[copy/pasted from my blog on Fimfiction, to share with you]

 

[This head canon can be found detailed in my fic "Occultus Modis Harmoniae or How the Academy of Arcanum is Wrong about Everything"]

 

Now we know the Elements of Harmony and most of us probably have it in our head cannon that they are distinct from the Regalia of Harmony. The Elements themselves, in this theory, are defined as the collective unconscious idea of harmony, expressed and made manifest through the Thaumic Field.

 

Now in the occult there is a common theme of the existence of a magical force. You got everything from "The Force", the Aether, and really esoteric stuff like The Akashic Records. So really, this is nothing new. Probably part of your head cannon already.

 

But there was something that called out to me when I was first introduced to the EoH. I get why Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, and Kindness are common elements. They're all virtues. Magic and Laughter however stood out. On the surface, there isn't anything virtuous about Magic and Laughter, technically speaking. We have four elements that are without a doubt virtues, but two that are in separate categories. I felt that there was something significant about that.

 

The more I thought about it the more sense it started to make though. I had to wonder if Lauren Faust ever read Peter J Carroll's books on chaos magic theory: Liber Null and Liber Kaos

 

Laughter is a fun tool in chaos magic!

 

Oh my stars and garters I could go on and on about it, but I'll just quote what I already wrote.

To paraphrase Corral, what makes a joke funny, is when it either shatters your expectations, or forges a new connection between two ideas, like in a pun. Laughter is the release of the conceptualization of new ideas, and deconceptualization of old ones.

 

Direct quote from Peter J Carroll (or Pleven J. Corral, as I ponified him):

The ecstatic laughter of divine madness is the sweeping up of every perception into a vortex of surprise at its very existence. Everything is suddenly and amazingly not as it was. Yet simultaneously it seems more exactly as it was than before!? Conceptualization and deconceptualization occur simultaneously. Language descends inevitably to the paradoxical as one is swept up into the ecstacy.

 

Ecstacy, as in a form of Gnosis, which in chaos magic is a mystical state.

 

Thus Laughter and Magic came to be understood in my mind as an alignment of sorts. Out of the other four I created two other alignments.

 

Honesty + Loyalty = Honor

Kindness + Generosity = Compassion

 

It makes sense doesn't it?

 

Laughter + Magic = Wonder

 

Now I carried this in my head for a long time without going anywhere with it. I wasn't even writing fanfiction at the time, though I played with the idea and how to incorporate it into a fic for a long time. Eventually, when I did start writing, I wanted to do an essay based on this and I started re-examine my model and draw parallels.

 

The first parallel that came to mind was the Kabbalah's Tree of Life.

 

The Tree has three branches. As it turns out, the left one is associated with love, expansion, mercy, and that sort of thing. The right has to deal with strength, rigidity, etc, etc. Basic duality sort of thing, yin yang, male and female.

 

Honor and Compassion fit right in. Masculine virtue complementing Feminine virtues.

 

Which left the middle branch that combines both. Wonder fits in right with it and if you follow that branch to the near top, you'll find yourself in an empty space, right below Kether, the top sephirot. There is a secret sephirot here called Da'at.

 

Now as it turns out, Da'at is hidden! Ring any bells?

 

The Element of Freaking Magic

 

I'm not the only one who has made this association, either.

http://mlpforums.com/topic/45643-symbolism-in-mlpfim-and-hidden-knowledge/

 

SasQ's thread is amazing! He figured it out just by looking at the stained glass window, but It took me nearly a year of watching the show before it finally clicked. I had to know if anyone else made the connection and google led me right to him. Read that thread!...after you read mine. Or before! It doesn't really matter.

 

So I started to form a magical model in my own head. The Four Core Elements, the virtues, complement each other, and since they are ideas expressed in the thaumic field, they are subject to the flow of conceptualization and conceptualization that all ideas are prone to. This is what creates the Element of Laughter! It's in a sense the Laughter of the Four Core, themselves, and since the Elements are such positive things, especially in concord with each other, Laughter, though not a virtue in of itself, behaves as a virtue. Specifically the virtue of optimism. This in turn enriches the Elements.

 

Another quote from Occultus:

The Element of Magic doesn’t ‘power up’ the elements. It does what it does, through lack of power. The Elements unify within me, creating the real power of Magic. The Laughter of the Elements acts as a catalyst, releasing the powers of Harmony through my Element.

 

Da'at is not a 'true' sephirot, it's often considered a psudo-sephirot, where the others unify together. The Kabbalah is a complex mysticism, but this much of it I understand. It echos Daoist sympathies that the things that lack substance are, paradoxically, the most powerful of all. The empty space of a open doorway is what makes it useful.

 

I started thinking more on the Four Core in of themselves and I made a parallel.

 

 

 

No. I did not just slap four of the EoH over the classical four elements on a whim. There is a reason for it.

 

The four classical elements each have two of four different values. Hot, Cold, Dry, Wet.

 

Basic occult textbook knowledge.

 

But the Four Core can also be attributed two of four different values: Compassion, Honor, Active, Passive. The values synchronize with each other quite nicely.

 

Hononsty and Kindess are passives and the other two are actives. These values aren't arbitrary or contrived to make them fit into the Classical Model either, they make a fair amount of sense.

 

One can be passively honest about anything, but Loyalty must actively prove and reaffirm itself.

 

Kindness is empathy. Generosity is empathy in action. Passive, Active.

 

Bam. Synchronization.

 

Honor, Passive = Honesty/Earth = Dry, Cold

 

Honor, Active = Loyalty/Fire = Dry, Hot

 

Compassion, Passive = Kindness/Water = Wet, Cold

 

Compassion, Active = Generosity/Wind = Wet, Hot

 

This was nice and all, but what happens if you add the fifth? I started to look eastward and I tried to draw a parallel with the Wu Xing, or Chinese elements, but it didn't make sense, considering the dynamic those five have within their occult model.

 

But then I remembered the Japanese Godai, and after thinking about the order, something made sense.

 

Order of the Godai, bottom to top: Earth,Water,Wind,Fire,Sky

 

Applied to the Elements with their attributes corresponding to the classical four: Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Loyalty...and the only thing to end it with is Laughter.

 

 

Now...I know that on a purely scientific level this is all bullshit and Author Clark's famous quote, that I won't repeat, is often over used, even abused. However, I'm heavily influenced by chaos magician philosophy so my beliefs are rather adjustable, at least in short spurts, so this is...this is...

 

Ooh...

 

!

 

Look at the graph! Note the alternation of attributes. The word that comes to mind is Alternating Current, however I'm not sure about the usage of that word in my fic and may have to change it. My specialty isn't in electrical physics.

 

In any case, could this be the way the Elements most efficiently power up, before Laughter catalyzes the rainbow explosion of Magic!?

 

In my head it is.

 

That's how the Elements work to me.