851) was honoured to explain to mueen 7ictoria of 0ngland the principles of 3odern chemistry in the, then still eminently familiar, terms of the four elements of 0mpedocles. 69 7irgin 18858 Klein 6ran2e 19738 muispel 19928 Corpus Hermeticum 1945-548 Yates 19648 1aite 1893. 70 Carra de 7aux 19748 Shahrastani 18598 Chwolson 19688 de Boer 1921D 90, 1967. 71 7ettius 7alens (c. 120 9 c. 175 C08 cf . Tester 1989D 478 no reference to Emothers= in this sense or in related senses is to be found in Bouché-.eclerc4=s monumental study of Gree2 astrology8 although primal matter appears here in an 0mpedoclean sense as m[re universelle , Bouché-.eclerc4 1899D 13, while 0arth features as mother of gods 110 Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy / Revue Africaine de Philosophie , vols 23-24 (2009-2010), nos 1-2D 1-398 logical points on the horoscope, many of whose names resonate with the ,rabic and Gree2 names of the sixteen basic configurations in geomancy which was to emerge nearly a millennium later8 nonetheless, a detailed analysis (van Binsbergen 1996c) brings out that it is primarily other astrological concepts than the topi which inspired these geomantic con- figuration names. In 1est ,frican Ifa divination, the expression Emoth- ers= has been preserved to indicate the sixteen basic configurations (0llis 1888 Dennett 1968 / 1910D 149). Caving examined the extent of Presocratic influence on a particularly influential alchemical text, the Turba philosophorum ,72 Peter Kingsley (who from the 1990s has stressed 9 rightly, but much to the disli2e of mainstream classicists and historians of philosophy and of natural science 9 0mpedocles= identity as a shaman besides that of a philosopher) statesD E,nd yet behind these similarities of form and content lies something much more fundamental. 5nderneath the accretions of Islamic, alchemical and also Gnostic ideas, genuine teachings of the Presocratic philosophers are preserved at the very core of the Turba tradition. 0lsewhere ( (]) i Kingsley 1995a jD chs 5, 15-24) I have outlined the route followed by these Presocratic teachings before they surfaced at ,2hmim in 5pper 0gypt during the tenth century ,D8 the subseVuent course of transmission as they penetrated eastwards as far as IranD and C last but not least C the significance of the way that teachings which originally owed so much to the East eventually returned to the East. = (italics added) (Kingsley 1994b). 73 ,lthough unwelcome to some classicists (Bremmer, for instance, re(ects the very idea of the shamanistic roots of Gree2 poetry, including that of 0mpedocles8 Bremmer 1993D 1993D 25), Kingsley=s emphasis on the sha- manic side of 0mpedocles is well-ta2en. Cis ideas form merely the cul- mination of a process, throughout the second half of the 20 th c. C0, in which the specialists came to realise the impact of ,sian shamanic thought on what until then merely appeared to constitute Gree2 rational- ity. The signs of this shamanic influence on classic Gree2 civilisation have been manifest to those who could read them. 6or instance, as Aa- son=s companion, 3edeia (significantly a Colchian, i.e. 1est ,sian, and of Ceaven, e.g. pp. 31, 75n, 92. 72 Cf. Gratarolo / 1aite 18968 Plessner 1954. 73 In the same 0ast-1est reverberations or pendulum-swing movement, cf. 6robenius 1923D passim , and Needham with .ing, 1961, 7ol. I. 111 1im van Binsbergen, Before the Presocratics princess) engaged in the dismemberment and coo2ing of her brother and of 2ing Pelias (,pollonius Rhodius, Argonautica )8 this is clearly reminis- cent of shamanism, where reviving of the dead by the proper arrangement of their bones is a common theme 9 right through to the sangoma cult in Southern ,frica, where those ma2ing animal sacrifices meticulously collect the bones and guard them, for fear that enemies would get hold of these bones and undo the sacrifice. Ince recognised in their proper iden- tity, shamans (usually set apart as alien and bewildering) turn out to abound in the classical Gree2 traditionD Pythagoras, ,baris, 0mpedocles, Irpheus, ,risteas, 0pimenides, Cermotimus, Parmenides. ,mong these, 0mpedocles is not the only one to be canonised as a Presocratic philoso- pher, in the first place. The position is summarised by 3ac.ennanD EIt is now well established that ancient Gree2 philosophy had roots in the sha- manic practices common to many cultures ( e.g. Dodds 1951D Ch. 58 Butter- worth 1966D Ch. 4, 19708 Kingsley 1994icj, 1995D Ch. 15). The Gree2s learned these techni4ues from the EEScythians== when they coloni:ed the north shore of the Blac2 Sea in the seventh century BC0 and from the Thracians and Persian 3agi, who also 2new north-,siatic shamanism (Cornblower & Spaw- forth 1996D 13758 Kingsley 1995iajD 226-227). These practices are reflected in the stories of Irpheus, who exhibits many of the features of a EEgreat shaman== (Dodds 1951D 1478 0liade 1964D 391-392)8 of ,risteas (8th-6th cents. BC0). whose soul could leave his body in trance and accompany ,pollo as his raven8 of ,baris (7th-6th cents. BC0). the healer-sage ( iatromantis ) who traveled on a magic arrow (a typical shamanic wand), which he later gave to Pythagoras8 and of the semi-historical 0pimenides (7th-6th cents. BC0). who purified ,th- ens (596 BC0) and was also 2nown for leaving his body while in a trance state (,very 1962, s.v. 8 Dodds 1951D 140-1428 Cornblower & Spawforth 1996, s.v. ). They all exemplify many of the characteristics of shamanic practice, as presented by 0liade (1964 especially Ch. 11), and were closely associated with Cyperborean ,pollo (reflecting, again, the northern connections).
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