Quintessence alchemical symbol

Today’s entry will be talking about something that has different names across time and space, but it is referring to the same thing. The names included today are Quintessence, Aether, and Akasha.

The word Aither in Homeric Greek means “pure, fresh air” or “clear sky”. In Greek mythology, it was thought to be the pure essence that the gods breathed, filling the space where they lived, analogous to the air breathed by mortals. It is also personified as a deity, Aether, the son of Erebus and Nyx in traditional Greek mythology. Aether is related to αἴθω “to incinerate”, and intransitive “to burn, to shine” (related is the name Aithiopes (Ethiopians; see Aethiopia), meaning “people with a burnt (black) visage”).

God Aether, son of Erebus and Nyx

Merriam-Webster says:
Long ago, when people believed that the earth was made up of four elements – earth, air, fire, and water – they thought the stars and planets were made up of yet another element. In the Middle Ages, people called this element by its Medieval Latin name, quinta essentia, literally, “fifth essence.” Our forebears believed the quinta essentia was essential to all kinds of matter, and if they could somehow isolate it, it would cure all disease.

Aether chart graphic

In Book III of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the archangel Uriel gives mention to the elements in his description of the Creation to Satan:

Swift to their several quarters hasted then
The cumbrous elements—Earth, Flood, Air, Fire;
And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven
Flew upward, spirited with various forms,
That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars.

Apart from its dynamic motion, one characteristic that set the aether apart from the four terrestrial elements was that it was thought to be pure. Alchemists later sought to extract what was then known as the quintessence from earthy substances in the hope of isolating an otherworldly cure for mankind’s ills.

Quintessence chart (slide 25)

Indian Cosmology
Akasha (Sanskrit ākāśa आकाश) is a term for ether space or æther in traditional Indian cosmology, depending on the religion. The term has also been adopted in Western occultism and spiritualism in the late 19th century. In Hindustani, Nepali, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil it means “sky”. In many modern Indo-Aryan languages and Dravidian languages the corresponding word (often rendered Akash) retains a generic meaning of “sky”.

The word in Sanskrit is derived from a root kāś meaning “to be visible”. It appears as a masculine noun in Vedic Sanskrit with a generic meaning of “open space, vacuity”. In Classical Sanskrit, the noun acquires the neutral gender and may express the concept of “sky; atmosphere.” In Vedantic philosophy, the word acquires its technical meaning of “an ethereal fluid imagined as pervading the cosmos”.

Akasha

Hinduism
In Vedantic Hinduism, Akasha means the basis and essence of all things in the material world; the first element created. A Vedic mantra “pṛthivyāpastejovāyurākāśāt” indicates the sequence of initial appearance of the five basic gross elements. Thus, first appeared the space, from which appeared air, from that fire or energy, from which the water, and therefrom the earth. It is one of the Panchamahabhuta, or “five gross elements”; its main characteristic is Shabda (sound). The direct translation of Akasha is the word meaning “upper sky” or ‘space’ in Hinduism.

Akasha — The Fifth Element

Jainism
Akasha is space in the Jain conception of the cosmos. Akasha is one of the six dravyas (substances) and it accommodates the other five, namely sentient beings or souls (jīva), non-sentient substance or matter (pudgala), principle of motion (dharma), the principle of rest (adharma) and time (kāla) It is all-pervading, infinite and made of infinite space-points.

Buddhism
In Buddhist phenomenology Akasha is divided into limited space (ākāsa-dhātu) and endless space (ajatākasā).

Etheric Body
The etheric body, ether-body, æther body, a name given by neo-Theosophy to a vital body or subtle body propounded in esoteric philosophies as the first or lowest layer in the “human energy field” or aura. It is said to be in immediate contact with the physical body, to sustain it and connect it with “higher” bodies.

The Holy Grail, illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1917

Some modern physicists have given “quintessence” a new twist-they use it for a form of so-called “dark energy,” which is believed to make up 70 percent of the universe.

Physics World says:
Quintessence has the striking physical characteristic that it causes the expansion of the universe to speed up. Most forms of energy, such as matter or radiation, cause the expansion to slow down due to the attractive force of gravity. For quintessence, however, the gravitational force is repulsive, and this causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

In cosmology, quintessence is a real form of energy distinct from any normal matter or radiation, or even “dark matter”. Its bulk properties – energy density, pressure and so forth – lead to novel behaviour and unusual astrophysical phenomena. So far its existence has only been inferred indirectly from a range of observations, but a number of current and planned experiments will make direct searches for this elusive form of energy.

Quintessence in Film
“The Fifth Element” is a movie that talks about the five elements.  Imdb describes the storyline as, “In the twenty-third century, the universe is threatened by evil. The only hope for mankind is the Fifth Element, who comes to Earth every five thousand years to protect the humans with four stones of the four elements: fire, water, Earth and air.”

I’ve seen this movie several times.  A human being serves the role of the fifth element and a very lovely fifth element she is.  A clip follows but SPOILER ALERT!  IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS MOVIE, DON’T WATCH THIS CLIP!!!!!!!!!