CT, Humorism & Alchemy

Jung & Alchemy/Humorism

I think, however, Jung erred by conflating humorism's division of fours -- and that of Earth/Air/Fire/Water -- with that of S/N/F/T directly.


Portrait "Septem Planetae" by Maerten de Vos


In alchemy, the 4 elements are correlated to the 4 temperaments

Elements

TERRA = Earth
IGNIS = Fire
AQVA = Water
AER = Air

Temperaments

Cholera = Choleric
Sangvis = Sanguine
Phlegma = Phlegmatic
Melancholia = Melancholy

So to Jung:



However, I disagree with this.
Choleric/Phlegmatic/Sanguine/Melancholy better describe a fundamental quaternity without the need to tie these down to N/S/T/F. Although in application the two are never separate (because N/F/T/S are always paired with Je/Ji/Pe/Pi in some way), they are not tied in a 1:1 relationship to each other.

I also don't really see a direct correlation between Fire/Earth/Water/Air to human temperaments... nor any psychological correlation that wouldn't have to be unduly stretched to 'fit'. I dislike the elemental quads for that reason. However, this association appears to have arisen because alchemy aimed to tie together all phenomenology with the natural world -- as a sort of exercise of hybridizing chemistry & panpsychism. From my ignorant understanding, what it appears is that philosophers and pre-scientists of the times concluded that All Existence was composed of gas (air), liquids (water), solids (earth) and plasma (fire?). In a way, this is true. But then this assumption was carried over to suggest humans were also built from these four elements -- as four substances which created four temperaments when imbalanced.

Wrong as this may have been, as we've confirmed, there are indeed four energetics that underpin human temperament, so it's not too hard to understand why the pre-scientists of those days would tie the psyche and matter together in such a way, especially if they had a heavy dose of Ni.

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CT & Alchemy

One thing that ct does, more tangentially share, with humorism and alchemy is the belief that:




Indeed, in less esoteric terms, ct suggests the same thing -- that the balancing of choleric/melancholy/sanguine/phlegmatic energies together, creates a whole and healthy individual. In that respect, to my own amusement, I must say CT is very alchemical. Or it's an attempt to better quantify the type of balance that alchemy aimed to describe in more poetic language.

Disclaimer: again I must reiterate this is by no means complete, nor do I mean to suggest ct be alchemical. if there is any such suggestion it's only to say that CT, as a reality of human nature -- evidenced and described differently in other places/times* -- perhaps properly had it's precursor in humorism, but I still believe CT as we're defining it is far more real/valid and needn't regress back to the more unrefined forms it may have existed in before. that said, there is something to be learned from every iteration or expression of the phenomenon as independently discovered through history.

* to answer a question commakaze asked me about why/how is it that nobody has seen or quantified ct before, given how obvious it is once you see it. and that perhaps it had been identified in the past, to degrees


pre: I *knew* this was a cult! ;p

More diagrams and personality characteristic lists:








The above descriptions tie strongly to the "moral characters" described in this post. Which were admittedly written after I had some introduction into humorism, but were formulated in large part by the characteristics of the samples in the database.

Moral Characters vs Cognition

The reason I titled these clusters/attributes as "moral characters" is that they describe the essence of the energetic quadrants if looked at through the lens of human judgment. For example "undisciplined" and "impulsive" describes Pe if viewed from a certain moral judgment. And "competitive" and "hostile" describe Je in a similar manner. The same goes for the others. But of course Pe itself is not those decontextualized qualities (1:1) and many Pe-leads won't be impulsive or any one of those specific character traits.

So here, Humorism is like the Energetic Quadrants as viewed from a behaviorist standpoint... they're archetypes of sorts. So again for CT vs Humorism we're dealing where with the difference between information metabolism and manifest themes. Still, these manifest themes give us a lot of insights into the functions.

Notes on Humorism & the Ages of Man

Humorism goes a long way into drawing all sorts of correlations between seasons, cardinal directions, equinoxes/solstices, body fluids, elements, etc.



I don't think this is all necessary (seems superfluous to me in a lot of ways... and is perhaps most useful if viewed from a symbolic sort of lens) but I find it interesting how it associates the four humors to age.

Sanguine = Childhood/Infancy
Choleric = Passionate Youth
Melancholy = Maturity/Adulthood
Phlegmatic = Old Age

Here we see again Sanguine associated with the Puer -- Latin for "Child" -- and Phlegmatic associated to Senex -- Latin for "Old Man." And it's interesting here how Choleric is associated with the bright and passionate period of one's life ("Summer") and Melancholy is associated with the maturation away from that into Autumn. These last two I can only vaguely come to agree with, but they're interesting to think about.

I suppose I can start another thread for this- I see a lot similarities personally- but explaining them in a text is kinda hard. I’ll need to simmer for a while but thanks for the response... I have an idea that all of these theories are linked somehow and have the same origin. I was looking at more from a general perspective- aka what was the motivator behind these theory’s? I seem to think they are fundamentally the same even though they break off into multiple branches. Just a hunch, but need to explore it