The four Elements in Alchemy

Good day dear Hive community, first of all I would like to wish you all a pleasant day and hope you have a weekend full of positive experiences! In my new post, I would like to talk about alchemy and hope you can expand your knowledge a little.

Here are some works of art that I created with the help of artificial intelligence and are supposed to represent the four elements and like so many formative things, this teaching was also created in ancient Greece. There are different views about the origin of the word element and probably it comes from Latin and is derived from the word elementum which describes basic principle or the Greek word eléphas for ivory and many scholars such as Plato, Thales, Aristotle, Empedocles and others devoted themselves to this topic at the time and described that everything would consist of the four elements earth, water, air or fire. The well-known doctor Hippocrates, who is also considered one of the founders of alchemy, also dealt with the four elements and often there is also talk of a fifth element which is also referred to as quintessence or aether and I have already written a contribution about it in the past and if you want to learn more about it, you will find my article here. Also in other cultures this teaching developed and all were very similar but were defined differently and often the elements in mythology were assigned to different gods and the elements also differed by qualities and properties. In the Middle Ages, the elements played a major role and were formative when it comes to the laws of nature and over time it was increasingly replaced by the periodic table. The first element is called earth and it is also associated with the dry and cold aspects in alchemical experiments and is also associated with the creative aspects of life and in alchemy, each element has been assigned certain metals and the earth is often linked to the metal copper. Water is usually associated with the wet and liquid aspects and in addition it has been associated with the metal pewter and as the third of the elements is also known air with which the hot or humid processes as well as the metal iron is associated. The last of the elements is fire which is also associated with all hot and dry aspects as well as the transformation of substances and it is also often associated with the metal lead.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read through my post and I hope you like it and can learn something new about alchemy!