LIBER CHAOS
Bl. Raymond Lull
Doctor Illuminatus

bullet1Part I

bullet2 The Four Spheres

1. We say that Chaos is an entirely spherical entity, fully extended throughout four circular spheres set within each other. Now the sphere of fire is above the sphere of air which it encloses, and the sphere of air encloses the sphere of water below it, and the sphere of water encloses the sphere of earth, which we understand to be the center. What we call a sphere is simply the place that each element prefers for itself. 

2. Further, the sphere of fire is the place where fire belongs, and the sphere of air is where air belongs, and so with the other elements. Therefore, fire seeks to be a simple body in its own sphere, but the essences of the spheres are more or less scattered, as it were, into places not their own as their mixture spreads throughout all of Chaos, and thus fire cannot break away to become a simple body on its own without any admixture of other elements. Consider, for instance, the soul: although it exists everywhere in the body, it has more power in some parts of the body than in others, and likewise, fire existing everywhere within Chaos is more essentially powerful in its own sphere, as this, rather than the sphere of any other element, is its natural place to be. And what we understand about fire likewise applies to the other elements, each in its own way. 

3. As each element can move to its own sphere, each has the property of moving to its specific place and staying there, and thus, as the property of fire is to move quickly upward, because it is the lightest of the elements, its sphere exists above all the others. 

4. Air, likewise, is a comparatively light element, but slower than fire, although it is quicker than water or earth. Therefore, air has its own region or sphere adjoining the sphere of fire. 

5. Water, likewise, is heavier than air, but not as heavy as earth, which is the heaviest element of the four. And therefore, water has a sphere between the spheres of air and earth, and as the sphere of earth is the very lowest, we call it the center. 

6. Fire, on account of its lightness and quickness, is an element that can disperse things, an that can be dispersed. The opposite of fire, namely water, is an element that can restrict things, and that can be restricted. Now, air is an element that seeks to fill things up, and seeks to enter into every empty place: thus it is called a filling element, and as such, air is opposed by the element that can be emptied or evacuated, namely earth, from which the other elements can develop and grow. 

7. All four elements are both active and acted upon, each on its own and with the others, where fire, as the ignificative in its own sphere, ignificates its own essential ignificable so as to be one simple substantial entity, but as it cannot do this because of the admixture of the other elements, it goes on to ignificate the essences of the other spheres. Therefore none of the elements can accomplish its own perfection either within or outside of itself, for the said reason that the essences of Chaos, called the ignificative, the ignificable etc., produce one single confused body that entirely fills the concavity of the lunar sphere.