Monthly Archives: October 2013

alchemy, Esoteric, fourfolds

A Vision by W. B. Yeats: The Four Faculties

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A Vision by W. B. Yeats is the focus of a large amount of scholarship for a book on the occult. It looks interesting as a source of metaphor and symbolism, and I hope to return to it at another time. There is an excellent website devoted to Yeat’s Vision, the link of which is below.

Above I show the fourfold of the Faculties: Will, Body of Fate, Mask, and Creative Mind. It is not arranged as recommended by the four elements, but by my whim.

I saw a preview of the recent movie “Kill Your Darlings” which mentioned A Vision and showed the woodcut of the Cosmic Wheel.

Further Reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Vision

http://www.yeatsvision.com/

Neil Mann, Matthew Gibson, and Claire Nally, eds. / Yeats’s “A Vision”: Explications and Contexts

https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/43466#login-purchase

[*7.200]

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fourfolds

Modal Things

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As a complementary fourfold to Things Happen, here is a combination of Structure-Function and Modal Verbs.

Actions may. Parts can. Structures must. Functions should.

Actions may occur. Parts can vary. Structures must maintain. Functions should perform.

[*7.192, *8.40]

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fourfolds

Things Happen

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When someone says “Things Happen”, we think they are being superficial. That’s because we want to hear an explanation of why the thing has happened. In fact, the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” mandates that everything must have a reason or cause. Still, you can’t argue with the fact that things do happen.

Aristotle described four causes that explain why things happen. These four causes are called the efficient, material, formal, and final causes. This classification was all the rage back before the scientific revolution, but now it has been mostly abandoned.  Still, with some modification, I believe it can be useful for the modern world.

Why do things happen? They happen by actions, from parts, into structures, and for functions.

This fourfold is a mixture of two others: Structure-Function and the prepositions I’ve associated with Aristotle’s Four Causes.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/things_happen.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/

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